India
India is one of world’s fastest growing economies, increasing GDP but still ranks 128 (out of 177 countries) on Human Development Index. India is developing, growing GDP, growing affluence, better infrastructure, better standard of living… but what about growing population and unequal distribution of resources resulting into issues of massive poverty, hunger, illiteracy, child labour? Are we really growing or it’s just a myth?
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5 Indians die every minute from hunger. |
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Over 20 crore Indians will sleep hungry tonight! |
India ranks 66 out of 88 countries on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI). 1/3rd of the world’s hungry live in India.
On the other side 1 out 5 men and 1 out of 6 women are overweight.
We debate about saving human lives from uncontrollable natural disasters like earthquakes and Tsunami? What about these thousands lives dying every day from a controllable disaster called ‘hunger’?
India accounts for one-third of the world’s 1.4 billion poor people as per World Bank. 43% of Indian children are malnourished, a third of the world’s total… don’t these children deserve to have nutritional food and live a happy life?
During 2006 -07, malnutrition contributed to seven million Indian children dying, nearly two million before the age of one… don’t these children deserve to live like we lived our lives?
Over 35% of Indians are illiterate, and more than 20 million children are out of school… don’t these children deserve to attain an education we attained?
India is home to the largest population of working children in the world… with over 12 million children struggling as child labourers – most often working in hazardous and degrading conditions, for an average of 12 hours a Day and earning extremely small wages…don’t these children deserve to be educated and live their childhood as happily as we did?
Have we ever given a thought to these facts? They might not seem realistic at first but even if they do not seem; they do demand us to open our eyes to see the condition of a fastest growing country India!
As youth, aren’t we required to ACT and make our country a better place to live? Even if we could not curb them to the full extent, we can always contribute as a drop in the ocean and eventually the Ocean will get filled itself! Let’s wake up and ACT!
“The youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow, but also the partners of today.”