The time has attacked to think what is the major one among these problems. We cant find out the solution for every problem together. So in the language of Economics " we want to make choice'. We can easily understand " food security for all" is the primary concern India face now. Because for a hungry man " food is God". About 30% of our brothers and sisters go to bed with empty stomach at night.
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's physical and economic access to it. It involves balanced diet with micro nutrients, safe drinking water, environmental sanitation, basic health and primary education.
The new U P A Government is going to pass a Food Security Act to give 25 kg of rice or wheat to about 260 million people who live below poverty line or those who earn less than one dollar( $1) a day at Rs 3 per kg. And the government is examining to merge the various food schemes implemented by different ministeries as a part of an exercise to enact Food Security Act. Some critics say " teaching how to catch fish is more effective than giving fish". The statement can be agreed , but this is possible only in the longrun. If we take a long run approach to solve this problem, we have to give the price of thousands and thousands of hunger affected deaths day by day. Enacting Food Security Act is a very good approach from the Government for the eradicatiion of poverty and it will meet the dream of Mahatma Gandhi for independent India: " the God of bread should bless every home and hut". But the Government have to ensure that the misusage of the Act is comlpetely restricted and the food grains reach only to the marginalised sections of the society.
Basic health care lies at the heart of attaining Food security. It has become one of the thrust areas under the National Common Minimum Programme of U P A Government. The Government mandates an increase in the expenditure on the health sectorwith main focus on Primary Health Care. National Rural Health Mission is the main vehicle for giving effect to the above mandate was launched in April 2005 by our Prime Minister. It has been operationalized through out the country with special focus on 18 states including Bihar, Jharkhand, U P , Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranjal, Orissa, Rajastan etc.
The main aim of N R H M is to provide accesible, affordable, accountable and effective primary health care facilities especially to the poor and valunerable sections of the population. It also aims at bridging the gap in Rural Health Care Service through creation of a Cadre of Accredited Social Health Activists and improved hospital care.
Some kind of price control of medicines is necessary perticularely for providing affordable health care to the disadvantaged sections of the society whose disposable income is extremely low and who do not have easy access to institutional health care. Another important way for the improvement of our health care system is development of the Health Insurance Sector
Beyond the availability of food and improvement of health care system, primary education is a key part that comes under the attainment of food security for all. The term " education" is comprehensive and it has a wide scope that includes in its ambit, the "individual" as well as the "society". It also includes the development of all aspects of the personality of an individual.
Our present and past Governments have passed many programmes to enlarge the level of education of the country. Even though our constitution provides the right for basic education , "education for all" is still remaining as a distant dream. There are also some programmes to educate the adults. I think it is an unproductive and unlogical approach. We have to give educatiion to the children by these huge expended. If we dont educate the adults, it will not create any problem. It will be automatically corrected by the life cycle mechanism of human beings in the long run. Children are the aset and future capital resource of the nation. The challenge is to transform is to this mass into skilled man power to harness the advantages of the global economy. For this purpose education is inevitable. Only an educated society can transform the country as Nelson Mandela says" education is the most powerful weapon tht you can use to change the world".
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