A news item on the 19th of February said that the UN World Food Programme, UNFP has said that India has the largest number of undernourished people in the world. On the same day Gian Pietro Bordignon, country director and India representative for the World Food Programme, WFP said that malnutrition among tribal children in India is 44% compared to 25% for subsaharan Africa. Another news item on the previous day said that the Comptroller and Accountant General of India, CAG has found that only 3.2% of households surveyed in 513 panchayats in 68 districts across 28 states received full 100 days of employment under the National Rural Employment Scheme which was started by this government to ease unemployment and poverty among the rural poor. Clearly money is being siphoned off in a massive way. In the last four years food prices have risen by at least 50% and while this affects everyone the poor are affected most because a large part of their budget goes in food purchase. While sedentary people like us need less than 1500 calories per day manual labourers need in excess of 3000 calories per day and growing children need calories as well as essential vitamins and minerals for development. The Congress is in a panic with elections coming up and may decide to increase allocation to this and similar schemes with more loss of taxpayers money. So much for the aam aadmi.