Despite India’s economic growth over the past decade, the country continues to be compared with Africa in poverty surveys. A recent study reported that India’s poorest states have more people in poverty than Africa’s poorest nations. Hunger indexes are dismal, with 42 percent of all Indian children under age five underweight.

An article last week by the New York Times reporter Jim Yardley, reveals India’s current struggle to alleviate poverty and get food to every family in the nation. In his article, “India asks, should food be a right for the poor?,” Yardley discusses the contention over universal food support in India. President of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a “constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene.” The proposal has the party divided. Debate also ensued over how India should deliver its social programs. Many economists support turning to a market system of vouchers instead of a physical distribution of grain.

As officials struggle to come to a solution, individuals like Ratan Bhuria and his children suffer from hunger. His daughter, Nani, is four years old and weighs 20 pounds and his son, Jogdiya, at age two weighs only eight pounds. They are not receiving government food or cooking fuel, and the children are not enrolled in school where they might receive a free daily lunch.  Breaking the cycle of poverty, which often includes the sale or bartering of food ration cards for loans, is proving a challenge for many Indians under the current system.

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