Vol. 5, Issue 1, Part E (2019)

Hunger is very big problem in India. Almost 2000000000 people in India sleep hungry each night. 1907. 7 millions Peoples are under-nourished in India. And there are lots of other miserable stats which show that India is in the grave problem of hunger. 14.5% of India’s populations are under-nourished. Many die daily with disease related to hunger and nutrition deficiency in India. Many don’t grow properly and face issues such as stunting and wasting. The problem that hunger and nutrition deficiency has created definitely needs attention. Media could help by bringing the problem of hunger and undernourishment to light so that government and other non-governmental organization could help.

Many policies and schemes have been brought by government but implementation of the most of the scheme was ineffective, some of the reasons for ineffectiveness of the schemes and programs are corruption, unawareness of people about the schemes, lack of knowledge, etc. so steps should be taken to effectively implement the policies.

Food wasting is considered one of the most prominent causes of hunger and under-nutrition in India. About 40 per cent of the food India produces gets wasted every year. Cost of food inflate due to wasting of food in such a huge amount which makes it unaffordable for poor peoples to buy food, so wasting of food one of the main reasons of the hunger and under-nutrition. Poverty is equally responsible for hunger many people in India live on less that Rs. 50 per day and due to insufficient amount of money to buy food they live hungry and malnourished. India is performing very poorly in eradicating hunger according to Global Hunger Index even North Korea is performing better than India.

Stress is also contributing in making the problems of hunger and under-nutrition in India worse as it kills the crave to eat and thus person starts taking less food and which eventually leads to mal-nutrition. So reducing stress could contribute in reducing the problem of malnourishment and under-nourishment.

And finally there is one other problem called obesity which seems strikingly different problem but according to UN obesity can be the other side of the same coin. More than 700 million people are obese. While hunger’s ability to kill makes it vivid in our minds, obesity, which has doubled since 1980, is tied to a host of health issues, too, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and an increased likelihood of stroke.

So obesity is equally harmful for a country as is hunger. We must fight hunger and obesity by complaining if we see that schemes are not implemented properly, and giving the knowledge of the schemes to the people and the most important and that is, by not wasting food. We can fight hunger and make our country free from hunger and under-nourishment.