As the administrator in-charge of your area, you are witness to the widespread food wastage in lavish parties as well as in restaurants and eateries, on one hand and people starving due to inability to ensure one square-meal a day, on the other. Realizing that it is not the scarcity of resources, but the habit of people that is causing paucity in availability of food, you decide that certain measures are needed to be taken in order to deal with the issue of starvation at the grassroot level. 20 Given the situation, answer the following questions: (a) Identify the ethical issues involved in this case. (b) What measures would you take to deal with wastage of food in your area? (c) What explains this co-existence of affluence and hunger in developing countries like India?

① Me, the administrator

• Ensure food to hungry.
• Avoid wasting national resource.

② The affluent

• Lavish lifestyle, wasteful expenses
• No regard for poor

③ The poor

• Unable to arrange meals for a day

④ Nation

• Responsibility to ensure well-being of all.

The values guiding me in this case would be:

• Empathy, Objectivity, Dedication to Public Service, Leadership.

(a) The ethical issues in this case are:

1. Ethics of Poverty.
2. Wasteful lifestyle of the affluent.
3. Inability of poor to even feed themselves.
4. Widespread Inequality.
5. Elimination of Hunger.
6. Channelizing surplus to those who need it the most.

(b) Various measures to tackle food wastage would include:

1. Raising awareness posters in the area, in restaurants, requesting local media to highlight the issue.

2. Assist local NGOs to take up this issue and setup collection points where households can donate their excess food to the needy.

3. Institutional waste generators can also tie-up with NGOs or on own can be encouraged to provide extra food to the needy.

4. At the same time, system for food testing at random to ensure no spoilt food is being provided.

5. Further measures like bio-composting can also be encouraged to develop green manure.

(c). Various reasons for this co-existence of affluence and hunger in developing countries like India:

1. Widespread economic inequality

2. Lack of empathy of affluent.

3. Absence of suitable mechanisms to provide excess food to needy.

4. Less awareness on this issue.