What forced a child to drink insecticide?

NP NEWS 24 ONLINE- Starvation deaths in India is not a new thing. There are thousands of people dying due to no food availability which are not been reported. According to a report, there have been at least 56 deaths reported due to starvation in last four years. Of this 42 happened in 2017 and 2018. The situation is getting more critical due to lack of pensions, ration, and Aadhaar.

According to the same report, in Jharkhand, nearly half of the elderly, widows and differently-abled persons in the state who qualified for social security pensions were still deprived of their entitlements.

These are numbers that are directly on our conscience. It is sad then that the demise of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) has sparked a debate only on the way we regulate our most important financial companies.

A soul-cracking incident came in light after an investigation by the National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has revealed that a 10-year- old tribal boy from a village in Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh consumed insecticide to fulfil his hunger, the boy, who is undergoing treatment at a local hospital, is said to be out of danger now.

The incident which took place on December 29 last year in Ponbatta village came to light after it became viral on social media last Monday.

The team of National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) had taken cognizance of the matter and its team visited the village on Saturday.

Raghvendra Sharma, chairman of state commission for protection of child rights, said, “The boy told the team that there was no food in the house and he was so hungry that he drank whatever he could lay his hands on, however, the family jointly owns 19 bigha of land.”

The team also found that the boy’s parents who had gone to Kota, Rajashtan to work as labourers, had last taken ration from the public distribution system (PDS) shop in November. After boy consumed poison some villagers took him to a local hospital from where he was referred to Ratlam in the evening. Nanuram, the boy’s father, who returned from Kota said, “there was no ration in my house but the administration is trying to suppress the matter by showing ration kept.