Aamir Khan to be govt’s mascot against malnutrition

The government’s fight against malnutrition will have some glamour - Bollywood star Aamir Khan. The UPA government will be roping in services of Khan for Rs. 298 crore campaign to create awareness against malnutrition and anemia among children. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 28, 2012, 22:34:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government’s fight against malnutrition will have some glamour --- Bollywood star Aamir Khan.

The UPA government will be roping in services of Khan for Rs. 298 crore campaign to create awareness against malnutrition and anemia among children.

Khan, who had raised social issues through his 13 part successful television series Satyamev Jayate, had asked people to raise voice against atrocities against women and children in India and make government act.

His strong message against social evils through Satyamev Jayate, whose television viewership had dipped after initial brouhaha, appears to have convinced the UPA government that he could be the best possible mascot to create awareness and change perception, especially that against the girl child, in society.

“Aamir Khan has offered pro-bono (for the public good) services for a campaign against malnutrition,” Women and Child Development ministry said in a RTI reply to this reporter. A senior ministry official added that “the government was agreeable” to his proposal.

As per National Family Health Survey-3, around 42.5% children below the age of five were underweight and 69.5% of children between six to 50 months were anemic in 2005-06. Madhya Pradesh has 60% of children malnourished whereas 78% of them in Bihar are anemic.

Ranjana Kumar of Centre for Social Research said: “It is a shame that children health of emerging economy such as India is worse than that of sub-Saharan Africa. I hope that Aamir can make a difference.”

The government believes that presence of a strong personality such as Aamir Khan will have positive impact on parents, who will listen to tips given by him to improve health of Indian Children. And, the Prime Minister’s Office asked the WCD ministry to utilise Aamir Khan’s services for information, education and communication campaign, government sources said.

The Prime Minister’s Council on India’s nutrition challenge had approved a two-year long campaign of Rs. 298 crore. The WCD ministry said the campaign will become part of the government’s flagship child nutrition scheme Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), for which the finance ministry has already approved Rs. 1,20,000 crore for the 12th plan (2012-17).

The RTI reply, which came almost two months after the application was filed, also made it clear that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will be providing support for production of Khan’s campaign, which is yet to be launched. “Production details are being worked out,” said a senior UNICEF official.

Five worst child malnutrition states

Madhya Pradesh: 60%
Bihar: 55.9%
Jharkhand: 56.5%
Meghalaya: 48.8%
Chhattisgarh: 47.1%

Five worst child anemia states

Bihar: 78%
Madhya Pradesh: 74.1%
Haryana: 72.3%
Andhra Pradesh: 70.8%
Karnataka: 79.4%

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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