The ‘Sick-man of South Asia’ INDIA is ranked 94th out of 118 countries surveyed, below even Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Malawi, Zimbabwe and ninety other developing countries

Balkanization of INDIA into a dozen independent states can solve the hunger problem!



Washington, D.C., Wednesday, October 17, 2007 - While the Bombay Stock market SENSEX zooms to a record 19,000 points making a few rich manipulating Brahmin/Bania investors richer in INDIA, the latest Global Hunger Index-2007 has ranked the intensity if Indian hunger (afflicting the vast majority of Indians - over 79.9% of the population or 800 million unwashed - according to the UN Human Development Report 2006 > http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/24.html  < who go to sleep hungry every night) very high at 94th out of 118  developing countries surveyed.  

The latest Global Hunger Index-2007 report of the International Food Policy Research Institute, (IFPRI) released in Washington DC last weekend, while ranking the hunger in  118 developing countries (>  http://www.ifpri.org/media/20071012ghi/ghi07.pdf   <) has reconfirmed the above UN Human Development Report-2006 findings by listing Indian hunger-misery, nay shame, by ranking INDIA at 94th below even disturbed South Asian countries like Burma (Myanmar) at 66th, Sri Lanka at 69th, Pakistan at 88th, Nepal at 90th, and ninety other developing famished countries around the globe. While Libya, which has nearly eradicated hunger, is ranked first, China has improved its ranking to 47th. INDIA in contrast is ranked at a lowly 94th in the Global Hunger Index-2007, below even famished African states like Malawi at 91st, Burkina Faso at 92nd and Zimbabwe at 93rd and just above ‘basket case’ countries like Sudan at 95th, Tanzania at 96th, Rwanda at 97th and Haiti at 98th. INDIA it seems has been placed in proper company!

Other improvements, some outstanding some ordinary, on the ‘hunger front’, highlighted by the Global Hunger Index-2007 have been shown by Argentina at 2nd, Chile at 5th, Cuba at 9th, Tunisia at 12th, Fiji at 14th, Lebanon at 17th, Mauritius at 18th, Syria at 19th, Turkey at 20th, Egypt at 21st, Brazil at 24th, Mexico at 25th, Jordan at 26th, Iran at 27th, Jamaica 29th, South Africa at 30th, Trinidad & Tobago 33rd, Algeria at 35th, Malaysia at 36th, Morocco at 38th, Guyana at 51st,  Indonesia at 54th, Thailand at 56th, Ghana 64th, Philippines at 67th, Vietnam 73rd, Nigeria 80th, Kenya at 86th, Nepal 90th, and the nearly failed state of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe at 93rd with ‘shining’ INDIA ranked below the above named states at 94th.

For a ‘birds-eye-view’ of hungry India’s shameful performance, after sixty years of independent existence dominated by the ‘Nehru dynasty’, please see Comparative Chart ‘A’ appended below for rankings of randomly selected 32 populous (out of 118 ranked) developing countries (first world developed countries have been excluded) culled from the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) Global Hunger Index 2007:-

 

Comparative chart ‘A’

 

shows rankings of 32 developing countries out of 118 surveyed.

Numbers culled from the Global Hunger Index-2007

released by the

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

which seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty.

http://www.ifpri.org/media/20071012ghi/ghi07.pdf   <

 

Global Hunger Index 2007 RANK out of 118

Country

Population

in

millions Year

 2006

*

Population Estimate

 in

millions

for year

2025

*

Population

Estimate

in

millions  for year

2050

*

Global Hunger index

1990

Global Hunger Index

2007

Global Hunger Index

+  -

From 1990  to

2007

First

Libya

5 million

8 million

10 million

2.70

0.87

+

11th

Russia

  142 mil

  128 mil

   109 mil

---

2.33

----

20th

Turkey

    70 mil

    82 mil

 86 mil

6.90

4.20

+

21st

Egypt

    79 mil

  103 mil

127 mil

8.27

4.27

+

24th

Brazil

  188 mil

  218 mil

228 mil

8.33

4.60

+

25th

Mexico

  107 mil

  130 mil

148 mil

7.93

4.67

+

27th

Iran

    65 mil

    77 mil

   81 mil

9.37

4.73

+

30th

S. Africa

    44 mil

    40 mil.

   33 mil

7.17

5.25

+

47th

China

1,313 mil

1,453 mil

 1,424 mil

12.77

8.37

+

54th

Indonesia

   232 mil

279 mil

 313 mil

18.53

11.57

+

56th

Thailand

65 mil

 71 mil

    69 mil

18.77

12.03

+

66th

Burma

 47 mil

  53 mil

     54 mil

19.77

15.80

+

67th

Philippines

     89 mil

   119 mil

  148 mil

21.90

16.23

+

69th

Sri Lanka

  21 mil

  24 mil

     25 mil

24.40

16.60

+

73rd

Vietnam

     84 mil

   100 mil

   108 mil

27.10

17.70

+

80th

Nigeria

   132 mil

   206 mil

   357 mil

23.77

19.13

+

86th

Kenya

 36 mil

 51 mil

     65 mil

22.03

20.97

+

88th

Pakistan

   166 mil

229 mil

   295 mil

25.73

22.70

+

89th

Laos

    6 mil

   9 mil

     13 mil

26.43

23.23

+

90th

Nepal

 28 mil

 40 mil

     53 mil

28.33

24.30

+

91st

Malawi

13 mil

 20 mil

   30 mil

33.90

24.50

+

92nd

BurkinaFaso

14 mil

24 mil

   44 mil

23.03

24.63

-

93rd

Zimbabwe

 12 mil

 13 mil

   12 mil

21.33

24.83

-

94th

INDIA

1,112 mil

1,449 mil

1,808 mil

33.73

25.03

+

95th

Sudan

 41 mil

  61 mil

 84 mil

25.57

25.60

-

96th

Tanzania

37 mil

 53 mil

  72 mil

27.33

26.13

+

97th

Rwanda

   9 mil

 16 mil

  35 mil

29.90

26.27

+

98th

Haiti

   8 mil

 13 mil

  20 mil

35.20

26.97

+

103rd

Bangladesh

   147 mil

   205 mil

   280 mil

36.97

28.40

+

114th

Ethiopia

     75 mil

   108 mil

145 mil

45.98

33.67

+

117th

Congo-Zaire

     63 mil

   108 mil

 183 mil

28.23

41.17

-

118th

Last

Burundi

   8 mil

     14 mil

   23 mil

32.03

42.37

-

      * Population figures culled from New York Times World Almanac 2007 – pages 846-848

 

 

Comparative Chart B, appended below, shows twenty of the worlds most populous countries, seventeen of them from the developing world. They are included in Comparative Chart ‘A’ above which also shows the projections of their population in the years 2025 and 2050 when feeding the increasing hungry populations will become a much bigger problem then it is today.  

                      Comparative CHART ‘B’

             showing 2006 population of the world’s twenty most populous countries

 

Population

Rank.

The world’s most populous countries with 2006 population in millions. Figures culled from New York Times World Almanac – 2007 Page 848

1

China…… 1, 313 million

2

India …...  1, 112 million

3

U.S……         298 million **

4

Indonesia……232 million 

5

Brazil………  188 million

6

Pakistan……  166 million

7

Bangladesh…  147 million

8

Russia……      142 million

9

Nigeria……      132 million.

10

Japan………    127 million **

11

Mexico……      107 million

12

Philippines……..89 million

13

Vietnam………   84 million

14

Germany………  82 million **

15

Egypt…………   79 million

16

Ethiopia………    75 million

17

Turkey…………  70 million

18

Iran……………    65 million

19

Thailand………     65 million

20

Congo (Zaire)…     63 million


     **   Developed countries not included in IFPRI survey

 

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty. IFPRI is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an alliance of 64 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations. Only two regions of the world—Latin America & the Caribbean and East Asia & Pacific—are on track to reach all Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets related to hunger and child mortality. As part of the Millennium Development Goal, the international community set targets to cut hunger in half and under-five mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015. According to the Global Hunger Index-2007, most countries will not reach all these targets if progress continues at current rates. "Because hunger has many faces, the Global Hunger Index uses a multidimensional approach that simultaneously captures various aspects of hunger and under-nutrition," explained Doris Wiesmann, the IFPRI researcher who developed the Hunger Index. "By combining three indicators into one index and ranking countries accordingly, the Index gives us a very comprehensive picture of hunger in developing and transitional countries." Doris Wiesmann also pointed out that this year, the Global Hunger Index assesses whether developing countries are on track to reach MDG targets that relate to the three Index indicators—the proportion of people who are calorie deficient, child malnutrition, and child mortality.

In September 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Development Declaration, a global plan to meet the needs of the world’s most poor and hungry by 2015. According to Doris Wiesmann, “We are now midway between the declaration and the deadline. By calling attention to countries and regions that are not on track to meet the goals for reducing hunger and child mortality, we hope the Global Hunger Index motivates world and national leaders to take increased action to ensure that the goals are achieved." Only two regions of the world—Latin America & the Caribbean and East Asia & Pacific—are on track to reach all Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets related to hunger and child mortality. As part of the MDGs, the international community set targets to cut hunger in half and under-five mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015. According to the Global Hunger Index, most countries will not reach all these targets if progress continues at current rates.

There is no chance of INDIA reducing the hunger of its ‘unwashed’, like China, Egypt and Thailand are currently doing or Libya has done. INDIA is doing a standing march and is trying to half heartedly improve the miserable lives of its 800 million hungry at what the London Economist calls the ‘Hindu rate of progress’. Out of India’s 2006 population of 1, 112 million, 79.9% (or 887 million) are hungry as compared to China’s 615 million (47% of the population) out of a population of 1,313 million Chinese. By 2050 even if India reduced the numbers of its hungry, which is highly unlikely, to 47% of the population (grown to 1, 808 billion by that point in time) there would still be 850 million hungry Indians living in misery, while China if it stood still at the current 47% hungry rate - and made no further progress at all - it would have 670 million hungry Chinese out of a population of 1, 424 million in 2050.

For the over 800 million unwashed Indians, and captive nations like the Sikhs, Nagas, Kashmiris, Tamils and Untouchables, and others, there is no light at the end of the tunnel no matter how many slogans of ‘India Shining’ and ‘India mahan’, 9% annual growth are repeated by rote like a mantra by the rulers, (an evil nexus of the Brahmin and the Bania) who strut around in palaces in New Delhi built by the Colonial British on stolen Sikh Gurdwara lands. INDIA, in its present size and geographical form, boxed in by Pakistan, Bangladesh and China in the West, East and North respectively, is ungovernable and will continue in squalor and misery for its fast growing ‘unwashed’ hungry majority, angry segments of which are in open armed revolt in rural areas of over 200 districts, spread over eleven Indian states (provinces) under the flag of the egalitarian Naxalite movement..

This misery will continue till the 800 million hungry people, who are in a majority,  realize, to Quote Mr. Winston Churchill’s famous words, that, ‘INDIA is as much a country as the Equator’. “Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention,” is an old truism. Areas in the present Indian map can only prosper if the area is Balkanized (like Europe was after World War I in the early 20th century) into economically viable progressive, democratic, ‘Caste-free’, nations like Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland, Tamilland, Dalitistan and others, instead of continuing in misery as the world’s largest monstrous, caste-ridden, dynastic, ungovernable, oppressive Indian demoNcracy as it is today.