Poverty eliminated - for one person at a time

Poverty eliminated one at a time meaningfully

I hear constantly people complain about how Indian system is corrupt, politicians are corrupt and nothing changes in India etc all the time. Over and over again I hear " This is India nothing will change" " this is India nothing can be or will be done" etc etc. I looked at what exactly Indian people were doing to help their poor fellows. There are many charities and organizations doing things to help much of it is charity. It does not seem to have improved much for the poor as food prices are increasing and country is creaking under the weight of its population and lack of infrastructure.

This got me thinking seriously about how people in the middle class can play a significant role in solving some of the issues that keep India and Indian poor down and in a helpless stage not just for the benefit of the poor, not just for the benefit of the country but for their own benefit and future survival.

A simple concept once mentioned by a relative of mine came to  my thoughts. Although the concept is simple, the idea is simple it is very powerful and so meaningful that I was compelled to use this concept to work out the maths of this concept. I am used to working out the cost benefit analysis of projects so I started out in my usual manner by putting together several ideas as below:

The concept and idea

If every Indian who is working donates Rs 1 per day what can be done.

Indian population is estimated to be 1,184,890,000 according to population clock in August 2009 and 1,139,964,932 according to world bank in 2008.

About 27% of this population is living below poverty with less than $US 1 per day. That is 319,920,000 people. They are living in approximately Rs 45 per day. Imagine if there is a family of 4 then if they buy 1/2 kg of rice at PDS price, kerosene at PDS price, sugar at PDS price 1/2 kg of vegetables  at 20 rupees then virtually this Rs 45 is finished. This leaves such a family to have no access to education, health issues, proper clothes etc. This will perpetuate poverty for these people through generations. However this poverty cycle can be broken if every one uses the concept I have explained below in a systematic manner and not using it for providing  food or charity in the streets.

How can middle class participate in removing poverty one at a time?

In India, about 300 million people i.e. 300,000,000 are considered as middle class population. Let us say only about 200 million are truly middle class as definitions of middle class vary and let us take a conservative estimate. Let us apply the above concept and see what happens.

If every one of these 200,000,000 middle class people  donates Rs 1 per day (you can't buy even a drink of water for this) .then it will be 200,000,000 rupees per day. Let us say a Micro credit Non Government Agency is asked to use this money for micro credit provision to the poor. Usually about 30% needs to be kept for wages and administration of the staff and this will amount to 60,000,000 per day. This will create approximately 500 people to be employed per year for a salary of Rs10,000 per month.

Rest of the money Rs. 140,000,000 will be used for micro credit per day at the rate of Rs 10,000 per deserving person with a plan to develop a micro business or improve a micro business. This means 14,000 people will get the credit. So with one day's Rs 1 will allow 14,000 people to become micro credit business owners. Success of micro credit around the world has been found to be 99% in repayments. Remember Micro credit is not a donation or charity.  It is given as a loan to start up either a business or improve and expand a business so that poor people without access to proper credit (not the money lenders) can be given a start and this will help the whole family.

Now if we create business of 14,000 per day then for 365 days it will be 5,110,000 poor people will be starting businesses or improving businesses per year. Let us they will pay back the credit in 5 years time at the rate of Rs. 2000 per year and Rs. 166 per month or Rs 5 per day. So your 1 years worth of Rs365 will start turning a credible profit in 5 years time which can be reinvested in either the same business or for other purposes.

Additionally 182,500 (14,000 x 365) jobs can be created per year in various aspects of the micro credit management.

How to reduce the concept scale to what is achievable?

Now let us say you are in a apartment block of 20 apartments (or a book club or a sports club or a work group). Let us apply the same concept that there are 2 people per apartment who are in the middle class bracket. Therefore 40 people. Now these people donating Rs 40 per day will lead to 14,600 rupees per building/year. If you sponsor 1 micro credit business per year (Rs 10,000) and 1 child's school fees, books and shoes per year (Rs 4,600), every apartment block can help 1 family and 1 child through education. Imagine how many of these apartment blocks, friends groups, classmates facebook groups etc are there)

Now isn't  this concept workable? Isn't it simple?

How can you make it happen in other ways?

1. You have money from selling your news paper and magazines monthly - collect it in your apartment block and sponsor a micro credit. There are many in India and on the web. Check out their credibility and ensure they are not a charity but a micro credit/micro finance organization where you will receive money back and can invest again and again over a number of years and adding your daily contribution each day to sponsor more deserving people. As an example look at sites such as Goonje, RangDe, Global giving, Kiva etc.( I am not recommending any one as that is not the reason for this blog)

2. Sponsor a child through WorldVision, Save the Children, CRY, OXFAM SOSChildrens villages etc. by collecting Rs 1 per day from your apartment building.

3. Collect Rs 1 per day from your family and extended family members and sponser the education of a child in a rural government school or sponsor computer education of 1 child per year. There are many charity organizations who are providing computer education to rural poor kids in India. They need more money.

4. Collect money and purchase a solar light for a family in slums. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmf_ZEQGKOU. Nest Ltd in Hyderabad sells them for approximately Rs 1300 per lantern which runs for 4 hours per charge. kerosene lamps cause fumes which cause health problems and safety problems as children get burnt. http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/nest.

5. Collect money and purchase a smokeless chula for a poor person from the slums to reduce respiratory diseases and blindness induced by smoke in unventilated area. It costs about Rs. 700. http://www.livemint.com/2007/07/03141551/Smokeless-biomass-stoves-launc.html

6. Collect money to buy some bamboo chapai and razai for a poor family. It will cost about Rs 2000.

7. Collect money to buy some chappals or sandals for children of the orphanages or slums. These kids are walking on spit etc on the roads carrying diseases such as tuberculosis, flu, HIV/AIDS etc. Providing them with protection will minimise the spread of these diseases. A Hawaii chappal costs about Rs 200 maximum or even cheaper when bought in bulk.

8. Collect money for a year or 2 and purchase a computer for a computer education charity or school.

9. Collect money from your group and donate it to Jaipur foot organization http://www.jaipurfoot.org/07_Donations.asp so that they can fit a person with an artificial limb which costs only U$ 40 per foot. this will help to increase the income of many families. In India rural poor now have to have amputations due to accidents in the field and diseases such as diabetes which bring out gangrene etc.

10. Donate money to an orphanage or poor school to allow them to provide milk to kids. Kids who do not get enough protein from the ages of 0-10 suffer from reduced mental development. Milk has 4% protein.

11. Donate money for a girl to go to school from rural areas. Indian family system generally educates boys but not girls. However it is demonstrated time and again that if a girl is educated entire family benefits not just the girl. In addition education of girls also improves the education level of her future family. This is the situation world over.

12. Donate money so that your buildings maids' kids can purchase books for school and get educated.

13. Collect money and provide insurance to a bus load of government school kids to go to the river bed on an environmental education to make them aware of how to look after the river systems.

14. Collect money and support a tribal group so that they can be productive in the mainstream environment.

15. Collect money so that a injured Jawans family can access rehabilitation and education.

16. Collect money in your building and build a playground with proper facilities in a slum for kids.

17. Collect money and develop a garden around the slums and teach people how to grow vegetables and flowers for themselves in community gardens.

18. Collect money and build toilet blocks around slums and train the children in value of hygiene. Make sure men and women's toilets are built with adequate safety and much apart from each other. Build separate childrens' toilets near womens' toilets. This will prevent criminal activities which affect children and young women.

19. Collect money and organize health awareness camps to urban slums. Help slum youth to develop educational programs to address the needs of the slums.

20. Collect money so that abused kids and street kids can be admitted to orphanages and schools. In India kids without an address can't be admitted to any schools. This leads to transient workers kids (like people who apply tar on roads who move with work, construction workers) not being able to access education as they do not have a permanent address. How Right to education act will change this is yet to be seen.

21. Collect money to purchase an old van to develop mobile libraries and educational materials for kids of transient workers.

22. Collect money to develop toy, book, music libraries to orphanages and disadvantaged government schools. Toys and plays develop mental skills, co-ordination, team playing and social behaviour in children.

23. Collect money to appoint a music teacher to develop music skills of kids in slums and orphanages. Give hope.

24. Provide money to educate your house maids child.

Concept of Time

Now you are not in the middle class and earning money but are literate with a minimum education of year 10 school and can read and write English and Kannada or Hindi well. How can you contribute? Time is money and poor children need your time, your attention, good influence and guidance.

So what can you do?

1. If you are a retired teacher or college lecturer or a college student join Teach India and sign up for it to teach in Indian schools. Times of India has organized this voluntary teaching group.

2. If you can not go out, invite a child from a poor government school and teach maths, biology, science, English, Kannada for 1 hour per day or week.

3. If you are computer savvy but due to circumstances can't do the above, develop a blog to teach poor kids computer literacy and basic life skills.

4. If you can visit a local government hospital and read a story book for a patient. Work with the hospital authorities so that human company can reduce depression and help in recovery of people.

5. If you can visit an old age home and provide 1 hour per week company to a person whose family may be elsewhere or who longs for company during the week.

6. If you can help an elderly person buy helping to do shopping of groceries and food. In western countries go an deliver meals on wheels to elderly people.

7. Visit a lonely older relative and give them company and take them out for a walk. Depression among the older generation in cities like Bangalore will increase as many older people who are not with their children find it difficult to go for a walk due to crime, frailty, fear etc. Staying at home without getting sunlight will also reduce Vitamin D levels in elderly which has not been linked to many health problems.

8. Visit a bed ridden elderly person and talk to them and be a good company for 1 hour per week.

9. Make sweets and take fruits on festival days to orphanages. For many children this is the only time they get any thing. Here is the list from Indian orphanages network http://www.indianorphanages.net/orphanage/orphanages.html

10. Ask your kids to make presents for children of orphanages and give it to them during festival times.

11. If you can knit or do crochet use your skill. Make some sweaters or shawls and donate it to orphanages children or old age homes. Many kids in India and rest of the world contract and suffer from diseases due to cold weather. Elderly are prone to cold weather as well.

12. Donate your children's old books to orphanages in India so that kids can read and write.

13. If you cant collect money collect old clothes ( if you haven't given it to your maid) from your building and donate it to Goonj (http://www.goonj.org/) to save women from infections and diseases.

14. Help organizations such as Banyan to address mental health issues which drain the family and economy of its productivity (http://www.thebanyan.org/)

15. If you are computer savvy teach rural farmers to use sites like echoupal or become a volunteers to help farmers. http://www.echoupal.com/.

16. Talk to your elderly relative on the phone every week. Do not under estimate the power of loneliness in families especially when people are working all sorts of shifts etc.

17. Look after your relatives child after school till parents come back. It takes a village to raise a child. don't assume every child will have a grandparent to look after it as many people migrate to other states and countries for job and personal circumstances.

18. If you are in a large business lobby your company to donate computers, money and volunteer time to slums through Red Cross etc or through your local charity.

19. Collect used novels and books from people through your workplace or home and organize to sell it through your local rotary club or lions club etc. This will allow schools and individuals to purchase books in lots for a cheap price and at the same time raise lots of money. Here in my small town volunteers of local rotary (mostly retired people and others) organize this each year. This year we raised $35,000 for charities.

20. If you own a company sponser a child's education. Create an employee of the month program and offer bonuses or cash prizes to encourage staff to stay and contribute.

21. If you are an engineer join a group of students and participate in an invention which will help the poor.

22. If you are a doctor participate in training rural doctors or participate in medical camps. Many ophthalmologists (eye doctors) from US and Australia raise money and go every year to train doctors and conduct operations in medical camps each year.

23. If you are an accountant then teach a poor person how to do banking and save money. Volunteer your time in a micro credit agency.

25. If you know how to play sports, crafts, music, drawing, painting,photography etc. volunteer to train some kids in a slum or a government school. http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/


It is time to think and time to act!

I have provided a list of ideas in this blog. Many families are sponsoring children from India including me. This is not great nor noble. I believe it is the duty of every Indian to give back to the society in a meaningful manner. If you can't do any of the ideas or more then you have lost every right to complain about poverty or what is the government is doing as you are not doing anything either.

There are 437 million poor people in India barely struggling to survive and live everyday. Even the best government in the world can not lift this kind of poverty without the help of everyone who can in the country.  India's population is expected to grow by another 300-400 million in the next 40 years even at the current fertility rate of approximately 2.3. India already has 54% of its current population below the age of 30. Only 11% of this group has any education even today. Growth of Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai etc will only increase by at least 2-4 million as there has been little infrastructure development in rural areas. Imagine Bangalore or Mumbai then! this is the current projected figure as world is expected to increase from its current population of 6.5 billion to 9.5 billion. India has admitted recently to have failed to reduce its fertility target to 2 which is just the replacement target.

Consequences of doing nothing today!

Look around you! if you see slums around the home, workplace you can do something about it. if you see a woman sitting with a crying child next to a chula (stove) trying to cook food in the cold nights air then you can do something about it.

If you see a poor woman with bent back walking to beg money in front of the temple where you have gone to pray for the good of your family then you can do something about it!

If you see a child walking carrying building scraps barefoot then you can do something about it!

If you see a rural child not getting proper education then you can do something about it!

If you see a child come next to your car when on the road to beg or sell a rose then you can do something about it!

if you see a child sitting near a hut with a runny nose and scabies on the legs, you can do something about it!

Don't pretend that your maid is rich as she and her family earn few thousand rupees per month. In many cities it mostly goes to rent and food. Education takes a back seat due to financial reasons and lack of interest shown by the illiterate parents. This leads of another generation of poor un or undereducated population. If rural poor are educated and trained in rural enterprises then they do not have to migrate to the cities and create slums such as Dharavi, Mumbai and infrastructure demands and crime and diseases.

Every time you drive past a poor child, poor woman you need to think about the future of your child and your grandchild. Every poor child today who does not get educated or trained in any manner will get married one day. He or she will give birth to 3 children who are alive at the current fertility rate (higher among rural uneducated) . This will lead to 3 more children out of which one may get educated and rest of the two un or undereducated (I do not mean only university degree as education). Today 35% of the middle class and upper class are carrying 65% of the population in some way. Every time this ratio changes by the addition of 2 more uneducated children in 10 years time (per today's 1 uneducated child) then the 30% or less will have to carry more people per person. This will affect the quality of life for your child and grand child as traffic becomes higher, crimes increase, food prices increase, rents increase and pollution and carbon footprint increase.

Think about it when your grandchild will not get a seat in the school even if you are prepared to shell out more money, think about it when your son or daughter has respiratory problems due to long hours in traffic, think about it when you can't walk on the street due to lack of maintenance or crime, think about it or face break ins and crimes increasing and living in fear, think about it when cost of mediciens you need go up.

Act Now! and see how you can help others and you!

Today Bangalore is crying for better infrastructure and disease control as uncontrolled population migration is taking place both from urban cities and rural towns and villages.  This need not happen if every one acts now to help.

If every village has people who are trained in various rural business related activities such as 1. How to maximise crop production 2. How to manage livestock to prevent foot and mouth disease and increase milk production, 3. how to test the soil properly to ensure better management of agriculture and climate change, 4. how to conduct pesticide/herbicide spraying safely and properly 5. how to test the water and manage irrigation through drip irrigation systems 6. how to use computers to understand the markets and prices 7. How to store grain in silos and chillers to prevent food grain waste and vegetable waste and mismanagement 8. how to transport grain and vegetables in a proper manner to get best prices, 9. how to develop horticultural enterprises which get export dollars and best urban prices etc 100s of businesses can be developed around each of these areas. Rural poor youth can be trained through rural scholarships and apprenticeships to not only get themselves trained but through micro credits become business owners and trainers themselves.

This will naturally reduce the rural - urban migration and don't leave the rural areas empty of its youth. One does not need big manufacturing or IT industry in rural areas to do this. There are  opportunities to develop businesses from agriculture, animal husbandry, logistics, transport, silo management, fertilizer spreading, spraying chemical contractors, grain carting contractors, commodity brokers, grain traders, small vegetable gardens and cottage industries, tissue culture, horticulture companies to clone and multiply horticultural plants for urban and export consumption, seed production contractors and sellers, animal feed companies to produce tailor made animal feed for maximizing production, value added products such as animal skins for leather manufacture, wool for yarn etc, mechanics, resellers so on. The rural youth can be trained and in some cases there may be case for urban youth to move to rural areas. Much of this training requires at best high school education not university degrees. One does not need a university degree to get training in driving a tractor to spread fertilizers accurately and develop a contracting business using this skill. One does not need university degree to set up drip irrigation systems and develop a business in mainataining it and managing it. a person does not need to be an engineer to set up silos and maintain them.

Increase in rural production can be more than 4% the government is aiming for. If you want food costs to go down and your city to stop bursting under infrastructure pressure then you can do something about it! Around the rural businesses other engineering and allied health opportunities, shops etc will develop and prevent rural youth and people from moving away and create urban stress. rural health will improve leading to population reduction as increase in wealth is directly linked to reduction in population.

Food security and water security is a high priority among countries now due to climate change. Countries are securing these vital assests (India can pretend as much as it wants to that climate change is not being contributed by it). Due to climate change, food export oriented countries such as Russia, Canada, Australia and US may not be able to export much grain to import dependent countries such as India and China. For example, drought in Australia led to a reduction in rice export from Australia to Asia leading to food roits prior to global financial crisis. Russia this year has banned wheat exports due to climate change drought and forest fires. Food inflation in India is 10-18%. You doing nothing will only help to increase this problem. In India 150,000 farmers have committed suicide, 8,000,000 (8 million) farmers have given up on farming and this number is rapidly growing not just in India but all over the world. In 20 more years India will have added as per current rate another 230,000,000 people. If you are 55 today and retired imagine if India needs to feed another 230 million people how much the food prices will go up due to sheer volume needed, doughts, floods and climate change. Your pension or retirement income will not increase much but food costs will. Food inflation could damage Indian economic growth according all expert projections.

Stop pretending and saying you can't do much or do anything. You can if You want to! everyone can! It is time you stopped turning your back and started facing facts and playing a part in your country's issues rather than being a spectator. If Indians don't help themselves now no one else will and no one else can!

"Ask not what your country can do but what you can do for your country" - John F Kennedy

"There is enough for every one's need but not every one's greed" - Mahatma Gandhi

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal - Martin Luther King Jr.

Helping hands are better than talking lips - Someone who has courage to do and change something. A true patriot!
 

I hope this article got you thinking. Even in countries like the US, UK and Australia population and food and water security debates are hotting up enough to become serious election issues and discussions. Some countries who are busy not doing anything are already facing the consequences today of not investing in infrastructure and needs of the poor. Western aid and loans are drying up.

I am doing my bit but can you say you have? Think now! Act now!

India - Get rid of the public food distribution system for food grain

Failure of Public Distribution System is leading to sheer poverty

The article below was published in New York Times few days ago. The article shows that the so called Public Distribution System in India has not only failed miserably but also has led to another type of bonded labour and slavery where illiterate and poor are held hostage by the merchants who are supposed to be the retail end of this failed system.

India and Indians need to think about the entire supply chain from food production to food quality and eating. Indians need to think about what is happening to the agricultural land, forests and ecosystems through mindless growth and use of land for urban pursuits rather than either to develop high production systems or maintaining biodiversity.

How can this whole utter cruelty of poverty be dismantled? Can it be dismantled? making it a right will not change anything as people first of all do not understand the legal implications of a right for anything means. The right does not guarantee anything when the exploited and the exploiters have completely different power bases socially, emotionally and economically.

It is my opinion that India needs to seriously restructure its logistics right from subsidies for farm production, water and electricity to on farm and large scale silo systems to transport using trucks including chiller trucks all run through solar power systems. Farmgate collection of produce and grain should be the norm rather than put the burden of transport on farmers. All irrigation should be done at night using pumps which monitor water flows according to the crop requirement rather than based on farmers lack of knowledge and convenience. Pump sets should be provided with solar systems only to those farmers who install drip irrigation systems. All canal and drip irrigation systems should be phased out as studies have shown that up to 40% of the water from these systems will end up evaporating.

Silo systems should be set up every 25km for grains and produce chiller system should be set up in every district and one for 5 villages. This will allow grain and produce to be collected locally, stored locally and sold to resellers locally. This will reduce the cost of transport, food miles and carbon footprint of food production while keeping grain viable and produce fresh.

All PDS shops should be scarped fully. Currently ration card holders and later UID holders should be allowed to purchase grain at any shop they want. This will stop the PDS shop owners acting as money lenders and stop them from holding people's ration cards and enslave them. The shop keepers should be provided digital meters which will automatically record the ration card number, amount and type of grain purchased and when. On a monthly basis the shopkeepers should submit this record to the government and government should remit the money back to the shop keepers so that they are not left short changed.

This will prevent this 2 tier system for haves and havenots. It will give choice for the poor to shop at places where they can shop. It will stop a corrupt system feed off on poor and destitute mercilessly. This may not stop corruption 100% but it will improve the capacity of the people get food grain.

Poverty is not just a social or emotional or a financial problem. Poverty is an ecological problem in a big way. Every poor person who lives off in a subsistence manner is not contributing anything to the productivity of the country. However they are using some amount of fuel, food etc although minimal to live off. Many poor people use wood fire by either picking up wood from forests, road side or where ever they can find them. This wood is actually home for millions of insects, worms etc and thereby reducing area for biodiversity.

Every poor person can not purchase new technology of any kind although they would benefit the most from it. I am not talking about Ferrari or plasma TVs. For example a person who can purchase a smokeless stove can benefit from a health perspective which in turn increases the persons mental well being and productivity. This in turn has flow on effect as children are no longer inhaling the smoke which causes lung diseases and they are better for it and have better learning outcomes too at school. Smokeless stoves can reduce environmental carbon emissions too.

Every malnutritioned person unfortunately becomes a burden on the society as it leads to physical and mental health problems and lack of participation in the main stream economy. Malnutrition is as bad a obesity in its effect on the society and health of the society.

Giving land to landless is not a solution either. The people who are landless are landless for a reason. It is better to provide microcredit to the person and encourage them to develop a business of their own rather than depend on vagaries of weather, markets etc. while developing financial literacy, networking capacity provided by microcredit NGOs and develop confidence in their ability. Giving land to people who lack confidence will only make them sooner or later make them vulnerable to money lenders.

India needs to address its food wastage problems. It needs to address is logistics and distribution systems urgently to prevent use of food to exploit the poor and make them slaves for a corrupt failed system. Making it a right only looks good on paper not provide real solution as use of a right also comes with empowerment of the poor. Indian poor irrespective of caste or creed are not empowered despite governments interest in developing schemes which fail again and again.

India Asks, Should Food Be a Right for the Poor?


By JIM YARDLEY Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Published: August 8, 2010

Meera Damore sat with her severely malnourished son, Pappu, in the Jhabua District government hospital in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight.  Jogdiya, 2, lay with an intravenous drip in the Jhabua District Government Hospital as his father, Ratan Bhuria, looked after him and his 4-year-old sister.

A line outside the Fair Price Shop, a government store where subsidized food is sold, in the village of Ban outside Jhabua. Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling through India’s social safety net. They should receive subsidized government food and cooking fuel. They do not. The older children should be enrolled in school and receiving a free daily lunch. They are not. And they are hardly alone: India’s eight poorest states have more people in poverty — an estimated 421 million — than Africa’s 26 poorest nations, one study recently reported.

For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for people like Mr. Bhuria has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?

The rethinking is being prodded by a potentially sweeping proposal that has divided the Congress Party. Its president, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene. Such entitlements have helped the Congress Party win votes, especially in rural areas.

To Ms. Gandhi and many left-leaning social allies, making a food a legal right would give people like Mr. Bhuria a tool to demand benefits that rightfully belong to them. Many economists and market advocates within the Congress Party agree that the poor need better tools to receive their benefits but believe existing delivering system needs to be dismantled, not expanded; they argue that handing out vouchers equivalent to the bag of grain would liberate the poor from an unwieldy government apparatus and let them buy what they please, where they please.

“The question is whether there is a role for the market in the delivery of social programs,” said Bharat Ramaswami, a rural economist at the Indian Statistical Institute. “This is a big issue: Can you harness the market?” India’s ability, or inability, in coming decades to improve the lives of the poor will very likely determine if it becomes a global economic power, and a regional rival to China, or if it continues to be compared with Africa in poverty surveys.

India vanquished food shortages during the 1960s with the Green Revolution, which introduced high-yield grains and fertilizers and expanded irrigation, and the country has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past decade. But its poverty and hunger indexes remain dismal, with roughly 42 percent of all Indian children under the age of 5 being 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. Ms. Gandhi’s proposal, still far from becoming law, has been scaled back, for now, so that universal eligibility would initially be introduced only in the country’s 200 poorest districts, including here in Jhabua, at the western edge of the state of Madhya Pradesh.

With some of the highest levels of poverty and child malnutrition in the world, Madhya Pradesh underscores the need for change in the food system. Earlier this year, the official overseeing the state’s child development programs was arrested on charges of stealing money. In Jhabua, local news media recently reported a spate of child deaths linked to malnutrition in several villages. Investigators later discovered 3,500 fake food ration booklets in the district, believed to have been issued by low-level officials for themselves and their friends.

Inside the district hospital, Mr. Bhuria said he had applied three times for a food ration card, but the clerk had failed to produce one. “Every time he would say, ‘We will do it, we will do it,’ ” Mr. Bhuria recalled. “But he never did.” A farmer, Mr. Bhuria fell into deep debt six years ago after he mortgaged his land for a loan of 150,000 rupees, or about $3,200. Like most people in the district, Mr. Bhuria is a Bhil, a member of a minority group whose customs call for the family of the groom to pay a “bride price” before a wedding. Mr. Bhuria spent most of his loan on his brother’s wedding and was left landless, yet he and his wife kept having children. They now have six.

He and his wife migrated with their children to work as day laborers in the neighboring state of Gujarat. Working in Gujarat is common for farmers from Jhabua, but since none can use their ration booklets outside their home villages, they struggle to feed their families. When migrants returned to plant their fields in July, the malnutrition wards began to fill up at the district hospital.

“This is a cycle,” said Dr. I. S. Chauhan, who oversees the wards. “The mother is also malnourished. And they are migrant workers. They work all day and can’t care for their children.”

Moneylenders are common across rural India, often providing loans at extortionate rates. Some farmers hand over food booklets as collateral. Sitting in a small shop, Salim Khan said people approach him for loans when a child is sick or if they need cash to travel for migrant work. “Until they repay me,” he said, “I keep their ration card.” He uses the cards to buy grain at government Fair Price Shops at the subsidized rate of about 2 rupees, or 4 cents, a kilogram. He resells it on the open market for six times as much. The margin represents interest on the loan. He has held the ration cards of some migrants for seven years. “Sometimes I’ll have 50 cards,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll have 100 or 150. It’s not just me. Other lenders do this, too.” He said he was willing to lend slightly more money to the most destitute because their yellow ration booklets made him eligible for the full 77 pounds of grain, the most available in a tiered rationing system. “The yellow ones are best for me,” he said.

This is just one of the illegalities that permeate the system, according to people in Jhabua. Bribery is also common; government inspectors are known to extort monthly payments from the clerks who sell the subsidized grain. Some clerks pay small bribes to local officials to get their jobs or keep them. In turn, moneylenders slip money to clerks to let them use the ration cards to collect the subsidized grain, sugar and fuel. In a cavernous government warehouse, bags of grain are stacked almost 15 feet high, awaiting trucks to carry loads to different Fair Price Shops. R. K. Pandey, the manager, blamed local men for the persistent malnutrition in the district, saying they often sell the subsidized wheat on the open market and buy alcohol. He also noted that the Bhil population favored corn, not wheat, so besides buying alcohol, they also sell the grain to buy corn.

Efforts are under way to reform the national system. Officials in the state of Chhattisgarh have curbed corruption by tracking grain shipments on computers, so that officials cannot steal and resell it.

Many social advocates, suspicious of market solutions, say that such reforms prove that the system can be improved. But pro-market advocates say that issuing either food coupons or direct payments would circumvent much of the corruption and allow recipients more mobility and freedom of choice. They point to the eventual creation of a new national identity system — in which every person will have a number — as a tool that can make such direct benefits possible.

These sorts of debates seem like abstractions in much of Jhabua, where poverty and hunger are twinned. At the malnutrition ward, Dr. Chauhan said that Jogdiya, the tiny 2-year-old, had pneumonia, diarrhea and possibly tuberculosis. His health had been steadily deteriorating in recent weeks, but his father, Mr. Bhuria, had no money for either food or medicine. He had gone to Gujarat in mid-July in search of migrant work but then quickly returned after Jogdiya and Nani became sicker. A relative had warned him not to go, saying his children were too sick.

But he had felt he had no choice. “We didn’t have anything to eat,” he had said.

Given a chance every one can be productive in India

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/83181/an-untouchable-womans-journey-york.html

India speaks about a growth rate of 9% and IT boom etc on one hand. On the other talks about perpetuating the caste system which is neither helpful to advance the society nor helpful to the well being. The classification of people once used to define social hierarchy and occupation in the ancient times later got corrupted to be used for discrimination of human beings born in one of the oldest civilizations. Today this system is being used to develop a discriminatory system sanctioned by the government, abused by the society and taken advantage by a minority. Affirmative actions don't help much except that it gives a platform to fight for legal rights.


 India needs to change its tact if it needs to improve it human capital. Clearly its outdated implementation of affirmative action conceived in the post independence era has not worked to help the poor especially in the rural and tribal areas. It has now become a system loathed by the majority and used solely for the purpose of "feel good factor" by successive governments. It has neither improved the social standing or social status of few who have benefited from it as they have now become the "creamy layer" of the discriminating system and  they themselves do not see the discrimination they are imposing on less fortunate members of their own caste, subgroup etc.

There is an urgent need to change social mindset of India. Once the governments sets up such systems based on age old social discriminatory system and so called "good intentions" it has every chance of being misused and abused by all to perpetuate such discrimination rather than removing them. It becomes a "license" to discriminate rather than treat all people as equal and with equal capacity for achievement if equal opportunity is provided. The net result is that the poor and helpless irrespective of whether they are the legal beneficiaries of such a discriminatory system continue to suffer due to social conditioning, fear based mindset and lack of access to facilities and services due to geography or social barriers.

To change the social attitudes what should India do? Stop its affirmative actions? Create a social system?. Communists of the world tried their best to remove discriminatory systems through a social ideology based system which to a large extent resulted in abuse of the system and promoting lowest common denominator. Therefore it is not a solution. To prosper, a society needs incentive and competition. However such a society also needs to develop level playing ground for all to play fairly and without handicaps put on them. India is no such society. So what is the answer? To some extent Right to Education Bill has in its own way led this change. RTE bill has signaled to the society, markets and everyone in a legal manner that all who are born in India have a full legal right to education or Vidya a scared right revered and coveted right from the ancient Vedic times to today. The RTE has also sent a social signal to everyone who tries to deny this right. The RTE has clearly said that it is no longer about those who choose to avail the reservation system to get education that matters but everyone has the right to education just as one has the right to breathe and eat.

The RTE if implemented in the right manner coupled if at all with a "Bill of Rights" to the citizens of India, will be instrumental in changing the social conditioning in India through education. Women and children once educated, will no longer be held hostage by the caste system and placement of people in pigeon holes perpetuated by the government. Even basic literacy will enable women to get access to information rather than be misled by manipulations and misinformations provided by so called well intentioned relatives, family and friends.

It is well known around the world that creating affirmative action will only go so far. Creating so called job guarantee schemes for the poor will provide a quasi welfare system which once again underestimates their capacity to participate in the mainstream economy  and further undermines them by saying to them you are capable of any productive activity only if the government provides you with a false wage for a non market needed job. More than that it provides "welfare conditioning" and lack of self worth and confidence amonst the recipients. Developing and providing access to services and education will go a long way in changing social systems and age old superstitions and conditioning which people cling on to due to fear and habit.

Poor people may not contribute today directly for development of IT code or apps. It would be a huge mistake to underestimate their capacity and hunger to improve given half a chance. They can use the tools of e-commerce to participate in the market economy and be as productive as anyone else. Microcredit systems have shown that providing small loans to people to develop small business enterprises has led to change in the mentality of just being subservient labourers to small business owners with capacity to make decisions which includes market based decisions. Participation in markets will provide confidence and finances required to take certain risks and change in the mindset. This is the true benefit of RTE not just the education and literacy.

If every Indian who is earning gave Rs 100 per year to help a poor students to buy books then many kids will be able to get education. Education is the key to making the society and life better for all. Businesses should think about what would it be for their benefit if many kids who are getting educated today become either employees or customers of their businesses in a few years time.

An IT company, a corner store needs customer base to survive and compete when so many people are competing for the same Rs. Everyone in India should think about atleast meeting a small cost of education of a  poor child. there is no excuse to say what can we do the problem is too big. A boy who begs today or a girl who sells flowers for 10 rupees today can become a customer or a business or an employee of the business. Indian society which has benefited from education, first needs change its mindset of marginalizing, pitying and providing lip service to the poor. 

Every mighty ocean is made of little drops of water from rain. Every rupee counts. Don't just complain. Don't just blame the government or those around you or those "rich people".  Participate either by your self or through a charity or provide a loan through microcredit. Any one who provides an excuse is just an unwilling lip service provider.Publish Post

To quote someone "Helping hands are thousand times better than talking lips"
"Be the change you want to see" " There is enough for everyone's need not everyone's greed"- Mahathma Gandhi.