Are we Progressing? GHI says No

2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI)  is released by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently. This report currently do not have country wise breakup (or may be that breakup is paid :P) and India falls in South Asia (SA) Category which have countries like India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Shrilanka, Bangaladesh etc.  In 1990 SA have GHI of 30.3 and in 2012 GHI is reduced to 22.5, so a reduction of 9.8 points but in 96 this index was 24 which was increased to 24.3 in 2001. So we have not make any progress from 1996 to reduce hunger in SA and now South Asia ( Jhan dudh ki nadaiyan baha karati thi) is having GHI more than Sub Sahara countries. In 1996 Sub Sahara Countries were having GHI 24.6 and now they have 20.7. Graph can be seen here.

Now if you ask this to Manish Tiwari he may say that we do not have more hungry people in India and it is Pakistan and Shrilanka where lot of Hungry people are there and that's why South Asia have that bad GHI. I wish this is true as these two countries are suffering from internal war from past 20 years so they might not be able to work on this front but in reality these two countries have GHI of less than 20 as it can be seen here.
India have GHI of more than 20 and so has Bangaladesh.

In this map it can be seen that India was able to reduce its GHI by somewhere between 0% to 24.9% but Bangladesh was able do it by more than 25%. Srilanka is also in same category of Bangaladesh. So a war ridden country is able to perform better than us in reducing Hunger. You can compare these graph and you can see India performed worse than some of Sub-Sahara Countries like Sudan and War ridden countries like Congo.

These day you may heard about BRICSAM, this group represent Brasil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Mexico. They are considered to be emerging power in the world whose economy will drive the world. So lets compare where we stand between these countries.

Brasil: GHI less than 5 and reduction of more than 50%.
Russia: GHI less than 5.
India: GHI more than 20 and reduction of less than 25%.
China: GHI between 5 and 10 and reduction of more than 50%.
South Africa: GHI between 5 an 10 and reduction of less than 25%.r
Mexico: GHI less than 5 and reduction of more than 50%.


We are way behind all other BRICSAM countries and even our neighbor countries like Shrilanka, Bangaladesh and Pakistan is better than us. We have Growth rate better than these three countries but we are still lagging in reduction of Hunger. There are some obvious reason behind it like dysfunctional PDS system, Grain rotting in Warehouses, uneven distribution of wealth etc. This is really very shameful that 1 out  5 person in this country is Hungry and we are in Top 10 countries in term of GDP.

I was having so many things in mind to write but yesterday somebody shared that IFPRI praised NaMo for agriculture growth of Gujrat and to verify the fact I opened IFPRI website and I got all these facts and got the GHI index. These results make me think that are we really progressing or going backward as Food is one of the most basic need of a Human being (as per Manoj Kumar, most basic need) and GOI is not able to provide this to everybody. From 1991-2012 our growth  rate might be around 4% but the GHI reduction rate is less than 1%. This may be the most pathetic figure in whole world. Countries like Sudan and Bangladesh is able to reduce GHI more than us. From past 5 years I am hearing about food security bill and we are heading nowhere. Our Deputy Planning Commissioner says that we do not have money for that and our PM says it is not practical to distribute the Grain which is anyways rotting in warehouses free.

Friend I know we can not do much about this as we are not going to decide about Food Security bill and can not re-invent PDS system but we can do some simple things like:

1. Please do not waste food. Next time if you have some left over in your plate think that more than 20% in India are hungry and food I am wasting can feed one person. Personally I have seen people wasting food of 2-3 peoples.
2. There are some NGOs which are doing work in this field, try to donate money in that NGOs.
3. If possible feed somebody needy on street.


PS:
This GHI is directly related to Agriculture and we are not progressing in this sector. So in my next blog  I will write something about our Agriculture sector.

NaMo and Malnutrition Controversy

Yesterday I shared text of WSJ interview with Modi which have his comment about women's preference of beauty over nutrients.  That text was having only highlight of full interview and now as secularist don't have anything to point Gun towards NaMo, so they make big issue out of it but it seems WSJ also frustrated with this development and now shared the full text of the his Nutrient comment.

This clearly states that the statistics from which the asked about malnutrition is of 2005 and this interview happened in 2-3 days before only but NaMo response doesn't shown any surprise, means he know that a large population of his state is not getting enough nutrient and his government his working towards it to improve the situation. Even if you read below article you may still say he is wrong but you can not say he is Bluffing and not trying to improve the situation.

Congress people who is pointing towards him is bluffing from past 8 years, means you can see from past two years PM is sayong inflation will be down but nothing his happening and instead of taking responsibility of the situation they bluff. Some time they say it is due to Euro crisis and some time due to MNEREGA. Kapil Sibbal bluffed Zero losses for 2G scam and now PC said zero losses in Coal scam.

Congress CM in Rajasthan is busy in preparing for Sonia Gandhi visit instead of taking care of people affected by rain. Governor of Rajasthan came out to visit people affected by rain. Maharastra and AP is having neck to neck competition in Farmer Suicide and there CMs are busy in their other engagements. This shows level of sincerity towards people of their state of Congress CMs who are busy in criticizing NaMo.

So congress people are bluffing and not at all sincere in serving their people but taking every chance to criticize NaMO

In this particular case NaMo may have get it wrong as most of the people who comes under malnutrition category are below 5 who will not think about beauty but thier is a twist. 10 year back in between DD samachar and DD News there was some ad for breast feeding which stress that new mother should breast feed their children and it will not ruin their figure.



http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/30/everything-modi-said-on-malnutrition/

A Marry Go Round Called President Election

From past week we can see the all so called National New Channel has only one news i..e Who will be the next President of India.  Indian president election was always a boring affair in which ruling party nominate a candidate and opposition also nominate a candidate but always ruling party candidate wins and no surprise except the win of 4th Indian president VV Giri who won the election by tacit support of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi although official Congress candidate was Neelam Sanjiva Reddy who later became 6th president of India.

This time also there seems to be a interesting President race in which at least serious candidate are in Fray. 2 days later Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam singh told there list of favorable candidates and 2 weeks later Jayalalitha and Naveen Patnaik told they will support a particular person. Reports are suggesting that BJP and Congress can struck a deal for President and vice president post. BJP partner SAD also want its party-man to become Vice President. SP also wants its party-man to become vice president. Blah blah blah

You can see there is lot of close door deals are happening for this president election and you can see for some people CBI inquiry will be fast paced but same time for some people it will be snail paced depending on these close door deals. Mulayam singh was jointly announcing some names with Mamata Banerjee 2 days     before but now saying he will support congress candidate and may be by time I post this blog there may be SP is supporting somebody else but the purpose of this blog is not about telling all this drama.

The President of India is the head of state of the Republic of India.The President is the formal head of the legislature, executive and judiciary branches of Indian Democracy and is the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The powers to pardon and clemency vest with the President of India. Indian president power is largely ceremonial only and it have very less executive power so can't we choose President of India directly as done in America and some other countries. Now you will think if we have direct election of president than it will be a very costly affair and it doesn't worth it as  President of India is ceremonial head only. A coast effective way will be electing Indian president by online voting. After completion of Adhar (UID) project we will have a unique ID for every person in India and we will have basic details like Name, Age, Education etc. National Informatics Center and Election Commission of India can design a website with list of candidate for president and one can login to that website with his/her UID and can vote for a candidate. Now you will ask how much people in India know the computers to vote so here is a catch, only Graduate people will be allowed to vote and now I think at least 70% of the graduate knows computer in India or may be more, so they can access the site from any where in world according to there comfort and vote. We can have  1-2 month time in which people can vote, so suddenly   website doesn't crashes.This way president election will not be a costly affair and currently also selected people only can vote and I am just widening the voter base. 

The good thing about this proposal is that there will not be deals or scams related to president election and there is chances that only well known Indian person can become a President of India instead of a largely unknown but loyalist of particular person. Political parties still can influence the result as large number of graduate will be there   follower but still they will need a popular face. I know some may feel that I  suggesting a unimplementable idea and heavily depend on completion of UID project but still we can debate on it and refine it more with maximum participation of people.

PS:

I am a graduate only though professional graduate so I thought about Graduation as criterion but criterion can be post graduate or post graduate + professional graduate.

PPS: (Not Priyanka Praveen Shishodiya, it is post post script um :D)

There should be cap that a person can be president twice only otherwise we will see APJ Abdul Kalam or Amir khan as permanent president of India till death. :P

How To prepare Tea

Morning woke up late due to Sunday and decided to prepare the tea for myself. So this tea is to me, by me and for me. So much of ego in me, so using me repeatedly, perhaps you will think me egotist. Let people make there opinion and I will start preparing my tea.

So first I washed a Pan, Spoon and one small cup and one big cup. Small cup is approximately of 100ml water caring capacity. (Will it contain more oil??) and big cup of 250 ml water caring capacity. Pan can take 750 ml of water.

Now taken water in small cup and poured in Pan. Circulated knob of big burner in Gas stove in clockwise direction and clicked the gas lighter at the edge of big burner, suddenly flames emerged from burner and it confirmed that Stove is started. Now kept pan with water on stove Now raised my left hand to take sugar box. Taken two spoon sugar from box and poured in Pan. Raised left hand once again to put sugar box at sugar box usual place. Same way again raised my left hand to take Tea Masala and taken small quantity of masala in a spoon and poured masala in pan. Now serched for tea bag given by Ashwni, selected two earl grey tea bag by Tately and one masala tea bag from tately. Now taken one scissor and cut the first earl grey tea bag and pored the earl grey tea in pan, then cut the second earl grey tea bag and once agai poured it in pan. You know a amazing thing the pan remained same, it was taking every thing, glutton indeed I am pouring everything in it and it is accepting everything. Now poured last masala tea bag in pan by cutting it by scissor.

Now taken spoon in my right hand and put it in Pan and start rotating it in clockwise direction then anticlockwise then clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise. Now it start boiling so stopped rotating the spoon in pan and taken the Nandni Skimmed Milk one L Tetra pack n my right hand and small cup in left hand. Poured the Milk from Nandni Skimmed Milk one L Tetra pack to small cup and poured the milk taken from Nandni Skimmed Milk one L Tetra pack in mall cup into pan. Now kept small cup and Nandni Skimmed Milk one L Tetra pack at kitchen slab (Rasoi ki patti). Now again start rotating the spoon in pan. clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise then anticlockwise then clockwise. Now the mixture which is also called as tea start boiling once again. So rotated the knob of big burner in stove to clockwise direction and now flames are not emerging from big burner of stove. Means it is closed now and taken away spoon from pan and kept it on slab Now kept the Big cup on the kitchen slab with the open end of big cup facing roof and kept the chalani on the open end. Now taken the handle of pan in my right hand and raised the pan to 6 inch above the cup and start pouring the mixture also known as tea or Asam ka Amrit (Nector de Asam) in the bg cup When all the mixture poured in Big cup then removed the chalani from big cup and kept it in my left hand, also taken the poon which kept on slab earlier in my left hand and then taken spoon, Pan and chalan in snk and kept them there.

Now taken the big cup in the hand and taken one sip of tea It is good and tasty.

You can also try similar step but you may not have two things:
1. Nandni Skimmed Milk one L Tetra pack
2. Tea bag given by Ashwini

But you can have substitute for it but may be the tea then not be good.

Best of luck if you are also trying the same step