Annual Report - National Human Rights Commission

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Food Security
6.1 Death by starvation constitutes the gravest violation of the Human Rights of
an individual. That is the reason why the Commission has always taken serious
note of starvation deaths occurring anywhere in the country. The problem of
starvation deaths arising out of drought conditions in Koraput, Bolangir and
Kalahandi districts of the State of Orissa have attracted special attention of the
Commission since 1997. The Commission has also been concerned with the general
conditions of hunger, destitution and poverty that are responsible for suicides,
particularly, by the farmers and other forms of physical and psychological degradation
that arises on account of lack of freedom from hunger and denial of right to food.
6.2 The Commission believes that persons living in conditions of poverty and
destitution have often been found to be suffering from prolonged hunger and
malnutrition. Even when their deaths cannot, in strictly clinical terms be related to
starvation, the tragic reality reminds that they often die of prolonged malnutrition
and continuum of distress which has, inter-alia, rendered them unable to
withstand common diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea. Thus, destitution and
continuum of distress should be viewed as the necessary condition for the prevalence
of starvation.
Starvation Death Petition
6.3 The Commission in its second order on Starvation Death Petition (Case No. 37/
3/97-LD) dated 17.01.03 had underscored the basic commitment of the State and the
Civil Society to eradicate poverty and hunger that constitutes an affront to the dignity
and worth of human person and that is why the Heads of the State had in the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) pledged to halve the proportion of
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