{"id":33780,"date":"2018-10-30T14:24:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T08:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33780"},"modified":"2018-10-30T14:24:56","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T08:54:56","slug":"the-hungry-nation-ie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-hungry-nation-ie\/","title":{"rendered":"The hungry nation (IE)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/global-hunger-index-india-ranking-the-hungry-nation-4951570\/\"><strong>The hungry nation<\/strong><\/a> <strong><u>(IE)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Global Hunger Index offers a needed reality check for India\u2019s big power aspirations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Backdrop<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s international financial rating was recently upgraded by Moody\u2019s recognising the reforms and structural changes initiated by the present government<\/li>\n<li>A recent survey of the Pew Research Center refers to the immense popularity of Prime Minister\u00a0Narendra Modi\u00a0within the country \u2014 clearly indicating the high expectations citizens have of him<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Effect:<\/strong> Both pieces of news have been rightly welcomed in the country<\/p>\n<p><strong>However, the nation can\u2019t pick and choose<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It can\u2019t say that all favourable reports are true, but deny the existence of unfavourable reports<\/p>\n<p><strong>The unfavorable Sides<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For instance, the Pew Research Center, some time back, had concluded that Indian school standards are among the worst in the world<\/p>\n<p><strong>Global Hunger Index (GHI)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Washington-based <strong>International Food Policy Research Institute<\/strong> <strong>(IFPRI) <\/strong>released the 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI), in which India ranks 100 among the 119 countries studied<\/li>\n<li>The country\u2019s rank, in fact, had fallen by three places compared to 2016<\/li>\n<li>In the 2017 Hunger Index, India falls behind war-ravaged Iraq, and the international \u201coutcast\u201d, North Korea<\/li>\n<li>Only two countries in Asia \u2014 Afghanistan and Pakistan \u2014 are below India in the ranking. India is now ahead of only countries such as Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Chad and Yemen, all \u201cone-party\u201d democracies otherwise seen as dictatorships<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A World Bank report referred to the illiteracy rates in India<\/p>\n<p>ASER has consistently referred to abysmal primary and secondary schooling standards; repeated studies on nutrition, and child mortality in India establish the critical situation in this regard<\/p>\n<p><strong>The nation should stop fooling itself <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The countries at the top of every economic and social index in the world are closely identified with high-quality education, public health and nutrition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Critical Situation: Reasons<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These are the wages of a corrupt political system, where the spoils were appropriated by a select few who ran the country during the past five decades, pursuing disastrous policies, deliberately with poor implementation to suit the needs of the ruling classes<\/p>\n<p><strong>Steps Taken<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Major economic policies have been ushered in in the recent past<\/li>\n<li><strong>Demonetisation<\/strong> symbolises the formal recognition of black money \u2014 no country can afford to have a parallel economy eating its vitals<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>GST<\/strong>, with all its teething problems, can transform the economy within five years<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Digital India programme<\/strong>, despite its current tardy implementation, can turn the administration efficient.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Can\u2019t ignore the common man<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Even a superpower will not remain stable if the bottom 25 per cent of its population lives in penury<\/li>\n<li>There is not enough recognition of the power of the informal sector, currently numbering six crore, as a change agent, and the critical importance of making resources available to them at non-usurious rates<\/li>\n<li>There is no awareness that primary and secondary education can be a major change agent in 10 years, if there is genuine reform. In short, with the technology available today, the country can be transformed in ten years \u2014 but this can\u2019t be done just by speeches, and with good intentions alone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is the social sectors \u2014 education, public health, nutrition etc \u2014 which need the direct attention of the highest manager of the country. Policies concerning these sectors need to be reformed and necessary resources have to be provisioned to usher in change<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hungry nation (IE) Context Global Hunger Index offers a needed reality check for India\u2019s big power aspirations. Backdrop India\u2019s international financial rating was recently upgraded by Moody\u2019s recognising the reforms and structural changes initiated by the present government A recent survey of the Pew Research Center refers to the immense popularity of Prime Minister\u00a0Narendra&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-hungry-nation-ie\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The hungry nation (IE)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704890267},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}