India Asks, Should Food Be a Right for the Poor?

[groovedaddy]

JHABUA, India — Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight.

Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling through India’s social safety net. They should receive subsidized government food and cooking fuel. They do not. The older children should be enrolled in school and receiving a free daily lunch. They are not. And they are hardly alone: India’s eight poorest states have more people in poverty — an estimated 421 million — than Africa’s 26 poorest nations, one study recently reported.

For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for people like Mr. Bhuria has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?

The rethinking is being prodded by a potentially sweeping proposal that has divided the Congress Party. Its president, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene. Such entitlements have helped the Congress Party win votes, especially in rural areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/world/asia/09food.html?th&emc=th

[maddogg41283]

1. Inequality

There's a lot of inequality in the world. While India is trying to decide if food should be a right, Finland has recently declared internet access to be a right. The United States falls between these two extremes as we decide if medical care should be a right. It's a shame that we are no longer at the forefront of human rights.

[jailthecrooks]

2. Inequality is the bread and butter of Capitalism

Boom and bust cycles that remove the life savings of honest working people. Robbing the poor to benefit the rich. Stealing the life savings of little old ladies. This is the reality of Capitalism. It is a cancer upon the Earth and must be destroyed.

We are no longer at the forefront of any aspect of civilized societies. We are an oligarchy in all but name with the rich pulling everyone else' strings. Dance, little dumb asses. Dance. Fight amongst yourselves and dance for our amusement.

India tries to decide if food is a right. Meanwhile here in America we have 1.5 million homeless children who go to bed hungry and afraid. Food is not a right here. Nobody has any rights but the wealthy. 16 million unemployed in this country thought they were doing such a good job for the "boss" that they surely would never get fired or laid off. Wrong again. No rights but the right to lose your home, lose your dignity, lose your life savings.

[RightNoMore]

3. Food is a Right

that should be taken by any means!!!

[cleanhippie]

4. Even if that means taking it from you?

By any means?

[Philippine expat]

6. So its ok for someone to

break into my house and steal my food at gunpoint?
If it is then it stands to reason it would be OK for me to shoot anyone trying to steal my food.

[Name removed]

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