Geneticist M.S. Swaminathan on Monday released ‘Make Hunger Free India’, a book by Rajagopal Velamoor, former director of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute.
The event was organised at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation to celebrate the World Food Day, which falls on October 16.
Mr. Rajagopal, founder-director of Tirupati's Society for Hunger Elimination, said that a hunger-free India is an achievable goal that requires collective social responsibility. He spoke on tackling food wastage and mooted the idea of Chennai having a “hunger fighters association” to end wastage. Mr. Swaminathan said that there were four issues to deal with to make India food secure. He identified calorific deficiency; protein hunger deficiency; micronutrients deficiency; and access to clean drinking water, sanitation and healthcare as those issues. He said only if the four are addressed simultaneously and in a decentralised manner can the effort succeed.
