Poverty and Media

Man is curious by nature and always remains busy in new and novel things. Poverty has many dimensions and quenches the thirst of man in this regard. He always comes by odd, weird and strange happenings due to poverty. Mother killed her babies, a father slaughtered his family, a brother ate to his fill while his little sisters and brother died due to famine. All these headlines are the offspring of obnoxious poverty. Hunger is the worst thing in this world. If one is hungry, he can sell his honor, his homeland and even his loved ones. It is a curse and an 'anaconda' that gnaws at the very roots of the humanity. It is not only shown on the media but also discussed in the meetings and seminars. The UN has included it in its millennium development goals. It is ever hot issue of the world. The most powerful nations of the world are not devoid of this anathema.

A lot of people die due to hunger and unavailability of eatables in the advanced countries. According to the facts and figures of the UN about 25000 deaths occur daily due to non availability of food. It means that one person is dying in every four seconds. The children are the worst prey to poverty all over the world.

Irony of the situation is that there is plenty of food present in the reservoirs of the world. In spite of the stock piles of the food,the same is not available to the hungry and the poor. The poor have no money to buy this food and are not able to live. Constant starvation makes them weak and they did not remain able to work. This unemployment breaks their neck and they fell down and down in the abyss of poverty and hunger.

This vicious circle ends in unfortunate deaths of these pitiable people. The world watches these hapless human beings dying only due to lack of few dollars. Not only the one man dies but also his family is famished and constrained to disappear from the face of the earth. World media and world organizations forget them after making their deaths headline on the face of their periodicals. Nobody comes out to disburse food or money. Only word jugglery is performed in the meetings and seminars for keeping oneself in the news and promoting one's image as a humanitarian.

Poverty is ridiculed instead of redeemed. The poor are punned and are shown with the naked feet and deprived souls on the media. It is done in the name of good faith but there is not even simple faith except shenanigans.

The UN is trapped by the profiteers and pseudo-non governmental organizations whose sole aim is to grab and pile up money by hook or by crook. Such persons and organizations try their best to remain in limelight. Their aim is to pretend humanism. They want people and governments of the world to praise their work. They influence the common folk by their false image. This is one of the reasons that poverty becomes the important news. Few organizations try sincerely and work out plans to save the starved people. Such programs need advertisement and publicity. This also makes poverty an important news item. To conclude it can be said that overt and covert aims of being publicized and remain in the news are the causes that include poverty in the major news items and discussions on all the forums.

By Akram Saqib