India spends so much on defence, if there is peace in region this could be diverted to helping the poor get education, jobs and feed them.
There is Food and Water crisis in India. Food prices have shot up that many people cant afford. There is shortage of water and electricity.
There would be mass protests and riots if this persists.
“We live on a day-to-day basis,” Suraj says, as the faint sound of hammering echoes across the village. “What we earn is what we spend on our families in a day.”
In Ganne, just off the main road about an hour south of the city of Allahabad, this is a simple fact of life.
It is home to members of a poor tribal community, who live in small huts clustered around a series of shallow quarries.
Inside one of the huts sits a little girl called Poonam. She is three years old, and in the early stages of kidney failure.
Like many children in Ganne she has become used to eating bits of dried mud and silica, which she finds in the quarry. Tiny children chew on the mud simply because they are hungry - but it is making them ill.
When reports first emerged of children eating mud here local officials delivered more food and warned the villagers not to speak to outsiders. But Poonam’s father, Bhulli, is close to despair.
“What can I say,” he shrugs. “We can’t afford to eat properly, so how can I afford to buy medicines for her?”
“I am really worried about my daughter, but I don’t know what to do next. The poor need the government’s help - if we had it, we wouldn’t be in such a desperate state.”
People like Bhulli and Suraj make their money filling lorries with bits of rock. It takes about eight hours for five men to fill one load. They carry the stones up from the quarry in plastic washing-up bowls balanced on their heads.
One of the women in the village, Phulkari, approaches to tell us about her little boy.
“My son’s name is Suraj, and he’s started eating mud too,” she says. “What can we do? We eat the mud from the quarry when we feel hungry.”
“Where do we get the money?” she asks. “We usually eat food only once a day. Last night we went to bed without eating anything at all.”
Food protests
The World Bank estimates that one third of all the very poorest people in the world live in India, and stories like those from Ganne have now inspired a national Right To Food campaign.
