Diseases in India

Stacy Castillo

        India, unfortunately, struggles with huge problems that affect most of their people and leaves many of them dead. Issues that India struggles with that affect their country include issues such as hunger, poverty, diseases, inequality, human trafficking, etc. Hunger is not the only major issue within India, disease is one of them too. Diseases affect the people of India just as much, if not more, than hunger does. Diseases are everywhere in India,  but the diseases in the slums of India are the ones that are doing the worst damage. There are many causes for the spread of such terrible diseases in India but the major causes are clearly the environmental issues in India and the increasing poverty in the country.

         The primary environmental issues in India that cause diseases are the various types of pollution in the country. India has the worst air pollution in the world, causing its citizens diseases like asthma and other respiratory problems. The air pollution in India can cause diseases such as heart disease  and cancer and the causes are mainly from globalization. The causes of India's pollution,  according to Ganapti Information Technology Services are specifically emissions from vehicles, thermal power plants, industries and refineries (Ganapati Information Technology Services). Water pollution can also cause many diseases because the people are not using or drinking clean water.  Instead, they are using and drinking contaminated water that can cause numerous diseases. The horrible environmental issues they struggle with are a huge cause for the spread of diseases.

           The increasing poverty in the country is also a huge cause because now there are more people living packed in the slums of India and there is less food for people. The more packed living environments, the faster diseases will spread because there is constant contact between people in these living environments. The lack of food in the slums causes the people to look for food and eat what they can find, which might sometimes be food off the ground or left-over food. Eating food off the ground or eating someone else's left-overs that were found in the garbage  cause a huge increase in diseases because some food may even contain diseases (Cultural Intelligent Collaborators). The increasing poverty in the country is a major cause of the diseases in India because of the living environments and the lack of food there is for the people. 

Work Cited

Cultural Intelligent Collaborators. "Food, Pollution and Money." Living Conditions in Indian Slums. Google, 2010. Web. 04 May 2012. <https://sites.google.com/site/livingconditionsinindianslums/introduction-to-sl/environment/food-pollution-and-money>.

Ganapati Information Technology Services. "Environmental Pollution in India." Welcome to Gits4u.com. Ganapati Information Technology Services. Web. 04 May 2012. <http://www.gits4u.com/envo/envo4.htm>.

Addressing Hunger: What's the Problem?

Radhika Kapadia

As an emerging global powerhouse of the early 21^st century, the subcontinent of India is home to over 1.2 billion citizens of the world.  Despite a flourishing economy and a growing commercial empire, India continually fails to feed its poor, making it home to the hungriest people in the world, superseding China, the world’s most populated country.  A variety of factors can be attributed to the cause of hunger and poverty in India, but it is evident that economic failure and bad investments, coupled with a severe lack of political will are two major issues that lead to starvation, disease and death within Indian society.

Despite housing one of the fastest growing global economies of the world, India is home to half of the world’s malnourished children.  A factor of this growing crisis can be attributed to the fact that India fails to invest in agriculture and small farms, and instead focuses on western industry and business (Gethin).  A clear influence of the British Raj in India, it is evident that the British’s own insistence on westernizing their former colony led to its current focus on industry and business and its failure to invest in the small farms of its country. The failure of the government to invest in the small farms of its country leads to the inevitable failure of these farms and a cycle of debt arises that puts these farms out of food, eventually leading to starvation and death (Gethin).  Reports by BBC News indicate that “"Despite years of robust economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh.”   The Indian failure to focus on the agricultural sector of the economy is one of the major factors that leads to the continual starvation and death of its people.  

A lack of political will is also one of the central reasons for the poverty and death within Indian society.  Statistics by the Indian government itself indicate “around 60% of more than 10 million children in the state were malnourished” (BBC News).  The Indian government is clearly aware of the situation of its people, and fails to properly address it.   The Indian government lacks the will to provide for the hungry citizens in villages, and focuses primarily on big business cities such as Mumbai.  For example, when the Supreme Court of India directed the government to release 2.5 million tons of grain to feed the poor, the government cited high transportation costs as one of the reasons it could not carry out the mandate (Shreyasi).  A government that lacks the will but has the resources to provide for its people is clearly one of the primary reasons for the poverty that plagues Indian villages such as Mritigand, India (Shreyasi).    Despite promises of a new food security bill to provide cheap food for the poor, there continue to remain starving people in villages.  A lack of political will is one of the main reasons for disease, death and starvation in India.