Kunal Kapoor's 'Lamhaa' with EVERY ONE

More than a billion Indians

By Jatin Grover, EVERY ONE youth campaigner from Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur

I am an Indian. But at the same time, I can be a male Hindu of Pakistan origin, a citizen of USA, working as a photographer, interested in poetry, a supporter of gay rights, follower of extra terrestrial objects wanting to have a conversation with them in a language predominantly French. All these identities can have their own relevance. For example, at the time of dinner, country of my origin is not relevant. What matters is whether I am vegetarian or a non-vegetarian. But what will happen if my identities start overlapping? What will happen if my choice of food is seen through the prism of religion? What will happen if my support for Gay rights is rejected for my being a Pakistani origin? And what will happen if these multiple identities are multiplied over a billion people?

The answer to all these questions is a gigantic problem which India is facing today. Heterodoxy has always been the most striking feature of our country. Any attempt to homogenize our society has been thwarted. Plurality and tolerance has allowed diverse cultures, religions and traditions to co-exist peacefully in the past. But now the equations are changing. Parochialism and sectarian mindset is making its way in the civil society. And this is not despite the billion people but because of it. Every group is trying to become a dominant force not because of its ideologies but because of its size. Everybody living in the illusion of identity feels neglected and wants to fight for its rights.

Root cause of every evil present in the society lies somewhere in the size of billion plus people. India has one of the highest food stocks in its warehouses in the world but is also home to 20% malnourished children of the world (worse than the Sub-Saharan Africa). Why? Because it is almost impossible to take food to everyone in a country of billion people. More than 50% adults in this country are illiterate because it is almost impossible to give education to everyone in a country of billion people. India is home to one of the highest ethnical and sectarian violence in the world not because of its heterogeneity but because of its sheer size. China has done better than India in almost every parameter of GDP or Human Development or Happiness Index in past 2 decades because it has tried to solve the root cause of every problem, that is, population growth.

This gigantic problem has a very simple solution - education. Education not only means a technical training of Science and Mathematics, but understanding the perspective of life. Education makes people empowered and helps them take informed decisions which are beneficial to the sustenance of a society. In 1990s when China launched its one couple- one child program it had the national fertility rate of 3.0 comparable to Kerela at that time. And today both have their fertility rates under 2. One followed a draconian path of autocracy and other followed the path of education and empowerment. Population of any country is an asset which has to be nurtured but when it grows out of proportion, the problems can become gigantic and costs too high.

Will you save me?

A poem by Jaideep Singh a management student from Narsee Monjee School of Management, Mumbai. EVERY ONE youth campaigner


As Sun rises in the east,
And I see sky thru wink,
With wish to be sleepy,
With wish to see more night,
I don't wanna rise,
I don't wanna open my eyes.

But Sun ll be on my head,
And I' ll walk on my knees,
I'll smell only waste,
I' ll eat with the flies.

So I start to raise my voice,
to beg enough and suffice,
As I see those gifted kids,
who wipes morsels from the lips,
I see up to the sky
to ask the question ''Why?"

Now, they see my bare chest,
they see my broken legs,
they see my dusty hands,
they see my shabby face,

With the eyes full of pity,
finally they offer me a penny,
World changed for them,
but for me,
It remained the same.

With handful of pennies,
With pennyful of belly,
I am now weak to be wild,
And I' ll turn to die,
Before I breathe my last,
I just wanna you ask,

"Will you save me?" 

West Bengal (India) Health Policies - A Tryst With Reality

By Aditya Zutshi and Sehej Buttar, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur, EVERY ONE youth campaigner

Photo: Nilayan for Save the Children

The Constitution of India charges every state with "raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties"

But in West Bengal, at least nine districts in the state suffer from arsenic contamination of groundwater, and an estimated 8.7 million people drink water containing arsenic above the World Health Organisation recommended limit of 10 µg/L. 

According to WHO statistics there are over 250 medical colleges in the modern system of medicine and over 400 in the Indian system of medicine and homeopathy (ISM&H). India produces over 250,000 doctors annually in the modern system of medicine and a similar number of ISM&H practitioners, nurses and para professionals. 

But still India suffers from high levels of disease including Malaria, and Tuberculosis where one third of the world’s tuberculosis cases are in India . In addition, India along with Nigera, Pakistan and Afghanistan is one of the four countries worldwide where polio has not as yet been eradicated. Half of children in India are underweight, one of the highest rates in the world and nearly same as Sub-Saharan Africa. India contributes to about 5.6 million child deaths every year, more than half the world's total. According to the World Health Organization 900,000 Indians die each year from drinking contaminated water and breathing in polluted air. Most Indian women are malnourished. The average female life expectancy today in India is low compared to many countries and in many families, especially the rural ones, the girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, and are anaemic and malnourished. The maternal mortality in India is the second highest in the world. Only 42% of births in the country are supervised by health professionals. Most women deliver with help from women in the family who often lack the skills and resources to save the mother's life if it is in danger. According to UNDP Human Development Report (1997), 88% of pregnant women (age 15-49) were found to be suffering from anemia. Water supply and sanitation in India continues to be abysmal. Only one of three Indians has access to improved sanitation facilities. As of 2003, it was estimated that only 30% of India's wastewater was being treated, with the remainder flowing into rivers or groundwater. The lack of toilet facilities in many areas also presents a major health risk; open defecation is widespread even in urban areas of India, and it was estimated in 2002 by the World Health Organisation that around 700,000 Indians die each year from diarrhoea. No city in India has full-day water supply. Most cities supply water only a few hours a day. In towns and rural areas the situation is even worse.

What is the organizational structure of the governing body? The Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) Department is organized into a number of directorates whose work is monitored and coordinated by the H&FW Department by the Health Secretary. The department functions under the overall guidance of the Minister-in-charge, Dr. Surya Kanta Misra. The State Health Administration has two arms, the Secretariat and the Directorate of Health. The Secretariat is headed by the Principal Secretary who is a senior officer of the Indian Administrative Service assisted by Special, Joint, Deputy and Assistant Secretaries. The Director of Health Services and ex-officio Secretary heads the Directorate and is the chief technical Advisor to the State government on all matters related to medical and public health. He is assisted by a number of Additional, Joint, Deputy and Assistant Directors. The heath care system has primary health care network, a secondary care system comprising district and sub-division hospitals and tertiary hospitals providing specialty and super specialty care. Each of the seventeen districts is headed by a Chief Medical Officer of Health (C.M.O.H.), assisted by Deputy and Assistant C.M.O.H.s, whose responsibility is to manage the primary health care sector and ensure the effective implementation of the various medical, health and family welfare programmes. The secondary level hospitals are headed by medically trained superintendents who report to the C.M.O.H. and are accountable to a hospital management committee. At the block level, the Block medical officer is responsible for providing services and for monitoring and supervising the primary health centres and health programme implementation. The medical manpower in the State Health System is provided by the State Health Service and in the teaching institutions by the Medical Education Service. The training activities are mainly organised at the Institute of Health & Family Welfare, Salt Lake, Kolkata, and also at various training schools.

Even though the situation is abysmal, there is hope. The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Rules, 1951 mentions that no license for clinical establishment shall be granted unless the licensing authority is satisfied that the applicant and the Clinical Establishment fulfils the conditions mentioned in the Act. All operations should be performed in a fixed centre having OT facilities. The licensee for a temporary camp shall be valid for one month from the date of issue of the license.The license for such temporary camp shall be renewed in any circumstance. West Bengal Nursing Personnel Rules, 2008 assures that no nursing personal will be allowed to  undergo studies as training reserve in any manner other than sponsored as per the rules.  The Regulation and Prevention of Misuse Amendment Act 2002 prohibits sex selection, before or after conception to prevent their misuse for sex determination, leading to female foeticide and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. The West Bengal Prohibition of Smoking , Spiting and Protection of Health of Non Smokers and Minor act 2001, State Drug Policy of West Bengal in 2004, Tobacco Law in 2003, West Bengal Registration of Births and Deaths (State Rule 2000) are some of the laws introduced to address some of the health issues. 

There are so many problems to tackle and so many issues to resolve. But then the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... In this case, we the dynamic and aware youth are the travelers. We remember a few stanzas from Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome song...

We shall overcome, we shall overcome

We shall overcome someday

Darlin' here in my heart, yeah I do believe

We shall overcome someday

Well we'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand

We'll walk hand in hand someday

Darlin' here in my heart, yeah I do believe

We'll walk hand in hand someday

Well we shall live in peace, we shall live in peace

We shall live in peace someday

Darlin' here in my heart, yeah I do believe

We shall live in peace someday

Yes... We do believe... we shall overcome someday... !!!

Delhi through Raghu Rai's lens

“Save the Children sent me to photograph these kids in places I have never been. In fact, these images speak of things we don’t like to see and acknowledge. How can we Indians call ourselves a developed nation if our children are dying? It’s high time we change things.”
 - Raghu Rai

India's contrast

By Ben, EVERY ONE campaign director 

Photo: Raghu Rai for Magnum/Save the Children

India has seen vast economic growth over the last ten years but remains home to one-third of the world's undernourished children. The Prime Minister has called it “a curse” that must be tackled. Even in the nation’s capital, Delhi, you do not need to go far to see what needs to be done. I was in the Sanjay Colony Cluster in North West Delhi, an hour from the centre of the fastest growing city in the world, where people live hand to mouth on the city’s open rubbish tip. People from all over India have moved to Delhi with hopes of a better life but thousands of people are in this cluster with no sanitation or health facilities. The conditions here are shocking and I am relieved that the monsoon season is now over because when it pours with rain the water bubbles up with sewage and flows through people’s homes.

The infant mortality rate in Delhi has doubled in the last two years, according to some reports. Malaria is common and many children suffer from gastro intestinal infections. Save the Children is helping by running a life saving mobile health clinic. The clinic travels to a different location every day including the rubbish tips where the rag pickers rummage through Delhi’s leftovers for any scrap to sell. It is an eerie sight, children and adults rummaging through the mountain of rubbish with large black crows circling overhead.

It is here that you can meet mums like Soni (age 22), Roma Devi (30) and Rita (25). They are trying to raise a family as their husbands work as contract labourers. Rita arrived in Delhi nearly 3 years after her husband. He earns 3000 Rs a month (62 US $) in a tyremaking factory. It is still not enough. Rita says most of what her husband earns is spent on food leaving nothing for any sudden medical bills or financial shocks. Her daughter who is three years old is clearly malnourished.

There is a new report out called ‘Lifting the Curse’ that includes work by more than 20 Indian analysts. The report calls India an "economic powerhouse but a nutritional weakling" where "at least 46% of children up to the age of 3 still suffer from malnutrition." This thought has stuck in my mind as I have been working in this diverse and challenging country and visiting areas like Sanjay Colony Cluster.

In parts of Delhi, the mega city, you can often feel at the forefront of the economic rat race, while in other areas like Rita’s house you witness the very bottom of the ladder. 

After visiting Sanjay Colony Cluster I was in Mumbai chatting to one of the most respected Indian filmmakers who is now supporting our campaign. He was clear when he said “we have malnutrition because people do not want to share their food”. It is a challenging thought for India with all the growth but also for individuals and governments around the world.

India’s invisible mothers

By Shabana Azmi, acclaimed actress and activist and EVERY ONE campaign ambassador

It is a little known fact that Mumtaz Mahal, Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan’s favorite queen died due to complications related to repeated childbirth. The Taj Mahal for all its beauty is a grim reminder of the fact that even today there are thousands of women in the country who continue to die during childbirth.

How many of us note the grimness against the picturesque beauty. Even after 400 years we seem to done little to improve the health of the mothers in our country.

India is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously and so it is with maternal health.

If statistics are anything to go by - the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in India is 254 to 100,000 – ranging from 95 in Kerala to 480 in Assam. To make sense of these statistics we have more 68000 women in our country dying every year in childbirth which is to say that in India every eight minutes a women dies while giving birth.

On the one hand, we find that India is marching into the 21st century with the head held high and becoming a global power and on the other hand, a new report from Save the Children says that india ranks number 73 on 77 of middle income countries when it comes to the ‘the best place to be a mother’. The Mother’s Index is based on analysis of indicators of women’s and children;s health and well being.

That is really a shocking state of affairs. The number of women we lose due to pregnancy related issues in one week in India is more than all of Europe in the whole year. . If I were to say it in different words, I will say that the number of women that we lose in one year in India due to pregnancy related issues is the same as having 400 air plane crashes.

Can you imagine what would happen? Governments would fall but because it is the poor rural women who are dying, nobody is paying any attention. Surely, this must change. Surely, we need to focus on giving our mothers the best healthcare possible and women need to be put on the frontline of the healthcare if this country is to make true progress.

We know that healthy mothers give birth to healthy children and we have a healthy family. We can neglect mothers at our own peril, at the peril of society. This state of affairs must change. It has been proved that when you have women accessing healthcare and particularly by training for instance dais, the midwives and more female health workers; their health definitely improves.

There is a critical role of female health workers in the fight to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality. Evidence show that countries that train and deploy more front-line female health workers have seen dramatic declines in maternal, newborn and child mortality.

For instance our neighbours Nepal and Bangladesh have made remarkable progress. Deployment of 50,000 Female Community Health Volunteers has helped Nepal cut maternal deaths by half in 20 years and be on track to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goal 4 of reducing childhood mortality by two thirds by 2015.

Bangladesh has already cut under-5 mortality by 64 per cent since 1990, and is also on track to meet the goal of reducing child deaths by two-thirds. Female fieldworkers who make home visits have played a critical role in delivering family planning services and reducing the number of high-risk pregnancies in Bangladesh. In another project, supported by Save the Children, home visits by female community health workers offering prenatal and postnatal care reduced newborn deaths by 34 percent in targeted rural communities.

On another note this cannot be dubbed as a health issue alone, we also need to invest in education of girls because there is a definite link between status of women, literacy levels and health. So we need to invest in our girl children and we need a commitment to our mothers because that is the only way our country can move forward in real terms.

What is shocking is that we can often become numb to large numbers and worse still sidelined as ‘women’s issue’. It ends up as nobody’s concern. Who’s agenda should it be – women’s, family’s, or society as a whole? EVERY ONE’s Women cannot wait.

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