> This is a bit of a sweeping statement. Colonization has a big role to play here also
I agree completely. Colonization set the stage for many of the persistent struggles faced by many in the developing world. But colonial powers didn't teach people in India how to oppress their own people, even if they wasted no time taking advantage of and amplifying the pre-existing situation.
Today, when a country as productive as India (they are self sufficient in food production) still has large numbers of children going hungry, it suggests that there are serious issues with distribution of basic resources like calories. Yes, it has improved, but not nearly enough.
Also, the US is not orders of magnitude better in this way, since we have millions of children relying on "last-resort" food security programs - vestiges of the New Deal - that are under constant threat of being cut. Before these programs were enacted in the 1930s, children were indeed going hungry in the streets of the US, and it continued for a long time afterwards (and sometimes to this day).
If we didn't have these programs, I'm not convinced the situation wouldn't be more like India, since we have equivalent fundamental social ills that drive children into precarious hunger situations.
At a primary school in Utter Pradesh (a state in India) salt and bread (roti) was served to children as part of mid-day meal.
Then the state government did what any sensible government will do. They filed a case against the journalist for criminal conspiracy maligning the image of state government.
Since last few years it has become fashionable to call Indians who criticize the government "anti-national" as if nation = government.
Yes, it's a situation with the far right riding the up-winds of economic growth whose foundations were largely put in place by previous center-left governments, and supercharging themselves with nativist/nationalist politics that victimizes their own minority populations.
I agree completely. Colonization set the stage for many of the persistent struggles faced by many in the developing world. But colonial powers didn't teach people in India how to oppress their own people, even if they wasted no time taking advantage of and amplifying the pre-existing situation.
Today, when a country as productive as India (they are self sufficient in food production) still has large numbers of children going hungry, it suggests that there are serious issues with distribution of basic resources like calories. Yes, it has improved, but not nearly enough.
Also, the US is not orders of magnitude better in this way, since we have millions of children relying on "last-resort" food security programs - vestiges of the New Deal - that are under constant threat of being cut. Before these programs were enacted in the 1930s, children were indeed going hungry in the streets of the US, and it continued for a long time afterwards (and sometimes to this day).
If we didn't have these programs, I'm not convinced the situation wouldn't be more like India, since we have equivalent fundamental social ills that drive children into precarious hunger situations.