Feeding an Elephant: Malnutrition and the Right to Food in India (World IN REVIEW‪)‬

The Rome Declaration on World Food Security, signed in 1996, defines global access to food as "physical and economic access, at all times, to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food [for people] to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active, healthy life." India, like so many optimistic nations, aimed to fulfill this goal. Yet as the "Asian Elephant" lumbered slowly and steadily into the new millennium, millions of Indians were left hungry and malnourished in its great shadow. According to the government's National Family Health Survey-3, 46 percent of India's children under the age of three are underweight. Despite Supreme Court orders to the contrary, India's Public Distribution System, PDS, has failed in its responsibility to feed the people of India. This problem has become all the more acute with the recent rise in global food prices. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]