The hungry super power?

[ambidex]

No silly, read my post again.
India's ruling class like the great mass of the people to stay exactly as they are.
I was speaking about the rulers attitude towards the ruled.

Your post doesn't offer any scientific reasoning.

You quoted OP on ruling class, please explain what do you mean by ruling class.

People are coming out of poverty and the great mass is reducing as we speak. One can say the speed is slow. But if the percentage is decreasing, then one can not blame the so called ruling class that they want the people to stay exactly as they are i.e poor and what not.

BTW I am still not sure about the topic of discussion.

Super power India's poverty.

Food Security Bill, a political move near election by Congress-I.

or

India as a counter weight against China.

or

all three.

[Minskaya]

Who said AF people can't wear green?

Lol. Now that you mention it Dok, this is a drastic change from the IAF sky-blue blouse ;)

[ambidex]

To my knowledge, the WAB guidelines do not require a thread title to match a source title.

OK, I got it.

Thanks

[667medic]

Cdude, obviously it is common sense that those Indians having the time and resources to surf internet, they are probably not starving. The same holds true for 50 cent army folks......

[Double Edge]

And I may add, nobody else should be blamed on this. I have heard all kinds of bizarre excuses. "we cannot do one-child policy. we are a democracy. we have bad neighbors". But those are true for lots of African/Asian/Latin Am countries that faired bettter

Indians had 60+ years to get it right. I suspect the ruling class have their priorities wrong.

Are you really interested in understanding the issue or just pointing fingers ?

if its the former then give this talk a listen.

If somebody isn't the right size then apparently its classed as undernourished. Well Indians are not all six footers. if they happen not to reach six foot then it does not mean they are malnourished. Neither do we reach western proportions by the time we are 11 years old. Some points to consider there.

The food security bill is contentious in different states of the country. States that have their own systems in place do not want to be dictated to from the centre. They don't want some normalised standard when they have already optimised things for their own state.

There is also a lot of politicking around this issue as the elections are nearing. The BJP & Congress are irrelevant in 250 out of 543 constituencies in India. Question is whether food security bill can swing things more in Congress favour ;)

The bottom line is India does not do well at silent crises. We tend to be better at solving things when everybody starts screaming that things are going wrong. Our growth has stemmed from crisis, without a crisis, apparently, there is no reason to improve as there is no noise. Tree falling in the forest kinda thing. We need to get better at this.

I got these ideas from another talk at the same think tank by Shankar Aiyar when he was recently over in DC to promote his new book. Its a very engaging discussion and should address your 60+ years point. Ran out and bought his book.

[667medic]

What I find striking is that it is only the chinese and paks who claim India wants to be superower. I mean it is quite apparent that even china won't be a superpower any time soon and the indians are not deluded enough to imagine such.
Coming back to the topic, i feel that the food situation hasmore todo with distribution rather than scarcity. Granted that the rains fail but that's whyyou need to have store houses. If the chinese could do it for pork,why cant yhe indians do it for rice.....

[cdude]

There is no need to get defensive, personal or shooting the messenger. That's not how you win the hunger game. I would say that's partially how India ends up with its current situation. So you people partially answered my question with your replies.

[anil]

No food in india? Do you realize that india is an agricultural nation?

Back in my ancestral village we hardly have two shops to buy produce. The only packaged sliced bread that you'll find is a stake week old. Whiskey is country made and sold in 30ml shampoo sachets. There is no real roads or infrastructure and no markets, every second day we stroll through the fields picking what we need(chillis, tomatos, egg plant etc).

Supply is non-existent. So how does 3/4th of indians live?

In the good old FARM lands. Vegetables, live stock etc.

Many of the villages are self dependent through agriculture. Imagine villages where the nearest bus stop is at least 3 hrs walking distance through farming fields. Then another 3 hrs for the bus to reach the train station(the supply).

I live in mumbai. My next door neighbours are from nashik in maharashtra. Next week(three times a year) they'll go back to their village to sow seeds in their fields(its monsoon season). Both their sons are licensed chartered accounts but it doesn't matter to them because they've been doing it forever. The guy from my area's furniture shop and the mistry(construction guy) who did some work in my house two months ago and the people from the bakery are not here also because they've all gone back to their villages for 20days to work in their own fields. Urban guys going to work in village fields every year, can you believe this?

The fortune of a indian village is dependent on its geographical location. Rains are important because indian rivers ain't worth sh#%.

[Minskaya]

There is no need to get defensive, personal or shooting the messenger. That's not how you win the hunger game. I would say that's partially how India ends up with its current situation. So you people partially answered my question with your replies.

If you had utilized a bit more tact and presented the problem without denigration, the responses would probably have been warmer and far more receptive.

[anil]

btw my village is in south india. you don't need to work in my village. just be a part of the community, talk to people here and there and they won't mind you picking produce from their fields.

[cdude]

I doubt it. Maybe somebody else can do a "more polite" one and see what the responses are.

Sometimes you need to poke around to learn about the psyche of a nation.

If you had utilized a bit more tact and presented the problem without denigration, the responses would probably have been warmer and far more receptive.

[anil]

What's the rate of people dying from malnutrition/starvation in India?

It is almost impossible to make such a database since geography changes throughout the region.

Since india is an agricultural nation, water matters a lot. The mainland and its topography plays a significant part in agriculture output since water doesn't flow uphill. Monsoon lasts for 3-4 months.



Notice the purple and light yellow regions(vidharbha, madhya pradesh, telangana etc) as most of the tragic stories come from these territories. These regions are entirely dependent on the rain gods.

[Minskaya]

I doubt it. Maybe somebody else can do a "more polite" one and see what the responses are.

Sometimes you need to poke around to learn about the psyche of a nation.

---

When I issue Moderator directives in a thread, I expect them to be adhered to completely. Probing my psyche has earned you some chill time. I strongly suggest that you modify your attitude during this sabbatical.

/ thread closed