'IN THE arms of a young girl, three years old, is another child that isn’t yet one. She struggles with his weight, slight as he is, trying to feed him out of a bottle. It is a burden that is heavy to bear. But the fight against hunger for children of the Musahari tola in Badbilla village of Bhagalpur has been a daily challenge. In this lockdown, that burden has only become heavier. A microcosm of Bihar, Bhagalpur is the focus of a month-long series by The Indian Express to understand the pandemic’s effects in smalltown India.
'Fifty-seven minor girls have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at a state-run children’s shelter home in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, with five of them found to be pregnant and one HIV positive. Since the information was confirmed, the UP administration has gone into a frenzy, even as officials said the pregnancies began before the lockdown. The shelter home has been sealed, and its staff quarantined.
'A fistful of rice with sugar or salt is a standard meal for 10-year-old Asha Yadav these days. On better days, her mother adds some potatoes or dal (lentils) to her plate. A resident of eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district--among the most backward and poorest in the state’s agricultural belt--Asha is among the 95.1 million children whom the lockdown has deprived of midday meals at school. On school days, Asha would get at least one wholesome meal--rice, vegetables, milk and fruit--under the Indian government’s Midday Meal Scheme.
' Thanks to an all-familiar power cut in the evening, it’s pitch dark in Jhandupurva village. A few torch lights from smart phones pierce through the darkness and illuminate the shape of an eight-year-old boy. Thin, frail, head tilted a little to the side, he can barely speak when asked his name. Sandip is so weak that he stutters and pauses between words. The boy has already finished dinner, his mother Vidya said. Boiled rice with milk: about half a litre of milk for the six-member family, including four children. A rice gruel with more water than milk, and salt added to taste.
'An 11-year-old boy, Tabaarak, pedalled a tricycle cart for nine consecutive days to transport his parents from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi to their village in Bihar’s Araria, a distance of around 600 kilometres, amidst the lockdown. A video of the same went viral on Twitter with users taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) catchphrase...'
'On May 8, Mamta, who had boarded a Shramik Special train at Gujarat's Jamnagar went into labour and by the time she got off at her destination in Bihar's Chappra, she had a baby in her arms. A team of doctors along with railway staff supervised Mamta as she delivered a healthy baby girl after her compartment was converted into a makeshift labour room, according to railway official...'
'A five-year-old Dalit child allegedly died of hunger in Jharkhand’s Latehar district on May 16. Her father, a brick-kiln worker, said he had not been earned any wages during the lockdown. Video testimonies released by activists who visited the child’s home in Hesatu village, show family members, neighbours and community health workers attributing Nimani’s death to hunger. “She died of hunger,” the child’s mother, Kamlawati, can be heard saying in one of the videos. “She had not eaten for four-five days. What can we eat when there is nothing to eat?”...'
'The Madhya Pradesh police has booked five persons, including three minors, for posting a Facebook comment on Union agriculture and farmers welfare minister Narendra Singh Tomar mocking the incorrect way in which he was wearing a face mask. All the accused – Ajay Pratap Singh Sikarwar, Aman Singh, and minors AB, XX and YY* – are residents of Jaura village in Morena, which the Union minister represents in the Lok Sabha...'
'For two days, Sathya*, a single mother and her adolescent daughters drank only water. They were starving inside their slum tenement in Perumbakkam on the outskirts of Chennai until a neighbour shared rice which she had received from an NGO. Their free ration from the government had run out three weeks into the lockdown. “I was ashamed to ask for help with food and I couldn’t borrow money from anyone since no one has work here anymore,” says Sathya who is a housekeeper in a multinational corporation nearby.
'...15-year-old Babita is from Jhansi. She came to Phalodi for work, but this unprecedented lockdown has her hustling for the most basic of needs. She got her periods five days ago, and is using ash smeared on pieces of cloth she’s tearing from the three sets of clothes she had. She said, “Bahar sote hain, baarish hoti hai tab bhi, kapde dhoke vahi pehen rahi hun.” (We sleep outside even when it rains, I wash the clothes when the blood leaks, so I can wear the same clothes again.)...
