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Graphic public health

Pandemic and Hunger | Orijit Sen, Vidyun Sabhaney and Harsho Mohan Chattoraj

By Comics, Graphic public health No Comments

Lucky and Soni step into a tea shop, where they meet and talk with a group of people about the Covid-19 lockdown and how the pandemic changed their lives. In India, 80% of the working people earn less than Rs. 15,000 a month. Through their conversation, it emerges how the government expected them to deal with the lockdown, and why better provisions were not made to ensure that people did not go hungry. A livelihood survey by the Azim Premji University stated that 90% of respondents had cut down on food intake in the first year of Covid-19 alone. Millions of poor are not covered under the food security system, especially migrant workers who often do not have the necessary address-proofs and documents to get a ration card made in the cities in which they work. Finally, the  discussion is about the suspension of the mid-day meal scheme during the lockdowns and how it  has created uncertainty around nutrition of children.

Originally published as Chapter 13: Pandemic and Hunger, October 3 and 5, 2022, in #IndiaGraphicSeries on Agriculture and Food Security in Focus on the Global South, https://focusweb.org/india_graphic_series/
All images © Orijit Sen, Vidyun Sabhaney and Harso Mohan Chattoraj
Published with permission from Orijit Sen, Vidyun Sabhaney and Harso Mohan Chattoraj, and Focus on the Global South.