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Economic Growth Leaves More Indians Hungry

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Malnourished children eat a meal at the Apanalay center, an organization working with malnourished children, in Mumbai, India, in January, 2012. (Rajanish Kakade/AP)
Malnourished children eat a meal at the Apanalay center, an organization working with malnourished children, in Mumbai, India, in January, 2012. (Rajanish Kakade/AP)

Nearly half of all children under age three in India are underweight. Eighty percent are anemic. That means more than 30 million children - the population equivalent of Canada - are going hungry.

India has seen more than two decades of sharp economic growth since the country began shifting to free market economic policies.

But over the same decades, poor Indians have been eating less food and the food they do eat has grown worse in quality, with fewer vitamins and minerals and less protein.

Reporter Mehul Srivastava went to his ancestral village to live and eat with a poor family, in order to find why so many Indians are underfed and to experience what it's like to live without enough food.

Guest:

This segment aired on December 3, 2012.

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