The battle against hunger

by Devi Lalita Sridhar

"We live in an increasingly prosperous world, yet the estimated number of undernourished people has risen, and will continue to rise with the doubling of food prices. A large majority of those affected are living in India. Why have strategies to combat hunger, especially in India, failed so badly? How did a nation that prides itself on booming economic growth come to have half of its preschool population undernourished? Using the case study of a World Bank nutrition project in India, this book takes on these questions and probes the issues surrounding development assistance, strategies to eliminate undernutrition, and how hunger should be fundamentally understood and addressed. Throughout the book, the underlying tension between choice and circumstance is explored. How much are individuals able to determine their life choices? How much should policy-makers take underlying social forces into account when designing policy? This book examines the possibilities, and obstacles, to eliminati