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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;text-autospace:none" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">JANA AROGYA ANDOLANA KARNATAKA LAUNCHES </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><b><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">HUNGER & MALNUTRITION WATCH
PORTAL IN KARNATAKA STATE</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><a href="http://www.republicofhunger.org/" target="_blank">www.republicofhunger.org</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">JAAK,
the Karnataka circle of People’s Health Movement, active in Karnataka for the
past 12 years, has raised people’s concerns on access to primary health care
through Right to Primary Healthcare Campaign, Right to Essential Drugs and by
raising critical concerns on the issues of malnutrition and food security, the
latter being an essential requirement for health. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><b><u><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Whatever
has happened to the Democratic and Socialist Republic of India?</span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
purpose of a portal on malnutrition is to highlight the irony of the Indian
nation-state. For the past 62 years the Republic Day has been a sham, a façade,
an attempt to distract harassed citizens into believing that they as a
collective, as a nation, have made great economic progress by show-casing the
military might and the ‘cultural diversity’ through trite and clichéd art
performances.<span> </span>While the ‘sovereign’
state has been show-cased, what has fallen by the way-side are the ideals of
the Constitution which envisaged not just a sovereign republic but also a
‘Socialist and Democratic’ republic with the ideals of economic, political and
social justice as the preamble says. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
Prime Minister of India mentioned the fact that over 50% children in India
suffering malnourishment is a ‘national shame’. What would he say of 80% women
who are anemic, about 1,00,000 women dying every year in child-birth and about
10,00,000 infants dying in birth? While the food grains rot in the go-downs of
Food Corporation of India (FCI), millions of children and women, mostly drawn
from the vulnerable communities go hungry.<span>
</span>What do you and I say to this?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
Karnataka State, the integral constituent of the Indian Union, bound to obey
and implement the constitutional mandate has failed its most vulnerable
citizens by depriving them of the basic right to a life of dignity.<span> </span>It’s a national shame that with much
hesitation and only when the Honorable High Court of Karnataka intervened that
the state government was forced to accept that 72,000 children are severely
malnourished and almost 10 lakh children are moderately malnourished. This
number is discounting what is happening to women from Dalit, tribal and
agricultural laborers, domestic workers community; discounting the issues of
sexual minority; the people with disability and people living with HIV/AIDS and
the like. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It
is trying its best to abdicate its responsibility by refusing to provide even
the most basic entitlements to its citizens. It is on this count that the
Government of Karnataka will find its name in the hall of shame for not only
unacceptable levels of malnutrition in the state but also for its embarrassing
attempts at trying to escape blame by distorting facts and figures. Karnataka
is a fitting case study of what happens when unbridled liberalization meets
corrupt, colluding interests.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><b><u><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
Hunger Watch Portal -<span>
</span><a href="http://www.republicofhunger.org" target="_blank">www.republicofhunger.org</a></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
portal <b>www.<span><a href="http://republicofhunger.org" target="_blank">republicofhunger.org</a></span></b> will convey the scale and depth of the
problem. It will serve as a watchdog and examine the claims of the state,
disputing them when necessary. Activists of various networks anchoring the
campaign will monitor government’s actions on the ground, document the gaps and
provide live feed to the portal in text and audio/video form. By this it will
facilitate production of new material through regular reports from the field,
analyses of data and policies, compilation of case studies, all of which will
contribute to actions and events to move the campaign forward in Karnataka. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It
will also provide basic information and resources on malnutrition, challenge
popular misconceptions about it, raise critical questions and examine its
existence in the democratic context. It will record the ongoing discourses and
debates among experts and in the media on this issue. The portal will provide
links to existing useful information on the web. It will involve civil society
through activism, participation in events, fundraising and so on.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span>This portal has been set up in the hope of
furthering public discussions on the politics of malnutrition and initiating
actions against state apathy. This initiative comes in the wake of the recent
child deaths due to malnutrition in Raichur and the ongoing Public Interest
Litigation on this issue in the Honorable High Court of Karnataka. Subsequently
several people’s movements and rights-based organizations have demanded
critical changes in policy and programs. As expected the government has gone on
the offensive refusing to acknowledge any failing on its part.<span> </span>The portal also aims to provide live stories
from people in Karnataka through the activists of Jana Arogya Andolana
Karnataka, who are actively monitoring the hunger & malnutrition scene.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The
shame of the high levels of malnutrition in Karnataka, far higher than our
southern neighbors, is a clarion call to us all to arise from our daily
routines and put justice and food security at the centre of our citizenship.
The portal will be a reference point to policy makers, journalists, lawyers,
activists as well as any concerned person on the issues of ‘hunger’ and
malnutrition.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dr .Gopal Dabade<span> </span>Chairperson ,JAAK</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Vijaya kumar. S
(9535368657) ,<span> </span>SWG member , JAAK<span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Sudha. N (9945837870) St
Wk Gp member ,JAAK<span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span> </span></span><br> </p>
<div dir="ltr"><p><i><b>The Secretariat, </b></i><font><i><br></i></font></p><p><font><i></i></font>Jana Arogya Andolana -Karnataka JAA-K)<br></p><font><i style="font-family:times new roman,serif"> <b>E-mail</b>:<a href="mailto:jaaksecretariat@gmail.com" target="_blank">jaaksecretariat@gmail.com</a><br>
<b>Website</b>: <a href="http://www.phmovement.org" target="_blank">www.phmovement.org</a>, <a href="http://www.phm-india.org" target="_blank">www.phm-india.org</a>, <a href="http://www.sochara.org" target="_blank">www.sochara.org</a></i></font><p style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<b><i><span style="font-family:Corbel">"Health is a social, economic and political issue
and above all a fundamental human right. Inequality, poverty,
exploitation, violence and injustice are at the root of
ill-health and the deathsof poor and marginalised people. Health for all
means that powerful interests have to be challenged, that
globalisation has to be opposed, and that political and economic
priorities have to be drastically changed." </span></i><span style="font-family:Corbel">(PHM, <span> </span>Preamble of People’s Charter for Health <span> </span>2000)</span></b></p><a href="http://www.sochara.org" target="_blank"></a><input type="hidden"><input type="hidden"><div>
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