22 Children Die In India After Eating Free School Lunch
BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: Tonight, anger in India after a government program designed to tackle hunger turns deadly. 22 children have died, another 20 are fighting for their lives. Also ahead, even more weapons found hidden aboard a North Korea bound ship. We're going to have the view from Panama and from Cuba on what is a bounty. And, as the royal baby wait continues, well even her majesty the Queen chimes in.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN London, this is Connect the World with Becky Anderson.</s>ANDERSON: I want to begin tonight with the outrage in India over the death of dozens of kids who were poisoned by a free lunch at school. Angry crowds took to the streets in Bihar State, some smashing windows of police buses, others attacking a police station with stones. Now they are demanding answers and accountability. Officials say the school lunch was contaminated by insecticide. 22 children died, dozens more are still in hospital, three of them fighting for their lives. Well, an education minister speaking to CNN earlier says there were warning signs that might have averted the tragedy.</s>PK SHAHI, BIHAR STATE EDUCATION MINISTER: The head mistress was told by the cook that the medium of cooking was not proper and she suspected the quality of the oil, but the head mistress rebuked her and also chastised the children and forced them to consume the meal.</s>ANDERSON: Well, it seems the buck being passed down to those who ran the school. CNN's Sumnima Udas just visited the hospital in India where the sickened children are being treated. And she joins us now on the phone with the details. And what do we know at this point?</s>SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Becky, I was just inside the hospital where all the children who fell ill after eating that contaminated food, that same lunch, has (inaudible) two dozen children are there, one is in a critical condition, but stabilizing, while the others, the doctors say, are out of danger. Most of them were asleep when we got there, but I did manage to speak to 12=year-old (inaudible). He had just a tiny amount of rice and potatoes and almost immediately he started vomiting and feeling dizzy and the doctor said that most of those children when they arrived they actually showed the same symptoms. Some were even fainting, many of them with their pupils dilated as well. And he said some even had a very foul, but distinct smell in their mouths, some he attributed to possible organophosphorous poisoning. This is a insecticide commonly used by farmers, particularly to kill rodents and other insects here. This is something that the doctors has seen before. He's dealt with these cases of organophosphorous poisoning before, but never on this scale - Becky.</s>ANDERSON: Sumnima, what chance do these kids stand of surviving this? Do we know at this point?</s>UDAS: Well, except for that one child, all the other children are in a stable condition and they're fine, actually. Some of them were talking to their parents, some of them were sleeping. But they are in a stable condition. And the one that I spoke to, he said he was feeling completely fine and there were no issues there. Now, there is that question, of course, why some of them, of course, even died, and some of them were so ill and some of them are OK. And I asked the doctor that and he said it just depended on how much of that food they ate. Most of the children who are in that hospital right now only had a little bit before they started vomiting, whereas the other ones who perhaps died may have consumed a little bit more.</s>ANDERSON: All right, Sumnima, thank you for that. That's the very latest from Bihar State. The scale of India's midday meals scheme is quite incredible. I want to give you a sense. It's the biggest food program in the world, serving 120 million kids a day in every government school in India. Now it's been a real incentive for poor parents to get their kids into schools. Enrollment has gone up by some 20 percent. And that sort of jump isn't surprising when you consider the poverty rate in India stands at around 29 percent, nearly 30 percent. And kids are among the most affected by this. The malnutrition rate has remained staggeringly high for years at around 42 percent, that's almost double the rate of malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. And at the same time, India is seeing an economic boom. It seems ironic, doesn't it? This is a country where GDP growth was more than 5 percent last year. And what's more, it's becoming home to more and more mega wealthy people. India now fifth in the world for number of billionaires with 61, so far as the numbers I can find out stand right now. Well, I spoke before the show with Harsh Mander, a tireless advocate for ending hunger in India and improving food standards. He makes recommendations on these issues. India's supreme court has a special commissioner. He's also the director of the center for equity studies. And I asked what he though about India's schools meals program. This is what he said.</s>HARSH MANDER, DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR EQUITY STUDIES: I found consistently that the food meals program is the best. For many reasons, it's a simple support program. People don't steal from their own children and (inaudible) also tend to ground local children's -- local women's groups producing food. So it is generally a much better program than most others.</s>ANDERSON: It does, though, seem quite remarkable that in a country whose economy is booming, 42 percent of kids are still malnourished. That compares to something like 28 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. So while this may be a positive step so far as getting kids into school is concerned, how do you - how do you bridge that gap between the very, very wealthy in India and the poorest of the poor. And we are talking tens of millions, aren't we, if not hundreds of millions?</s>MANDER: Yeah, I think that India is a great paradox and great shame is the fact that with all this economic growth and with some of the world's richest people living in India, the second (ph) child in India is malnourished. In fact, every third malnourished child in the world is Indian. And nothing that the government has done, nothing that the economy has done, is seeming to make a difference. And I think - I think we need to understand what is causing this. And I think there are many reasons, but I think most of them there's a huge history of caste and gender inequality on the one hand. And then a number of factors like poor sanitation, poor access to drinking water, which makes even the food that a child does consume - the food doesn't get absorbed.</s>ANDERSON: How might this incredibly sad story change the status quo?</s>MANDER: If anything, this should be a wake-up call for investing far more of much greater percentage of our GDP into - into decent schooling for our children.</s>ANDERSON: Harsh Mander speaking to me earlier. You're watching Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson. Live from London. Tonight, 10 past 9:00, our top story, angry crowds take to the streets after the poisoning of 22 school kids. In this case, the education minister tells CNN warning signs went unheeded, but the larger issue is this - in a country with a booming economy, why aren't more than 40 percent of Indian children, one in three of the world's malnourished kids in a state of such dire poverty and the promise of a free meal is the difference between getting an education and not. Still to come tonight, South Africans get ready for Nelson Mandela's birthday tomorrow. Find out what they are being asked to give exactly 67 minutes of their time to charity. And we'll show the extraordinary letter from a Taliban commander addressed to schoolgirl Malala urging her to return to Pakistan. And the latest details about some dangerous cargo uncovered on a North Korean ship. All that coming up after this. 90 seconds away. Don't go away.