Skip to main content

Status of Women in India and ... Malnourished Kids

In a report the results of which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone from India
India ranks 3rd from bottom of the world on malnourished kids

Consider some of the findings from a report released globally today by the Washington-based International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI).
  • The proportion of children found underweight in India, according to the latest figures is 47.5 per cent, which makes it worse than conflict-plagued, drought-stricken Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • According to the report's lead author Doris Wiesmann, “In India, women eat the last and the least, increasing the chances of anaemia,” she explained.
  • “It has been observed that the women who have a say in the family, allocate more resources to their children’s nutritional needs. Men have other priorities,” she said.
What are you going to do about it?
What can you do about it?
Simple, treat the women and children in your house as your equals- insist that they sit down to eat with you. If it's a matter of practical feasibility, let the women and children eat first!
It's time to dump the retro Indian tradition of making the women and children wait while men eat first during lunch and dinner. I know most of my progressive and educated friends do not subscribe to this shameful practice, ... but a lot of them still do!
And try to educate and influence your maid, your driver, your office boy, your dhobi, your doodhwaala, and the next construction worker and the auto rickshaw driver you run into.
But remember, you have to start by setting an example of yourself!
Is that too much to ask of you, my dear friends from India?

[Originally posted on my personal blog at muralikd.blogspot.com, October 14, 2006]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1876 Redestruction: Supreme Court puts the final nail in the coffin of Reconstruction

  From the winner of 2019 Pulitzer Prize:  Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom  by David W. Blight As the election neared in 1876, all knew the last vestiges of Reconstruction policies and regimes were at stake in the remaining "unredeemed" Southern states. In 1876 the project of Reconstruction, and perhaps the United States itself, were like a huge battleship slowly turning around as it lost power; once turning, it could hardly be stopped, even if the same group of officers remained at the helm.  That year the Supreme Court weakened the Reconstruction-era constitutional amendments by emasculating the enforcement clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and revealing deficiencies in the Fifteenth Amendment.  In US v. Cruikshank, based on prosecutions for the horrible Colfax massacre of  1873, the Court overruled the conviction of Louisiana whites who had attacked a political meeting of blacks and conspired to deprive them of their rights.  The justices ruled that the Fourteenth

Bugs in the American Legal System

As an immigrant from India, I have always been very impressed with the American legal system. In over 17 years, I have not encountered grassroots corruption, have been treated courteously by those in power, and have seen the system work overall in favor of the individual. In particular, I've always seen the punitive damages system as a counter-balancing force that puts the "fear of God" in the minds of the rich & powerful corporations that would otherwise tend to trample the average citizen. I'm not so sure any more after I heard this program on NPR's Fresh Air today:  Reporter Explores America's Unique Take on Justice It discusses the news series in New York Times, by Adam Liptak, called  American Exceptions . The highlights of the series so far are: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost a quarter of its prisoners. Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages For

A plan to blog more often

I am a prolific writer when I set my mind to it. From 1977 to 1984, I had exchanged an unbroken chain of written letters (about half a dozen per year) with a childhood friend. I had similar, smaller chains with some of my other school friends. I read a lot too. And don't me talking - I usually have a lot to say. But trust me, I listen well too (when I shut up). So, it's like all my life I was waiting for the blog' to get invented, but when that did happen, I seem to have run out of steam to take advantage of it. I've thought about why that is and the answer is simple. I'm a whole lot busier- especially since I'm bootstrapping my startup. But there are those who should be busier than me, successfully blogging all the time. How do they do it? I don't know for sure, but I'm going to start doing the following: 1. Write short blogs, with anything that I can think of. Even a single line quote. 2. Start writing the moment I think of something t