42% of Indian children under age 5 are underweight. The food system has existed for more than half a century and has become riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Studies show that 70 percent of a roughly $12 billion budget is wasted, stolen or absorbed by bureaucratic and transportation costs.
A man tried to apply for the ration card thrice without receiving it. In Jhabua,an official printed 3,500 fake ration cards to give to relatives and friends when spate of children die of malnutrition in villages in that district. Money landers keep the ration cards of the poor so that they can get the subsidised grain (4 cents per kilogram) to sell them at 6 times the price.
Not every poor gets help.
How to make a difference?
It's not just about donating money to the poor. It's about how to help in practical ways. Within the system of the poor. It's about bothering to ask the teenagers with the tins on Flag Day, "how would this money be spent?" It's about being involved physically in the work. It's about finding out the culture and the needs of that community.
Of course, there is no easy solution to poverty. This world remains sinful until perfection comes.
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