Inclusive growth needed to combat hunger: ActionAid India

Sunday, 17 October 2010, 18:23 IST   |    1 Comments
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New Delhi: A more inclusive growth policy targeted at marginalised communities and protection of their basic rights is required to combat hunger in India, international NGO ActionAid said. "The dark side of India's economic growth is the fact that the poor have been dispossessed further, leading to malnutrition, hunger and starvation deaths," Sandeep Chachra, executive director of ActionAid India said here. The International Food Policy Research Institute has ranked India 67th on the global hunger index, way below its neighbours China and Pakistan. In a hunger score card released before the Millennium Development Goals Summit at the United Nations headquarters at New York in September, ActionAid said that while India's per capita income had tripled between 1990 and 2005, the number of chronically hungry had not reduced, standing at a staggering 270 million. At this rate, India cannot halve its number of those starving until 2083, the report said. "Implementation remains a massive challenge. Food and other entitlements have to be delivered on the ground, which requires greater political will," Amar Joyti Nayak, thematic head for food rights for ActionAid India, said.
Source: IANS