Economics Essay Sample

The Bengali movie Ashani Sanket directed by Satyajit Ray highlighted the plight of Bengal during the British rule. The setting of the film is 1943 – 1944 when the man-made famine struck this land. This famine was manmade mainly because of the curtailment of civilian food supply by the British government during the Second World War. This leads to the increase in rice prices as greedy merchants’ horde grain or sell them in sky-high prices that the villagers cannot afford to purchase. The director displays the manner in which individuals were deprived of one of the basic amenity – food by means of narrative economy. The economic condition of the people and the state as a whole has been portrayed in this movie. In its penultimate scenes, the film finally portrays the death of an individual due to starvation before displaying the fact that over five million people died of starvation as a result of the manmade Bengal famine.
The current global condition is one which is reminiscent of the fact that due to inflation and price rise the rich becomes richer and most impacted are the poor people who are deprived of food. The price of food has increased again in the year 2010 and one of the dominant factor is the change in the weather conditions which has led to the destruction of crops. Global warming is a manmade activity that has resulted in increased greenhouse gas emissions thereby leading to the climate change. The rapid industrialization growth has also spurred price rise of several raw materials like zinc and aluminium. Earlier, it has been witnessed that, barring the poorest nations, other nations do not experience phenomenal rises in food prices. But, this time the rise in food prices have global impact and most nations are facing the ire of the masses due to shortage of food. The minimal survival of people are at stake due to the lower income and higher expenditure levels. Banerjee & Duflo have analysed the relationship between economic well-being and food consumption. They have observed that poor people often do not consume food that may be nutritious or lead to the consumption of more calories despite governments offering food price subsidy. This often leads to a negative impact of food price subsidy when compared with the levels of calorie consumption and nutrition. In India, the BMI index is less than 18.5 and globally around one billion people are anaemic. Indonesia provided iron supplements in a random experiment conducted to households and observed that once the provision of free supplements were stopped, very few households opted to go for these supplements. This is despite the fact that intake of iron supplements lead them to work harder and bring in more income to support their family.
The above experiments state that most people fall into the nutrition trap by consuming food that are not rich in nutrients leading them to be malnourished. The Bengal famine impacted individuals due to shortage of food as a result of price rise and this is reminiscent globally as price rise has forced people to consume food devoid of calories and nutrients. Farmers have decided to till their lands and this has led the daily wage labourers to opt for other unskilled jobs or remain hungry. Most of them cannot do basic jobs due to lack of strength and the lack of education deprives them to perform skilled jobs. The vicious circle of nutrition trap is slowly engulfing the poor people globally and this will soon lead to political as well as economic downfall.