Days after the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognisance of a media report about a five year old girl who died allegedly due to starvation, and issued a notice to it, the Uttar Pradesh government seems to be in damage control mode.

According to information shared by the Times Of India journalist who had filed the initial report of the child dying, allegedly due to illness and starvation, the UP administration has announced that the family will now get state benefits including “ration card, bank a/c, free edu, gas, power supply. Plan to provide suitable housing facility under PM Awas Yojna. Medical treatment for father and MNREGA job card for mother.” 

TIMES IMPACT: Kins of 5-yr-old child who died due to starvation and sickness will be getting ration card, bank a/c, free edu, gas, power supply. Plan to provide suitable housing facility under PM Awas Yojna. Medical treatment for father and MNREGA job card for mother. @pra0902 pic.twitter.com/1nzbQcyYy5

— Deepak-Lavania (@dklavaniaTOI) August 24, 2020

Ironically, it was only after the child’s tragic death was reposted that the Agra administration ‘helped’ the surviving family with rations including, “40kg rice, 50kg wheat & 5 litres of cooking oil,” and they were given vegetables, fruits etc  and other daily essentials. According to TOI’s reporter, “DM Agra Prabhu N Singh has also ordered the officials concerned.”

@OfficeOfDMAgra @upgov has come forward to help the poor family. 40kg rice, 50kg wheat & 5 litres of cooking oil, supplied. locals have also provided them vegetables, fruits and other daily essentials. DM Agra Prabhu N Singh has also ordered the officials concerned… (@pra0902) https://t.co/kbwziZLKoD pic.twitter.com/C8ssd9nQ9E

— Deepak-Lavania (@dklavaniaTOI) August 23, 2020

This begs the question; why none of this help was provided to the child and her family while she was still alive? Timely action, perhaps could have saved her life. According to the TOI report, the child and her family, who lives in Nagla Vidhichand village in Agra district, had gone without food for over a week. The five-year-old, identified as Sonia died on Friday night, hungry.

This is the second time the family has lost a child due to apparent government apathy. Their son, Rohit, had died, reportedly under similar circumstances when the family ran out of  money after the sudden demonetisation was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016. The mother, Sheela, is now concerned about the fragile health of her 45-year-old husband Pappu Singh, who TOI reports, has been to help families like theirs secure food in the lockdown. Pappu Singh is a daily wager who has been diagnosed with tuberculosis, but cannot afford medication. The couple also has two other surviving children.

The NHRC issued a notice to the Chief Secretary of Government of Uttar Pradesh asking for a detailed report to be submitted within four weeks, including details of relief and rehabilitation provided to the family by the administration. It has also asked to be informed what action has been “taken against the delinquent officials” who were responsible for letting this tragedy happen. The NHRC stated that, “the Chief Secretary is also expected to issue instructions to all the district authorities to ensure that such incidents of cruelty and negligence should not recur in future.”

The NHRC called this matter a “a serious issue of violation of human rights due to gross negligence by the local administration,” adding if the authorities had been “sincere and vigilant, loss of a precious human life could have been averted.” The NHRC’s strongly worded notice reiterates that the “State cannot escape its liability and there is a need to fix the responsibility of the public servants who have not acted in accordance with the law to help the aggrieved family.” 

According to the NHRC statement, “The girl was living with her parents and sister at Nagla Vidhichand village in Agra’s Baroli Ahir block.The family was without any work for about a month and in recent weeks the family went without food. Many families in the localities like them do not have a ration card. The five-year-old girl Sonia had become weak and had fever for three days. She could not bear the pain and succumbed to illness and hunger on Friday night.“

The local authorities reportedly did nothing to help the family like securing food in the lockdown-induced crisis. The District Administration has said it will find out where things went wrong and they have taken cognizance of the matter and an investigation has been ordered into the child’s death. Further, the District Administration said that the family has buried the body, which they should not have done as a postmortem would have ascertained the cause of death. Reportedly, the District Magistrate, has agreed that the families are suffering and he will ensure that all possible help is provided to the family.

The NHRC has observed that the child had “apparently died due to starvation and illness while a number of social welfare schemes run by the Central and the State Government do exist. During the period of lock down, the government agencies have specifically introduced a number of schemes for the poor, migrant labourers and other vulnerable sections of the society.” It added that even though the State Government made several statements that they are committed to ensure Right to Food, Shelter and Livelihood for the poor people, “this heart wrenching incident shows a different picture.” 

The Commission noted that welfare schemes are not reaching the beneficiaries, and that this family, “is not only financially poor but also belongs to the Scheduled Caste for which special schemes have been announced by the Central and the State governments.”

Related: 

Jobless shoe polish workers in Mumbai face risk of starvation

Submit rehabilitation plan for migrant labourers: Allahabad HC to UP gov’t

Hunger Heatwave: Is there a starvation crisis waiting to explode in the national capital?

Lockdown impact: Women in Uttar Pradesh dread starvation

Dangerous dilution of labour rights underway in UP, MP and Gujarat

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A day after Bhukhal Ghasi, a 40-year-old man who allegedly died of hunger in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district, Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Saturday directed the food and civil supplies secretary and deputy commissioner to carry out a probe into the matter.

Ghasi was a member of the Scheduled Tribes community and was a resident of the Shankartola Kamra village. He passed away on March 6, post which Giridih MLA Sudhir Kumar tweeted about his death. Ghasi’s wife, Rekha, told reporters that they hadn’t had food for the last few days as they did not have any ration. A social worker alleged that Ghasi died of starvation.

Jharkhand CM had tweeted the following saying that the guilty would not be spared.

किसी भी दोषी व्यक्ति को बख्शा नहीं जाएगा।

सचिव खाद्य आपूर्ति को तुरन्त बोकारो भेज इस मौत के मामले पर जाँच एवं ज़रूरी कार्रवाई की जा रही है।

साथ ही .@BokaroDc , कृपया पीड़ित परिवार को अविलम्ब राहत पहुँचाते हुए विशेष शिविर लगा ऐसे हर ज़रूरतमंद परिवार को राशन कार्ड उपलब्ध कराएँ। https://t.co/oCnmpsT0Lw

— Hemant Soren (@HemantSorenJMM) March 7, 2020

The Times of India reported that as soon as the CM gave the order, Bokaro district officials visited Ghasi’s village and provided 20 kg of ration and a ration card to his family members. They however denied that Ghasi’s death had occurred due to hunger.

Speaking to TOI, Block Development Officer of Kasmar, Rajesh Kumar Sinha said, “Reports about (Ghasi’s) hunger death are completely false and driven by propaganda by a section of people. The clinical test by a medical board has shown that blood sugar levels of the deceased were normal, which cannot be the case if he had died of hunger. We also found foodgrains in the house of the deceased during our visit on Saturday and there were enough traces to prove that food was cooked and consumed by the family on Friday. We have also taken video footage of food in the house.”

Sinha said that Ghasi’s brothers and other family members had testified that his death was not due to hunger, but due to illness. He said, “Since his return from Kasmar last year, Ghasi was bedridden and suffering from hydrothorax. Though a few family members tried to take him for RIMS (Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences) for treatment, he couldn’t be accompanied as there was no one to accompany him as an attendant. He had an MNREGA job card but had stopped availing work because of his health condition.”

It was reported that after the death of his parents, Ghasi had returned to his village last year from Bengaluru where he was working as a labourer. Ghasi is survived by five children, two sons who work as daily wagers and three daughters who study in the government school at the village. Sinha said that the Ghasis did not have a ration card, but were issued food grains till July last year on the card issued in the name of Ghasi’s late father. “In August, Ghasi had applied for a ration card which was pending approval. The district had reached saturation point for distribution of ration for the fiscal, hence, his card was pending,” said Sinha.

This is the first alleged starvation death under the new JMM-Congress-RJD government that took charge in December last year. When the NDA government was in charge in the state, the current alliance government had blamed previous CM Raghubar Das and his administration for over two dozen hunger related deaths.

However, in the Jharkhand Assembly, Finance Minister, Congress’ Rameshwar Oraon told CPI (ML) legislator Binod Singh that no one in the state had died due to hunger in the past five years.

To this, Jharkhand BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo said, “When the JMM and Congress were in opposition, they regularly alleged that dozens of people had died of hunger under the Raghubar Das government and did politics over it. Now they have admitted that they used to speak a lie then.”

CPI (ML)’s Binod Singh said it was a fact that hunger related deaths had taken place in the state and that he would raise the issue in Parliament again.

It was recently reported that a study conducted by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) revealed that 90 percent of the ration cards cancelled by the State government in 2017, were actually genuine. And it was this cancellation of almost 7 lakh ration cards that triggered the starvation deaths, the study claimed. It was reported that 23 deaths took place due to starvation and non-availability of subsidized food grains from 2015 – 2019.

Firstpost reported that activists said it was possibly the lack of control over the bureaucracy that the current government had made a statement denying the hunger related deaths. Vivek, an activist with the Right to Food (RTF) campaign said, “It seems that the coalition partners (Congress and JMM) have not been able to assert authority over the bureaucracy as yet, which is why they’re possibly trying to shield the administration by making such statements.”

Siraj Dutta, another activist with the RTF campaign said that Oraon’s statement had now casted a shadow over the ‘pro-poor’ image that the alliance had painted during the election campaign. He said, “The irony is that the BJP, as the Opposition, won’t question the government regarding the statement either, because that would mean accepting that there had been starvation deaths during its tenure.”

Right to Food activists are now demanding that Soren must condemn and withdraw the statement and start implementing measures he had promised, in order to curb starvation deaths. They said that the current government must work hard to expand the coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) from 86 percent to 100 percent. They also expressed disappointment over the fact that the State budget presented by the Jharkhand Assembly did not address the hunger and malnutrition issue; a stark contrast on Soren’s statement when he said, “No one will die of hunger,” a day before he took office as the Chief Minister.

The post Jharkhand CM Soren orders probe into first alleged hunger death case in his tenure appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ranchi: In the past three years, Jharkhand has witnessed at least 23 hunger deaths. At a time when eligible poor are not getting rations and other benefits from social welfare schemes, ruling party leaders are milking all the benefits and perks of the scheme, that too on time.

BJP vice- president of Giridih district, Mahadev Dubey not just holds a Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) job card but also Antyodaya ration card, which is mostly issued to individuals from BPL category.

Ironically, the BJP leader hails from the same Jamua assembly segment, of which Savitri Devi was a resident. While Dubey got access to all the social schemes, Devi was denied of all the benefits promised by government welfare schemes. Dubey, not just got the cards, but also managed to get 38 days of work too, in 2019.

The 48-year-old BJP leader is in-charge of the Jamua assembly segment and has two-storey building in Deori. Antyodaya Cards have been issued in the name of his family members. For the uninitiated, Antyodya card, allows a family to get 40 kilograms of rice every month at the rate of rupee one per kilogram, among many other food-grains.

However, the recent hunger death victim, Savitri Devi, was denied of an Antyodya card. Her application for a new card had also not been accepted by the food-grains supply department.

Significantly, not only BJP vice-president has got a job under MNREGA but he has been paid on time and there are no pending dues to be cleared for him.

His ration card details reveal that he has been regularly availing the benefit of purchasing 40 kilograms of rice. His most recent rice purchase was in November month.

A scan of social media profile of Mahadev Dubey will let you know, that he is close to all bigwigs of Giridih BJP like Jamua MLA Kedar Hazra, Gandey MLA Jai Prakash Verma and Koderma’s both present and former Member of Parliament (MP)s Annapurna Devi and Ravindra Rai, respectively.

When contacted BJP’s Giridih District President Sunil Agrawal, he claimed he has no idea about it. He refused to comment on the same.

Jamua MLA Kedar Hazra gave a similar reaction, he said, “I am out of Giridih at the moment. On my return, I shall look into the matter for a better understanding, following which I will be able to comment on the same.”

However, members from the opposition camp were not lax in letting the issue simply pass away, especially with election round the corner. “This is a classic example in Jharkhand to know what a common man and what a politician are getting in the state. Savitri Devi, who had no pucca house and was entitled to all government welfare schemes, was not just denied the Antyodya card but was also deprived of the PM Awas. Neither did she get the much-hyped gas connection under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna, nor did her sons manage to get the MNREGA job card,” said Krishan Murari Sharma, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s District Coordinator while talking to eNewsroom.

He added, “In the same assembly constituency, a ruling party leader is getting all the welfare scheme facilities, while Savitri was denied. Dubey Ji has got MNREGA job cards and jobs too; he has also been paid as well while thousands of MNREGA labours are still waiting for their wages for six months now to be cleared by the government in Jharkhand. He is also getting rations on time through his Antyodaya card,” added Murari.

Deputy Development Commissioner Mukund Das, told eNewsroom, “It is not necessary that a socially well-known or a person a two-storey building cannot make job card or get work under MNREGA. But I cannot rule out the possibility of him not working as labour. I will look into the matter.”

However, Dubey, when contacted, defended himself. Speaking to eNewsroom, he said, “I am an MNREGA labour and I also avail ration using the Antyodaya card. Not a single person from my family has a government job. We have 15 members in my family, so I avail of all these benefits.”

Dubey, a graduate in Political Science, added, “I welcome any inquiry in this regard.”

 

Courtesy: eNewsroom

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Hundreds of ration cardholders of 11 villages from across West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand have protested in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office against the denial of their Public Distribution System (PDS) foodgrains for “many months” over the past two years. Following the protest dharna, a list of demands was forwarded to the district administration, stating, pending grains of all the villages from 2016 onward should be immediately distributed to the cardholders.

Speaking on the occasion, John Kayam of Chakradharpur’s Baipi village said, “None of the cardholders of our village has received PDS grains for the months of September-December 2018.” He added, “We complained several times to the Supply Officer, District Grievance Redress Officer (DGRO), Deputy Commissioner (DC) and even the State Food Commission.”

Kelaram Majhi from the neighbouring village of Kupui said, “We have also not received grains for those months. Eighty-one cardholders of the village have decided that they will not take any PDS ration till they get their pending grains.” A similar view was expressed by protesters from Khuntpanin block’s Ulirajabasa, Bada Bankua, Onkolkuti and Sonua’s Podahat.

The National Food Security Act mandates that all grievances are to be redressed within one month. Many cardholders present at the dharna said that, despite repeated complaints to the block and district administrations over the past one year, their issues remain unresolved.
 

 

Villagers of Kupui said that the Block Supply Officer and the ration dealer had forged their thumbprints and signatures in a report to the district administration, according to which the cardholders of the village should have received grains for September to December 2018, but they are yet to receive it. DGRO threatened them that their ration cards would be cancelled if they did not agree to take the ration for months other than September-December 2018.

People of Khuntpani’s Ulirajabasa said that they did not get ration for three months in 2016, one month in 2017 and four months in 2018. After several complaints, they were called for a district-level hearing. But the DGRO declared that they will get pending grains only for the four months of 2018. According to her, cases of 2016 and 2017 are very old. Elderly Suniya Jojo of Baipi said, “Don’t the officials feel ashamed to eat the ration meant for the poor”.

Biren Diggi of Sonua’s Podahat village died of hunger in December 2018 after being denied grains for four months. Kaushalya Diggi of the same village said in the dharna today that despite so many complaints since then, the villagers are yet to be given ration for September-December 2018. Cardholders of Lupungutu village of Chaibasa Sadar block asserted, the ration dealer makes them authenticate in the electronic Point of Sale machine but does not give them grains.

Manki Tubid, who works on people’s rights in the district, said that irregularities in the PDS are not limited to a few villages, but are widespread across the district. While the ration dealers claim that they are not allocated grains, according to the administration, the dealers are regularly allocated grains as per their online transaction reports. A question raised by everyone in dharna was, “Where is the grain going then?” This also makes hollow the claims of the government that Aadhaar has helped in checking leakages in PDS, it was added.
 

 

Since Aadhaar was made mandatory in the PDS, cardholders have been facing several hassles. Ration cards not linked with Aadhaar were cancelled in thousands. Many of them are yet to be reissued new cards. Elderly Shuru of Lupungutu village is denied her grain entitlement since a year as her card was cancelled. None of the dealers maintains exemption registers to distribute grains to those who are not unable to successfully authenticate themselves through biometrics.

Representatives met the official on special duty (OSD) of DC. He admitted that several villages of the district are facing this issue. He also said that people would not get the pending ration as the dealer was not allocated the grains. He said the department allocates grains to the dealers as per their online transaction report. When it was pointed out that it means that grains are getting leaked, he remained silent. 
 

The team submitted a memorandum to DC, which included the following demands: 

• Pending grains of all the villages from 2016 onward should be immediately distributed to the cardholders.
• All eligible families whose ration cards have been cancelled, should be immediately issued new cards 
• Ration dealers responsible for siphoning off PDS grains should be terminated and all functionaries responsible for the irregularities should be adequately punished. 
• Aadhaar-based biometric authentication system should be removed from the PDS. 

The dharna ended with burning of effigies of DGRO and the District Supply Officer.

First published on https://www.counterview.net

 

The post Who ate our foodgrains? Ration cardholders of Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum ask govt appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Jharkhand Food minister says denial of ration to starvation victims is a rumour as the they did not lodge any complaint against it. Also retina scan to be introduced at PDS shops. A report in  the media can be read here.
 
After the Shahnawaz Hussain, Food Minister Saryu Roy speaks “Problem with activists is that they have drawn a line and they don’t want to come out of it. Even if facts are shared with them about any suspected hunger death, they don’t appreciate it. There are people who will always spread propaganda,”
 
A suspected case of starvation death of a disabled child in Nuapada district was reported1 on 10th July 2019. According to the news report, Goutam Behera, 17, a locomotor disabled child died on 6th of July 2019 allegedly of starvation without any food for five days till his death. Goutam was from Sargimunda village of Karlakot Panchayat under Boden block of Nuapada district. Fact finding report by Odisha Right to Food Campaign can be read here.

The post Jharkhand: Jhingur Bhuiyan dies of hunger after 10 days of not being able to get any food appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
New Delhi: The Right To Food Campaign (RTF) organized a protest at Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday against the government’s refusal to take any action against hunger deaths that have occurred in the country. The death toll of these hunger deaths has reportedly reached 65.
 
Of the 56 hunger deaths compiled by the team from 2015 to 2018, 42 deaths have been reported between 2017 and 18. Most of these victims are from the disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims and a majority of these deaths are from two states – Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
 
These deaths are never called starvation deaths. Many people and even the Government refuse to believe in starvation deaths. Nevertheless, the fact remains that 19 crore people sleep on a hungry stomach in India, which explains why India ranks 100th out of the 119 countries in the global hunger Index.
 
Across India, over 50 people have died due to starvation-related deaths in the past four years, mostly after their ration cards were cancelled when they were not linked with Aadhar, as per the data released by two Right to Food Activists.
 
In 2017, The Jharkhand government patted their backs with a full-page ad for saving Rs. 225 crores and 86 crores by cancelling ‘Fake’ Aadhaar cards and old age pensions. They ended up depriving the poorest of poor of necessary food which has since resulted in many starvation deaths in the state. Access to the Public Distribution System is abysmal and Aadhaar based biometric machines constantly fail, often leading to poor Indians dying of hunger.
 
RTF has released many fact-finding reports with annexures which delve into the complexities of the failure of the state government in providing the right to life to its residents. It details shocking negligence and corruption to deny basic human rights to the most marginalised.
 
Documentation by RTF reveals more:
 
Starvation deaths in the country
 
West Bengal
In mid – November, media reported the death of seven people from starvation. All of them belonged to the Sabar community, in Jungle Mahal area of Jhargram district of West Bengal. Sabar community is an ethnic tribe, mainly found in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Right to Food and Work Campaign team from West Bengal visited the villages for fact-finding. Click here to read the fact-finding report and annexure.

Days after the news appeared in the media, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee refuted the reports as fabricated saying the deaths either resulted from age-related ailments or excessive liquor consumption. She said that the Government was providing food grains to every poor person.
 
Jharkhand
At least 17 people died of starvation in Jharkhand since 28 September 2017. The most recent victim is a 45-year-old Kaleshwar Soren who died of hunger and destitution on November 11 in Mahuatant village of Jama block of Dumka district of Jharkhand. A fact-finding team of the Right to Food Campaign, Jharkhand, found that Kaleshwar’s family’s ration card was cancelled as it was not linked with Aadhaar.
 
Kaleshwar’s death comes close on the heels of the deaths of Moti Yadav of Margomunda block (Deoghar) on 1 November and Seeta Devi of Basia block (Gumla) on 25 October. Moti Yadav, visually impaired, died of destitution. He did not get disability pension despite applying for it. 75-year-old Seeta Devi, who lived alone, starved to death as she did not have any food or cash at home before her death. Even though she had a ration card, due to illness, she could not go to the ration shop in October to authenticate her identity. She was also denied old age pension as her bank account was not linked with Aadhaar.
 
Out of these 17 hunger deaths, at least seven victims were eligible for social security pension but were either not issued a pension or did not receive their pension due to administrative lapses or Aadhaar-related issues. Not to mention the children of these families, with poor education, negligible access to health services and employment, are staring at a bleak future. Right to Food Campaign, Jharkhand has issued a statement about this.
 
The deceased in Jharkhand did not get the ration promised under the public distribution scheme (PDS) and Antodyay Anna Yojana (AAY).
 
All these deaths took place after the Jharkhand government cancelled 11.6 lakh ration cards claiming that these were bogus as they were not linked to Aadhaar by their holders. The information of these cancellations was provided by the state secretary of food and civic supply Vinay Chaubey.
 
Statement on Aadhaar can be found here [English version] [Hindi version].

Media Coverage of the statement: The Wire [Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar], Counterview, Times of India, News Click, EPW, The Wire [Abinash]
  
Discussion on Manifesto for 2019 elections
 
Madhya Pradesh: Right to Food Campaign prepared a manifesto and is submitting to all the political parties, which is focused on Maternity Entitlement, ICDS, nutrition, diversity in the nutrition, Public Distribution System, provision of proteins and fats in the National Food Security Act, community-based management policy of nutrition and Social Audit. Indian National Congress Manifesto (MP) says they will provide 90 days wages or Rs. 21000, whichever is less, as maternity entitlements to all unorganized sector families.
 
Bihar: On the Constitution Day (November 26) Right to Food Campaign (Bihar) jointly with other organizations set up a one-day discussion on the manifesto for 2019 elections. Their demand includes demands for Right to Food, Pension, Right to Education, Justice for all, and preventing communalism. They have also demanded actions to save the environment, prevent distress migration of people, land reforms, employment guarantee, homeless etc. in the manifesto along with Government accountability on each of these issues.. Full manifesto can be found here.
 
Statement on Aadhaar
Hundreds of members of various campaigns said they were “extremely disappointed” with the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, “which allows the state to make the use of Aadhaar and biometric authentication mandatory for citizens to receive social benefits.”
 
A joint statement issued by various groups said “the mandatory use of Aadhaar may amount to an emergency. That is why we call upon people to come together to pressurize all parties to amend the Aadhaar Act immediately so that the mandatory use of Aadhaar for accessing basic entitlements is completely prohibited.” They also said they would make Aadhaar an “electoral issue.” Click here to read the full statement.
 
Media coverage on Aadhaar statement
The Hindu, Business Standard, News Click, Outlook India, Daily Hunt, AajkiKhabar, Social News,  Web India, 
 
Letter for Politicians
Right to Food Campaign Secretariat sent a letter to all politicians on the issue of hunger to request to raise their voice in the Parliament on behalf of those who are hungry and malnourished. There is a silent emergency in the country with about 45 reported hunger-related deaths in the past one year from different states. These deaths are a reflection of the grave situation of hunger and distress in many parts of the country and we must act urgently to ensure that not a single person succumbs to hunger anymore.  
 
“More children under the age of five die in India than anywhere else in the world. A recent estimate puts this figure at over 1.5 million children a year—over 4,500 child deaths a day. A third of these could have been averted if children did not go to bed hungry night after night. These figures suggest that over 3,00,000 children die every year in India because of hunger. And for many children who escape death, the poverty of their parents means that hunger remains an unremitting part of their lives. Hunger does not stunt only the body, it also affects the brain. The result: An entire generation of children born into poverty with stunted intellectual development which traps them in the same poverty their parents lived with. A state of poverty which will ultimately kill them well before their fellow citizens who did not go hungry during childhood.” wrote Vikram Patel, a Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School and affiliated with the Public Health Foundation of India and Sangath.
 
IndiaSpend spoke to medical experts and social activists and found that the government response does not take into account two factors involving the links between malnutrition and starvation:
 
1.Medically, these deaths are most likely due to infections and diseases. But prolonged malnutrition undermines the immune system, making the body prone to life-threatening infections;
 
2.Starvation deaths are caused by a circle of poverty, government apathy and mandatory Aadhaar-ration-card integration, the lack of which deprives poor citizens of foodgrain they are entitled to under government schemes. Over a period of time, this results in malnutrition and death.
 
(With inputs from past Sabrang articles on starvation deaths)
 
Read Also:
In A UP District, Death From Hunger, As Governance, Social Security Collapse
Did Aadhaar Glitches Cause Half Of 14 Recent Jharkhand Starvation Deaths?
Sordid tale of starvation: How govt negligence caused deaths by hunger in Jharkhand
Indian Children Suffer from Infant Starvation and hunger
 

The post Death by hunger: Activists protest government inaction over starvation deaths appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A video grab of 26-year-old Feku, a resident of Khirkia village in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh. “CM-ji, my older brother died of hunger, please save me,” Feku said. He fell into a coma soon after and died in a government hospital at 5:30 a.m. on September 14, 2018. Pappu and Feku’s deaths are among the five reported from Kushinagar since April 4, 2017, that point to starvation as a possible cause, or at least a major factor.

Residents of Khirkia village in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh (UP), brothers Feku and Pappu, a year apart in age, died within 16 hours of each other on September 13 and 14, 2018.

Both had been starving and ill for several months, their mother Somwa, a 50-year-old widow, told IndiaSpend on September 25. She stood near a small tent under which a priest and several men were preparing a bhoj, a ceremonial meal, to commemorate the death by starvation of her two youngest sons. Some local politicians and the village head (pradhan) had donated food after her sons’ deaths.

Both men had had “a fever, and their whole body would shake”, Somwa recalled, squinting as the harsh sun hit her weathered face. The family had not eaten in days, and her sons had had lesions inside the mouth.

Somwa and her family belong to the Musahar community–a Hindu ‘Scheduled Caste’ traditionally occupied as rat catchers, or, as a popular belief goes, a caste so poor that they chase mus or rats for a meal.

Her sons’ deaths are blamed on different causes in various government documents–at first, the doctor told Somwa they had dengue; then, the chief medical officer said they had tuberculosis (TB); finally, their death certificates said they had died of cardiac failure. “I don’t know what they had, but no one at the hospital would listen to us,” Somwa told IndiaSpend.

The report from the district TB centre shows Feku did not have tuberculosis. The deaths of Feku and his brother Pappu are blamed on different causes in various government documents–at first, the doctor told Somwa they had dengue; then, the chief medical officer said they had TB; finally, their death certificates said they had died of cardiac failure.

Pappu and Feku’s deaths are among the five reported from Kushinagar since April 4, 2017, that point to starvation as a possible cause, or at least a major factor. IndiaSpend visited the district and its villages to investigate these deaths, and found that the lack of jobs and denial of subsidised rations under the public distribution system (PDS) have subjected large numbers of people to ill-health, starvation and death.

Meanwhile, the government healthcare system is not only failing to prevent these deaths, the government machinery is actually helping cover up these starvation deaths by ascribing other reasons.

Starvation deaths
At least 56 hunger deaths have been reported in India in the last four years, 42 of these in 2017 and 2018, according to a report compiled by IIT-Ahmedabad economist Reetika Khera and her organisation, Rise Up. Reports of hunger deaths are particularly frequent from two states: Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, which have reported 16 cases each.

Most starvation deaths have been traced to denial of ‘ration’ from PDS shops, which sell subsidised food grain to the poor who are registered with the government as falling below the poverty line (BPL), or denial of access to pension accounts for the elderly and widowed. Most of the victims belonged to disadvantaged groups such as the Dalits, Adivasis (tribals) and Muslims, Khera’s research shows, adding that the Musahars, who live mostly in UP and neighbouring Bihar, have been the worst hit.

Khera’s research checks out in Kushinagar.

Jobless in Kushinagar
While its economy is almost entirely dependant on agriculture and the sugar industry, Kushinagar lacks proper sources of irrigation. “Lack of infrastructure facilities, like, entrepreneurs, skilled labourers, capital, technology, power sources, transport and communication facilities etc; socio-economic backwardness and lack of political-will are responsible for backwardness in (sugar) industrial sector (sic),” a 2016 report by the Indian Institute of Geographers said. The report noted six sugar mills in Kushinagar, but when IndiaSpend visited, only four were working. These are concentrated in two of the 15 blocks, Hatta and Padrauna, so job opportunities are limited to a small area.

The effects of muted economic activity are evident from the most recent Census data–65% of the district’s population has no work (termed non-workers), 14% of the people have not worked for over six months (marginal workers), and only 19% have worked for six months and longer (main workers).

The effect of this overall failure is felt most by the rural population, who constitute 70% of Kushinagar’s population, and acutely so by marginalised communities such as the Musahars. As many as 91% of Kushinagar’s Musahars depend on physical labour as they have no land of their own to cultivate, according to a 2016 report by the German development organisation, AWO-South Asia. The Musahar community earns Rs 9,105 per year while all the other communities in Kushinagar record income levels of more than Rs 36,000 per year.

The health indicators of Kushinagar’s Musahars are not encouraging. Their infant mortality rate is 82 per 1,000 live births, more than twice the Indian average of 34 deaths. As many as 89% of Musahar children are not born in hospital, and only 19% of the Musahar community in Kushinagar have access to healthcare services, according to AWO-South Asia statistics.

Of all Kushinagar residents, 25% of the male population and 28% of the female population had below normal body mass indices in 2015-16, as per the fourth National Family Health Survey. And within these, the poorest and most marginalised are the worst affected.
Take the case of Feku and Pappu.

Somwa and the villagers of Khirkia, mostly  populated by Musahars, alleged that Pappu and Feku had died of hunger. Just two months ago, the brothers had returned from Punjab, where they had gone to seek work, as villagers frequently do. They returned with little money, Somwa said, though she did not know why. Neither brother had found work in Khirkia, not even under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

Somwa, a widow since 20 years, would get 35 kg of ration under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, which provides highly subsidised food to the poorest among BPL families. Feku and Pappu, who lived with her, were enrolled on her card. Often, the family would buy only some of Somwa’s entitlement because they could not afford more. Even when they could, the total entitlement of 35 kg was not enough to feed three people for a month.

“The biggest problem is that none of us was given any jobs under MGNREGS,” Somwa said, “I get 35 kg a month but without a paying job, I don’t have money to buy it. And who can live on that much anyway? Especially with three people in the house?”

Somwa’s home is a 30-sq-ft hut where once she lived with her sons. Sticks and a few bricks make up a patchy roof. “When it rains the water floods the house,” she said. A tiny makeshift wooden bed sat at one corner. A gas cooker lay in the middle, unused.

After her sons’ deaths, local politicians and the village pradhan donated some grain to her. “They came and handed me grain as if I’m a beggar,” Somwa said, perturbed. “I used to work as much as I could–as a labourer, on someone’s farm, anywhere I could get work privately. Sometimes I would have to ask neighbours for leftovers. That’s how I tried to feed my family, but…” her voice trailed off and she pointed speechlessly at her run-down empty hut.

Other villagers also complained that no one had received work under MGNREGS for years, leaving many unable to buy PDS ration or food from the open market. “If we get work for a few days, it’s not through MGNREGS. Every adult in the village has a job card, but no pradhan hires us saying there is no work to give,” said Ram Raj, 40. “Outside, if we work for one day, for eight hours of work, women get Rs 50, and men can sometimes make Rs 300, but the work is sporadic at best.”

In nearby Rakwa Gulma Patti village in Seowrahi block of Kushinagar, where a 40-year-old Musahar woman named Sangeeta and her 10-year-old son Shyam had died on September 7, 2018, villagers allege nepotism in how MGNREGS jobs are given out.

The MGNREGS job card of Birendra Singh, the late Sangeeta’s husband, was issued in 2017 but is entirely blank. “The pradhan gives MGNREGS work only to special people,” he said, implying family and friends or those who will give a kickback to the pradhan in return for work.

The job card issued to Birendra Singh under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is completely blank. Other villagers also complained that no one had received work under MGNREGS for years, leaving many unable to buy PDS ration or food from the open market.

This is the norm throughout Kushinagar, said Congress member of legislative assembly (MLA) Ajay Kumar Lallu. “The job card is a showpiece. What is happening is that instead of benefiting the poor, labourers, Dalits like it was supposed to, the MGNREGS scheme is being misused by the officers like pradhans–they get job cards in the name of their family members and friends, and give jobs to only these people, so the money gets transferred into the family itself,” he said.

The village pradhan, Savita Devi, was not available to comment and reportedly never stepped out of her house. “I do all of Savitaji‘s work, and you can say she keeps records in the house,” her brother-in-law Punnu Verma told IndiaSpend, grinning widely, adding that their family owns a jewellery shop and makes about Rs 5 lakh a month.

There had been no jobs available to give under MGNREGS, Verma said, sitting among several tall and robustly built men like himself. He alleged that the Gram Sabha (the forum that decides what work should be undertaken under MGNREGS) demanded a commission of 5% on any job demand the pradhan would raise. He added that the MGNREGS wage rate, Rs 175 per day, was too low and should be increased to attract more people to demand jobs under the scheme.

Despite numerous calls to the office of Satish Singh, the district programme coordinator for MGNREGS, IndiaSpend was unable to reach him. On two occasions, Singh’s mobile phone was answered by a man who said he was an assistant and that Singh was in a meeting and would call back, but he never did. The additional district programme coordinator (APO), Parveen Kumar, said the state government was doing the best it could with the resources at hand. Nevertheless, he agreed that the MGNREGS daily wage should be increased, and the time taken to transfer payments to workers’ accounts reduced from the current 14 days, which, he said, is too long for the very poor who “live hand to mouth”.

“There has been delay more than that at times, sometimes two months or two-and-a-half months,” he said, “What happens is that our labour budget falls short and we have to get more work done. At that time, we have to ask the Centre for more money. There is a time delay in getting the money from the Centre.”

The delay in MGNREGS wages does deter people from demanding jobs, but other factors are at play, too, said Lallu, the MLA. Earlier, digging of drains, soling of structures (building the bottom-most hard layer), building of mud roads, etc. was done through MGNREGS, but not anymore, he said. For example, after using mitti (soil) to build a mud road, if building the pavement requires cement, work may get held up as the government may have put a stop to pakka works that year. “For this reason, a lot of work is incomplete, and people are afraid to take it on,” he said, explaining why many people are not getting jobs under MGNREGS.

A torn social security net
The ration shop at which Khirkia’s residents buy their food is more than 2 km from the village. Lacking any means of transport, they walk the distance and back. The owner, Ram Prasad, agreed that the amount of ration allocated is not enough. “[I]n 35 kg, I would say three to four people can eat for about 15 days at most. When they don’t get to eat, they get weak and fall sick easily. But the amount of PDS ration is not for me to decide,” he said.

The National Food Security Act, under which all programmes to provide subsidised food are administered, is riddled with petty corruption, said Lallu.

The legislator is referring to the state government’s initiative whereby people can apply for new ration cards online through the website fcs.up.nic.in. After applying for rations on the internet, during the time it takes for the administration to send them a permanent ration card, people get a printed slip with their ration card number and names of those registered for PDS.

“Now the names on these [online ration card] lists can change daily. You go to the office and pay Rs 200, the person on the computer will put your name, then three days later someone else’s name can be put, and yours is gone,” Lallu said.
One such bungling cost Subhash Singh of Amvivari village his life. The poor, upper-caste farmer, his wife and their four children–three daughters and a son–lived in the depths of poverty ever since Singh had mortgaged his 10 khattas (one khatta equals a quarter hectare) of farmland to pay for the weddings of two daughters.

The villagers said he was a proud man, and “never let anyone know of his problems or that he wasn’t able to buy rations”. Singh’s family were on the ration list but he had been unable to get the paper slip to prove this, his wife, 45-year-old Chanda Devi, told IndiaSpend. “He would run back and forth from the ration shop to the pradhan, begging them to give him food because we hadn’t eaten in days. What really worried him the most was that the children were hungry,” she said. “He was always tense. Always worried and too proud to ask anyone for help. Once, I got some saag-roti from a neighbour and fed our children, but he didn’t eat.”

Then, on April 3, 2017, Singh complained of chest pain and collapsed, frothing at the mouth. Concerned villagers collected money to take him to hospital, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The linking of all benefit transfers with the Aadhaar biometric ID system is meant to remove the problem Singh faced. However, Ram Prasad, the ration shop owner of Khirkia village, was not optimistic. “I don’t think biometrics will help. It will only cause more problems because there are hardly any telephone towers here and there will be a network problem, and people will have to keep coming back until the network is available.”

Recently, the government distributed gas cylinders to some households, including Somwa’s and Ram Raj’s in Khirkia. “The first month is free, so I guess we will all use it. I don’t know when I’ll get work next so by next month there will again be no gas in the house,” said Ram Raj.

No basic facilities
With no toilets in their huts or in the area and having never heard of Swachh Bharat, Khirkia residents routinely fall ill. Chhotey, 20, had been admitted in the district hospital for several days when IndiaSpend visited. With his brother unable to find work, Chhotey was the sole earner in a house of four–his mother, his brother, and his sister-in-law Mamita who was alone in the house while her husband looked for work.

“Chhotey has a fever, and it won’t break,” Mamita said. “My husband took him to the hospital, and they say he has TB, but he wasn’t coughing nor have any of us gotten sick living in the hut with him.”

When he was well, Chhotey would take up odd jobs at local construction sites or farms, “wherever he would find it”. With Chhotey in hospital, Mamita worried for her family’s future. “We got ration on the September 7, but it is finished,” she told IndiaSpend on September 25, 2018, “I don’t know now how we will get food.”

The complete absence of basic facilities was evident in Rakwa Gulma Patti village, too, where 40-year-old Sangeeta and 10-month-old son had died on September 7, 2018. The news channel NDTV showed the villagers alleging malnutrition while the government said the mother and son had died of diarrhoea and food poisoning. The post-mortem report accessed by IndiaSpend does not state either and lists the cause of death as unknown. The medical officer had reportedly sent the viscera for further testing, but no one could tell us when the results would come.
Sangeeta’s husband Birendra repeated a now-familiar story of penury, and alleged that government medical authorities had been callous in dealing with his sick wife and child. “She started complaining of a horrible stomach ache early in the morning after we ate some food she had gotten from a nearby farm–a karela [bitter gourd], raw with a little salt, and roti,” recalled a gaunt, sunken-eyed Bijendra. “I asked the pradhan to call an ambulance and we took her to hospital at 7 a.m. The doctor came at 10.30 a.m. He gave her an injection and then said he would give her a drip. That was administered several hours later.”

The two had died in an ambulance on the way to another hospital that they had been referred to. The post-mortem report records Sangeeta’s time of death as 2 p.m. on September 7, 2018–the same day she was brought in.

The remainder of the family, three girls–Laxmi (10), Sita (2), and Suna (10 months)–sat by their father, unsmiling, listening once again to the circumstances that had led to their mother and brother’s deaths.

Laxmi had also fallen sick along with Sangeeta and Shyam. She had not eaten much on the day she was admitted, and had survived, but had spent a week in hospital. She recalled that her intravenous fluid drip had been changed several times but not much else done by way of treatment or nourishment.

Birendra Singh and his daughters Sita, Suna and Laxmi. Birendra’s wife Sangeeta and 10-year-old son Shyam had died on September 7, 2018. Villagers say they died of malnutrition, while the government said the mother and son had died of diarrhoea and food poisoning. The post-mortem report accessed by IndiaSpend does not state either and lists the cause of death as unknown.

The only way to reach the village is through a labyrinth of dusty roads where huge stones and overgrown trees block the path at every second turn. One shabby toilet is shared by the entire village. The only toilet in the village has no discernable plumbing. A pit toilet, it has no means of flushing, and the villagers empty out the faeces into a nearby river every few days. A tank is affixed to the wall on the outside, of whose purpose the villagers had no idea.

“The toilet is according to the specifications given by Modiji‘s scheme,” said Punnu Verma, “The specs say there must be a tank so I have made one–the government gives Rs 12,000 to make one toilet. What more could I have made?”

The nearest district hospital, over an hour away, is understaffed and understocked to the extent that Birendra was asked to buy paracetamol from a private pharmacy.

Rakwa Gulma Patti has one water pump for its 150-odd residents, and many complained that they could not extract fresh water from it. “Sometimes a fish or a rodent dies inside the well, and no one knows until the smell becomes impossible to ignore, and the colour of the water turns yellow,” Rajalaxmi, 30, said. This water is used to bathe, wash clothes and sometimes to drink and cook. “When we have money, most of us try to avoid taking water from the pump,” she said, adding that they sometimes buy bottled water from a kirana store just outside the village. “We have complained to the pradhan, but no one listens,” Rajalaxmi added. At the time IndiaSpend visited the village, the water extracted from the pump was a dark yellow with dirt floating on top.

Rakwa Gulma Patti village has one water pump for its 150-odd residents, and many complained that they could not extract fresh water from it. At the time IndiaSpend visited the village, the water extracted from the pump was a dark yellow with dirt floating on top.

Several villagers had fallen sick from urinary tract infections and/or developed kidney stones. The district hospital was not equipped to handle these cases, and villagers sought out private healthcare as and when they could afford it.
“Four people are sick with kidney stones, my father is among them,” said Rajinand, 25. The district hospital referred his father, Rudal Prasad, to Gorakhpur’s Baba Raghav Das Medical College. Rajinand accompanied his father there but was sent away unceremoniously by the security staff.

Threats of violence against the kin of those who are ill are frequent, the villagers alleged. Sangeeta’s mother said when she realised her daughter and grandson had died, she had told the ambulance driver. “He said keep quiet, or I’ll throw you out of the car,” she said.
The poor of Kushinagar, especially the Musahar, feel neglected by the government but helpless to do anything.

In Feku and Pappu’s case, despite the medical reports disproving the TB hypothesis and the lack of any other plausible cause of death, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath denied the men had died of hunger.

The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it. And here, the UP government has already failed.

(Avantika Mehta is a New-Delhi based writer and editor.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030) aims by 2030 to “Double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets , and non-farm resources.”

There is a consensus that radical measurs are needed to deal with world-wide growing food neeeds. These measures must be taken in a whoistic and coordinated way with actions going from the local level of the individual farmer to the national level with new government policies to the world level with better coordinated activities through the United Nations System.

A central theme which citizens of the world have long stressed is that there needs to be a world food policy and that a world food policy is more than the sum of national food security programs. Food security has too often been treated as a collection of national food security initiatives. While the adoption of a national strategy to ensure food and nutrition security for all is essential, a focus on the formulation of national plans is clearly inadequate. There is a need for a world plan of action with focused attention to the role which the United Nations system must play if hunger is to be sharply reduced.

The FAO did encourage governments to develop national food security policies, but the lack of policies at the world level has led to the increasing control of agricultural processes by a small number of private firms driven by the desire to make money. Thus today, three firms —Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta — control about half of the commercial seed market worldwide. Power over soil, seeds and food sales is ever more tightly held.

There needs to be detailed analysis of the role of speculation in the rise of commodity prices. There has been a merger of the former Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade to become the CME Group Market which deals in some 25 agricultural commodities. Banks and hedge funds, having lost money in the real estate mortgage packages of 2008 are now looking for ways to get money back. For the moment, there is no international regulation of this speculation. There needs to be an analysis of these financial flows and their impact on the price of grains. The word needs a market shaped by shared human values structured to ensure fairness and co-responsibility.

There is likewise a need for a serious analysis of the growing practice of buying or renting potential farm land, especially in Africa and South America, by foreign countries, especially China and the Arab Gulf states. While putting new land under cultivation is not a bad policy in itself, we need to look at the impact of this policy on local farmers as well as on world food prices.

There is a need to keep in mind local issues of food production, distribution, and food security. Attention needs to be given to cultural factors, the division of labour between women and men in agriculture and rural development, in marketing local food products, to the role of small farmers, to the role of landless agricultural labour and to land-holding patterns.

Fortunately, there is a growing awareness that an integrated, wholistic approach is needed. World Citizens stress that solutions to poverty, hunger and climate change crisis require an agriculture that promotes producers’ livelihoods, knowledge, resiliency, health and equitable gender relations, while enriching the natural environment and helping balance the carbon cycle. Such an integrated approach is a fundamental aspect of the world citizen approach to a solid world food policy.

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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The same cannot be said of the government when it comes to taking care of the poorest, most vulnerable and the most marginalised.

Across India, over 50 people have died due to starvation-related deaths in the past four years, mostly after their ration cards were cancelled when they were not linked with Aadhar, as per the data released by two Right to Food Activists.

In India, there are approximately 30,000 deaths reported due to malnourishment every year. As per a recent report published by UNICEF, malnutrition is a direct contributor to nearly half of all deaths of children under five years. Malnourishment is just another name for starvation because these children do not get enough food and are too weak.

These deaths are never called starvation deaths. Many people and even the Government refuse to believe in starvation deaths. Nevertheless, the fact remains that 19 crore people sleep on a hungry stomach in India, which explains why India ranks 100th out of the 119 countries in the global hunger Index.

In July 2018, three little girls – sisters ages 2, 4, and 8 died of hunger in India’s capital Delhi. This tragedy should have stirred the government to take concrete steps to provide food security to the poorest of the poor but unfortunately, the politicians were all busy blaming the other parties. Each time a person or a child dies of hunger the government refuses to accept it as hunger death till the post-mortem report reveals that there were no traces of any food in the stomach from a long time. Otherwise, they are passed off as malnutrition deaths.

Two activists, Siraj Datta and Reetika Khera from Bihar and Delhi respectively compiled a list of hunger deaths related to Aadhar both directly and indirectly across India to remember the first death anniversary of  ‘hunger death’ of 11-year-old Santoshi in 2017.

On September 28th 2017, Santoshi Kumari of Jharkhand died due to hunger as there was no food at home. The girl slipped into unconsciousness due to extreme hunger and died in a state of unconsciousness. The truth came to light later that the family had lost their ration card because it was not linked to Aadhar. It is reported that the Government of Jharkhand ‘mass cancelled’ Aadhar-less ration cards. And Santoshi’s family’s ration card was one among those.
 

 

“There are thousands of hunger deaths in India and these are only a handful which we compiled that are related to the exclusion caused due to the compulsory linking of Aadhar card to ration card,” Said Siraj Datta, who is associated with the Right to Food Campaign. “The idea behind this study was to bring out the exclusion caused due to non-linkage to the Aadhar card and to initiate political debates about these deaths. It is sad that these deaths are not being registered.”

Of the 56 hunger deaths compiled by the team from 2015 to 2018, 42 deaths have been reported between 2017 and 18. Most of these victims are from the disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims and a majority of these deaths are from two states – Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Common reasons include losing one’s ration card or pension for lack of Aadhaar linking, and failure of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA), which is compulsory – for practical purposes – in several states.

Another recent death of two siblings belonging to Dalit community, Govinda, aged 5 years and his sister Munni, 2 years on August 31, 2018, and September 1 occurred in Bihar as they could not get their Aadhar card and as a result, they were denied rations from the last 8 months. With the father in jail due to some protest he was involved in, the mother could not find any work under MNREGA.

More recent is the tragic death of 8-year-old Khushi from Hathras in UP. The family had no ration card and used to buy food grains. But when her father became jobless and could not find a job for two months, the family began to eat less and lesser ill they were finally reduced to go hungry. After a week of remaining hungry, Khushi and her sister fell unconscious. Khushi died on the way to hospital while her sister is being treated.

All this in a state where retailers have been accused of siphoning off over 2.2 lakh tonnes of food grains under the 30 crore PDS scam in which Aadhar numbers of genuine beneficiaries of subsidised rations have been replaced with fake ones.

In case of Santoshi, her mother and sister moved to the Supreme Court to highlight the condition of the Dalit families in Jharkhand who have been denied food grains due to non-linkage of Aadhar and ration cards. Even though they sought criminal action against the officials due to whose negligence starvation death/s have occurred, the SC merely issued a formal notice to the Government. And the Government denied these allegations stating the deaths were due to “illness”.

The Supreme Court in its latest verdict in September 2018 upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhar card and although linking Aadhar card to avail certain benefits have been waived; linking Aadhar to avail welfare schemes is mandatory leaving the people with no choice but to comply.

Requests to push for alternative identity in case of non-linkage of Aadhar card with ration card have not been considered.

Courtesy: Tow Circles
 

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