HUNGaMA(Hunger and Malnutrition) -A sorry tale of India

“Good Nutrition is a Human Right”

~UNSCN

When I first read this news in electronic media and subsequently the report HUNGaMa,i got baffled by the facts mentioned in the report about india's growth in social sector especially the health sector and Food and Nutritional Security .It reminds me the sorry tale of our PDS(Public distribution system) Network which has crunched in the hands of middlemen,distributors,politicians and bureaucrats(albeit some of them fail to maintain[sic] meritocracy they were known for) with associated corruption.

                                The HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) -Its a Survey conducted across 112 rural districts of India in 2011 provides reliable estimates of child nutrition covering nearly 20% of Indian children. Its objective was to understand the current situation and provide a basis for focused action.The survey was conducted by Naandi Foundation across erstwhile BIMAROU states(Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan,Odisha and U.P) ,now a subset of Empowered Action Group States(Excluding Uttaranchal) and in the states of Kerala,Tamilnadu and Himachal Pradesh.Off 112 districts 100 districts showed poor progress in CDI(child development indicators) and these are referred to as the 100 Focus Districts. The HUNGaMA Survey captured nutrition status of 109,093 children under five years. Data collection took place between October 2010 and February 2011 in 3,360 villages across these states. Report also states that It is also the first ever effort to make the voices of over 74,000 mothers heard.

Some of the key findings of the Report which was released recently are as follows:

• Child malnutrition is widespread across states and districts and starts early in life: 42 per cent of children under five are underweight and 59 per cent are stunted. Of the children suffering from stunting, about half are severely stunted; about half of all children are underweight or stunted by age 24 months.
• Birth weight is an important risk-factor for child malnutrition: the prevalence of underweight in children born with a weight below 2.5 kg is 50 per cent while that among children born with a weight above 2.5 kg is 34 per cent.
• Girls’ nutrition advantage over boys fades away with time: The nutrition advantage girls have over boys in the first months of life seems to be reversed over time as they grow older, potentially indicating neglect vis-à-vis girls in early childhood.
• Mothers’ education level determines children’s nutrition: the prevalence of child underweight among mothers who cannot read is 45 per cent while that among mothers with 10 or more years of education is 27 per cent; 92 per cent mothers had never heard the word “malnutrition”.
• Anganwadi Centres are widespread but not always efficient: There is an Anganwadi Centre in 96 per cent of the villages, 61 per cent of them in pucca buildings; the Anganwadi service accessed by the largest proportion of mothers (86 per cent) is immunization; 61 per cent of Anganwadi Centres had dried rations available and 50 per cent provided food on the day of survey; only 19 per cent of the mothers reported that the Anganwadi Centre provides nutrition counseling to parents.

                                       It's been four years since since the National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS-3) results were published in 2007.the findings of NFHS-3 in terms of protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) speak for themselves.The share of the under-weight children under-3 in the total child population under-3 had not fallen at all (47% in 1998–99 and 46% in 2004–05/06). There is a need to look at food security issues not in isolation alone but with associated Nutritional outcomes as well. Government is planning much more to come out of this mess but implementation has failed miserably ..govt has rolled out many schemes but simply planning doesn’t work. We as a part of society and all the stakeholders should understand the necessity of Nutrition for our future generations, as many of us in our country on every now and then occasions proudly or pseudo-proudly say “These young children are the future of India” .One must understand this in its true spirit. Victoria CG in one of her articles says “The science is clear that the first 1,000 days after conception are the most important. Intervening within this period will have life-long and life-changing impacts on educational attainment, labour capacity, reproductive health and adult earnings. If we wait until a child is two years old, the effects of undernutrition are already irreversible”.

                                          Social and economic backwardness is aggravated by inequality in access to information. Government ,NGO's and people should participate in creating awareness among illiterates,in villages and in targeted areas about nutrition ,nutritional value and other government schemes and their benefits to respective individuals. In this 24x7 information overload age, an aggressive education-communication campaign using multiple media and formats seems to be the obvious opportunity to tap for reaching out to our rural populations.

                          Its very interesting to note that the idea of this survey was triggered by young leaders most of them young Turks from our parliament,subsequently in the name of Citizens’ Alliance against Malnutrition

With inputs from HUNGaMa Report.

Aadhar-Benefits,Concerns and Apprehensions

India may be a emerging global power in terms of economy but its HDI shows where it is actually.Many are reeling under poverty,hunger and two fifth of children are underfed in the country according to recent report published byAction Aid-An International Charity .Albeit many social welfare schemes have been launched by the state for poor but the major problem in its implementation and reaching to the beneficiaries is pilferages and few people can prove that they are poor and actual beneficiaries.Many of these problems could be addressed by a Unique Identity Number where one can prove who he is with the help of technology and If we believe that technology-led solutions can enhance governance and transparency in the country.I think we already know the benefits of UID Number.

The current debate around UIDAI Project-its relevance when a similar project is going on under the Ministry of Home affairs(National Population Register-NPR),technology ,security and privacy . The concerns and apprehensions about the project in these matters were part of Report given by standing committee on finance.Some of the major concerns are :

1)Deals with authentication

Its said that the authentication is to be done by using only fingerprints.  problems identified in relation to fingerprints – including callused hands, the ineffectiveness of fingerprints of persons in manual or hard labor.though if iris scan is used  iris scans too have been found to be unreliable, especially in conditions of manual labour and malnourishment.Many of the laborers, malnourished and undernourished would be at the receiving end  .

Solution Could be :2D/3D-Face Recognition Technique-Its the one of the few biometric methods that posses the merits of both higher accuracy and low intrusiveness.As UIDAI is collecting the snapshot of enroller at the time of enrollment.the basic premise behind this idea is that physiological features are not alterable except by severe injury.(e.g US State police use this mechanism to identify culprits using this technique)

2.Issue of Privacy

Any database that stores personal information carries the risk of its misuse by various agencies (both public and private), which may affect an individual’s privacy. Although govt is drafting privacy bill to ensure legal enforcement .Increasing attacks on Indian Government servers by many foreign intelligentsia is a major concern.but to people who live on streets,ghettos the issue of privacy sounds queerish. Since its optional for people to enroll.

3.Security Issue:

The home ministry  has raised serious security concern over involvement of private agencies in large scale scheme and collection of data of residents and not the citizens.Though UIDAI’s mandate says only about residents.Home ministry was about to use the data of AADHAR for its ambitious project NPRwhich is under the office of Registrar General of India(RGI),but after receiving the complaints that several illegal immigrants got the Aadhaar number, the Home Ministry refused to use the data collected by UIDAI saying that it was not foolproof.

NPR’s goals are  internal security and curbing illegal immigration. and as RGI says enrolment is “irrespective of nationality” and asks people to self-declare nationality. Also, while the 2003 citizenship rules speak of “citizens”, NPR refers only to “usual residents”— i don’t understand about this specific objection raised by home ministry as it also doesn’t mention about residents and moreover it asks people to self-declare .

Concerns on duplication of data,data theft,privacy,security are valid concerns but these can be resolved with holistic approach among all concerned ministries and state governments.we should not make it like other so called flagship programmes  which are in bin.As the recent case of Jharkahand where the enrollments in urban areas have been stopped because of deficient funds for the project.It is said that it hardly costs Rs 100/- per person .Government should find a way to ensure maximum funds for the project and enroll residents beyond its mandate of 200 million enrollments.Initiatives like Aadhar are certainly a game changer in India’s social welfare sector.