At the Madhyam Foundation

So I have to say, any country where it is not only socially acceptable, but actually considered rude not to take off your shoes when you enter the office, is fine with me.  The downside however is trying to figure out in the mornings what is appropriate to wear and debating whether my outfit will offend someone or not.  I think for the most part I have done alright but it is hard to tell because everyone stares at us anyway.

For my project this summer, Subrat and I have decided that I am going to write a report, roughly 40 pages, on the current state of health in Orissa in the context of Human Security.  Basically, human security is the idea that the state exists for the purpose of protecting and providing for its citizens and the core tenets are that people should have "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear".  This idea is a relatively new notion and was first laid out by the United Nations in its 1994 Human Development Report.

My research at Madhyam will primarily consist of looking at 6 Human Security Indicators: (1) the number of households living below the poverty line, (2) access to clean drinking water, (3) number of people affected by malaria, (4) number of people affected by tuberculosis, (5) number of people affected by waterborne diseases - primarily typhoid and dysentery, and (6) access to clean drinking water.  Subsequently I will rank each district in the state of Orissa in terms of human security.

Orissa itself is truly a unique place. Bhubaneswar has a population of about 647,000 and as far as Indian cities go it has a nice pace of life, isn't too over populated or polluted, and is really a great place to live.  The problem is this state is literally a melting pot for disease and death.  Its climate is prime for the breeding of malaria vectors and extremely conducive to contracting tuberculosis.  And to add insult to injury, it is the second poorest state in the country and is lacking infrastructure and support from the federal government.

Its development, or lack thereof, can be partially attributed to the British policy towards it.  Almost every other coastal state is highly developed but basically the British did nothing to modernize the state and as a result it has been left to fend for itself.  Perhaps the worst part is that Orissa has some of the highest mineral deposits in the country and forest cover, but the federal government has the power to go in and mine without putting any of the revenue back into the state.

Over 80% of the population does not have constant access to safe drinking water and people are forced to polluted water.  Just the other day we heard about a village that had a bad case of diarrhea and 30 people died in one day.  That is more people than a typical class at AU.  But realizing the tragedy is still difficult for people to grasp and the saying holds true: 1 death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.  Not that I have ever had to experience this and I hope I never will but I feel like yes, seeing someone get shot in cold blood would have to be one of the hardest things to ever witness, but watching someone waste away in the span of a day from something as easy to cure as diarrhea is just insanity, all because they could not have a clean glass of water or consume food that was not infected.  It really makes you think how fortunate we are.