If you are the typical MAGNET reader, you belong to a Catholic religious order. You do not have to worry about whether you will have enough food to eat, or how to pay your medical bills. Or even how to pay rent, or fees if you are a student. We, religious, are among the most financially secure persons in India.
Do you think now and then at least, about the people around you? How many of them, do you think, get adequate food? How many earn enough to get proper medical treatment when they are sick? How many can afford to send their children to a good school?
Here are a couple of shocking statistics:
Out of the Indian children, forty-eight percent are malnourished. That is, about half of the children in India do not get enough food. This affects not only their physical health, but also their mental development.
Twenty-two percent are stunted, that is, too small for their age.
The reason is not that their parents do not want to feed them, nor that they do not know how. The plain and sad truth is that most Indians do not earn enough to buy adequate food or get proper treatment, or send their children to the schools where they would like to study.
What is called “news” is generally about politicians and other “big shots.” The poor (who are the majority) do not get attention.
Fr Joe Mannath SDB
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