An 11-year-old child Santoshi dies in a remote village in Jharkhand. The fragments of their story of dirt and poverty that we are able to gather are far from unusual. The law guarantees school meals to children in school, but poverty had led to the family pulling Santoshi out of school. Besides the village school was closed for the long festival holidays, depriving many children of their only relatively balanced meal of the day, because for the rest they only ate rice at home, if anything. Because Santoshi’s story is the story of millions of children hidden behind the hard glitter of new India.

Source: Hindustan Times November 10, 2017 06:33 UTC