Should Indian Leaders Who Spend Billions on Submarines While Others Starve Go Unpunished? - synopsis:
"While 2 million children die of malnutrition and starvation, India builds and buys submarines at the cost of this pathetic death and the stunted development of over 40% of its children who along with their parents suffer hunger. Lets help bring public awareness to bear on this homicidal horror of misplaced values by India's political leaders. We speak up to save the children."
In New York, when Prime Manmohan Singh was to address the UN General Assembly, a petition was circulated by the The Riverside Church Global Justice and Peace Ministry and the All Souls Unitarian Church Peace Task Force:
"Riverside Global Justice and Peace Ministries Endorsed Event
Petition
Please!
SAVE MILLIONS OF CHILDREN
DYING OF STARVATION
& MALNUTRITION while
$BILLIONS for NUCLEAR SUBMARINES
are being spent
Indian Prime Minister Mammohan Singh launched a 3 billion dollar nuclear submarine. A sub that can carry Russian built missiles equipped to deliver India's Atomic bombs. A submarine made at the cost of taking bread from the mouths and life from the chests of Prime Minister Singh's fellow citizens. Both the cost of building nuclear submarines, and the purchasing of others, are paid for with funds drawn on the treasury of a "democracy' that does not feed its children.
Singh's India is a gigantic torture chamber for the 47% of its children under five who suffer malnutrition. [47% is a World Bank estimate] Malnutrition makes children prone to illness and stunts their physical and intellectual growth for a lifetime, with dire consequences for mobility and mortality. Its also torture for the parents who watch in agony as 2.1 million of their kids die before their fifth birthday from malnutrition and preventable illnesses. [UN estimate from Malnutrition in India, Wikipedia]
As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 3/12/2009
"NEW DELHI "Small, sick, listless children have long been India's scourge "a national shame," in the words of its prime minister, Manmohan Singh. after a decade of galloping economic growth, child malnutrition rates are worse ..." Seems by the Prime Minister's own admission, his wife breaking the bottle of champagne on the bow of this incredible investment last month becomes a hideous spectacle of death over life.
Akshay Mangla in Delhi complains that the pathetic state of child health and education in India should be seen as no less than a total failure of its democracy, public institutions and civil society.
Malnutrition getting worse in India by Damian Grammaticas, BBC News, Madhya Pradesh
"About 60% children in Madhya Pradesh state are malnourished. Lying on a bed is a tiny malnourished child. Her limbs wasted, her stomach bloated, her hair thinning and falling out. She stares, wide-eyed, blankly at the ceiling. Roshni is six months old. She should weigh 4.5kg. But when she is placed on a set of scales they settle at just 2.9kg.
BBC News, 7/26/09 India launches nuclear submarine. "... a second one is due to be constructed shortly. Pravda, Russia, 20.08.2008 "India places two-billion-dollar order for Russian missiles " made for submarines of the Indian Navy. The nearest order is seven submarines." Manasi Kakatkar, ForeignPolicyBlogs.com, --India getting two Akula class nuclear powered attack submarines from Russia, and six Scorpene submarines from France"
With its attention getting front page article India Asks, Should Food Be a Right for the Poor? featuring a photo unbearable to look at, the New York Times has broadened responsibility for this unbearable inhumanity to include its readers outside India."
Starvation on a planet where obesity is a growing problem is grotesque commentary on the indifferent heartlessness of otherwise decent people in the desperate and sometimes savage commodified and commercialized society most of us have accepted as necessary. But when staring at the photo of one dying child among millions, few of us escape seeing something of ourselves or our own children in that expiring life pictured in the newspaper.
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