Should Indian Leaders Who Spend
Billions On Submarines While Others
Starve Go Unpunished?
By Jay Janson
12 August, 2009
Countercurrents.org
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 week 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.
Roshni is suffering from severe acute malnutrition, defined by the World Health Organization as weighing less than 60% of the ideal median weight for her height.
There are 40 beds in this center. On every one is a similar child. All are acutely malnourished. Wailing, painful, plaintive cries fill the air. This is the Nutrition Rehabilitation Center in the town of Shivpuri. ... This is the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh - modern India, a land of booming growth. "The situation in our village is very bad," says Roshni's mother, ‘Sometimes we get work, sometimes we don't. Together with our children we are dying from hunger. What can we poor people do? Nothing.’
... Another mother is cradling her daughter, Kahal, trying to feed her. The girl is two-and-a-half years old and so weak she can hardly eat.
Her mother tries to spoon some milk into her mouth. It dribbles down her chin. Kajal barely even opens her eyes. Kajal's skin is pale. Her breath comes sharp, shallow and fast. She too is suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Her weight is 6.7kg.
Children wait for a meal outside an Anganwadi centre in Chitori Khurda The nutrition centre here was set up by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Doctor Vandana Agarwal, UNICEF's nutrition specialist for Madhya Pradesh state, points to Kajal's swollen little feet. 'There is edema on both the feet, scaly skin on her legs, even her respiration rate is high,' Dr Agarwal says.
'The child is in a lethargic condition, her hairis thin, sparse, lustreless, easily-pluckable. These are the typical symptoms of protein energy malnutrition.' India has some of the highest rates of child malnutrition and mortality in under-fives in the world and Madhya Pradesh state has the highest levels in India. There are around 10 million children in the state. A decade ago 55% were malnourished. Two years ago the government's own National Family Health Survey put the figure for Madhya Pradesh at around 60%.”
By the way, your author notes that the work of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEFf) enables leaders of India’s capitalist system to to save money on feeding its children, and focus more on building and buying submarines.
India launches nuclear submarine. BBC News, 7/26/09
“... a second one is due to be constructed shortly.
Mr. Singh said 'we do not seek to threaten anyone'
...The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says until now India has been able to launch ballistic missiles only from the air and from land. Nuclear submarines will add a third dimension to its defense capability.”
On July 31, another BBC article told us that India is emerging as the world center of hunger and malnutrition according to a report by Indian campaign group, the Navdanya Trust.
That the trust says that there are more than 200 million people - or one-in-four Indians - going without enough to eat, and that there were now more hungry people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa."
And the news gets worse. MORE submarines:
India launches first nuclear submarine
26 July 2009, World Press
“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the launch of the 6,000-tonne INS Arihant (Destroyer of Enemies) a ‘historic milestone in the country's defense preparedness.’
India plans to build four more Arihant submarines, which will be armed with torpedoes and ballistic missiles...
‘We don't have any aggressive designs nor do we seek to threaten anyone,’ the Press Trust of India quoted Singh as saying.
'We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and protection of our value systems,' he added.”
Can Singh mean submarine missiles will protect the dying hungry children that are part of India’s value system?
India places two-billion-dollar order for Russian missiles, Pravda, Russia
20.08.2008
“The missiles will be made for submarines of the Indian Navy. The nearest order is seven submarines.”
India launches nuclear submarine
By Manasi Kakatkar, ForeignPolicyBlogs.com
July 29, 2009
"Apart from the Arihant, India will also modernize its naval capabilities by getting two Akula class nuclear powered attack submarines from Russia, and six Scorpene submarines from France. The first delivery of the Scorpene submarines scheduled for 2012 has been delayed due to problems in “absorption of technology.” The deal with France was signed in 2005 and will cost India $3 billion. The Russian submarines are expected to be delivered by the end of this year. According to GlobalSecurity.org “the cost to India of acquiring two Akula submarines and their support infrastructure along with training of the crews had been estimated at $2 billion.”
Build four more nuclear submarines, buy seven submarines from France and two Russian attack submarines and $2 billion worth of Russian missiles.
If this is really going to happen, how many dead and malnourished children does that equal if two million children under five continue to die each year? - each year of submarine building, buying and arming.
If there was a danger for those arranging this bizarre, frightening and criminally inhumane misuse of India’s resources being brought to court, tried and perhaps hung for mega mass-manslaughter and infanticide, would these war plans be altered in favor of keeping precious children of India’s poor well fed and healthy?
Write, call, e-mail, fax Prime Minister Mammohan Singh via India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, 235 East 43rd Street, New York, NY, 10017, telephone: 212-490-9660, fax: 212-940-9665, e-mail: [email protected] & [email protected]t. Ask that India feed its children, that they may live, and not die for submarines. (And we are not even mentioning education and quality of life, for these suffering children and their parents.)
