The Hindu : Ineffectiveness of PDS criticised

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 05, 2003

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Ineffectiveness of PDS criticised

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI MARCH 4. The issue of starvation in India, despite a food surplus, and the ineffectiveness of the public distribution system drew criticism from international panelists and participants in a public forum on "Freedom from Hunger and Malnutrition" here today.

The experts suggested that it was time for the country, like most others, to resolve its food security and move on to the greater concern of nutritional security.

"In most countries there is enough food. That is not the issue; the issue is nutrition," said the Vice-President of the Republic of Uganda, Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe. "What is it when you cannot feed people though you have food stored? I call this criminal," she said. "The critical issue is that we do not feel the deficiency of micro-nutrients — that is why we call it silent hunger," the president of Micro-nutrient Initiative, Canada, M.G. Venkatesh Mannar, pointed out.

Nutritional and public health intervention would provide solutions, the international nutrition advisor for `Save the Children', U.K., Anna Taylor, said warning that the system would have to be strengthened for long-term solutions.

The United Nations Under Secretary-General for Management and the chair of the Standing Committee for Nutrition, Catherine Bertini, said: "Children need food to be educated and to grow. Women need food to give birth to healthy children. Otherwise, it will lead to a generational cycle."

The Editor of Frontline, N. Ram, said the media had been good in blowing the whistle on hunger and starvation, but had not done enough on the issue of silent hunger.

The issue of freedom from hunger, the Bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Duque de Caxias in Rio de Janeiro, Dom Mauro, said was not a question of pity but one of dignity.

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