UN AGENCY : FOOD AID AT LOWEST LEVEL EVER

DESPITE NUMBER OF "CRITICALLY HUNGRY PEOPLE"
IS AT HIGHEST LEVEL, GLOBAL FOOD AID IS AT LOWEST

London - (EFE). Josette Sheeran, the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) executive director said it is facing its biggest ever challenge. She says that the WFP needs more money to cope with rising food prices, droughts and conflict. The WFP said that levels of food aid are at a 20-year-low, and warned that more than 1 billion people will go hungry worldwide for the first time. The World Bank estimates that food inflation during that period pushed an additional 100 million people into deep poverty, on top of a billion that were already scraping by on less than $1 a day. The number of undernourished people in the world has grown largely due to higher food prices, according to the agency.

About 65 per cent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia, according to the agency. China, Russia and Brazil — the other three BRIC emerging economies — face medium risk. An earlier report said that most of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are facing extreme or high risk of food shortages, according to a ranking of 148 nations.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

More money causes attachment, less money causes suffering, sound health causes pain due to attachment in leaving the body at the time of death, bad health causes pain during life. In this way material happiness is painful in all aspect. One has to develop attachment for Krishna. Then one will be free from any kind of sufferings, he will get eternal happiness.

Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja:
"Srila Gurudev's Bay Area Tour - Aug 19, 2002"

Hence, devotional faith is the only means of attaining the love of Krishna. At the incoming of wealth, as pleasure is ensured and poverty disappears, so pure bhakti kindles love for Sri Krishna in a person and frees him from the bondage of maya. So the direct fruit of love is neither cessation of poverty nor cessation of re-birth but the positive realisation of Eternal Bliss which is Divine Love. This is the highest end of human existence.

Srila Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaja :
"Six Goswamins" - Chapter: Sanatana Goswami - Sanatana Siksha.