The Rice Bucket Challenge

More than a million people worldwide have poured buckets of ice water over their heads as part of a fund-raising campaign for ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But when word of the challenge made its way to India, where more than 100 million people lack access to clean drinking water, locals weren’t exactly eager to drench themselves with the scarce supply. And so, a spinoff was born.

Manju Kalanidhi, a 38-year-old journalist from Hyderabad who reports on the global rice market, put her own twist on the challenge. She calls her version the Rice Bucket Challenge, but don’t worry, no grains of rice went to waste. Instead, they went to the hungry.

Kalanidhi chose to focus on hunger. A third of India’s 1.2 billion people live on less than $1.25 USD a day, and a kilogram of rice, or 2 pounds, costs between 80 cents and a dollar.

That’s why she’s challenging people to give a bucket of rice, cooked or uncooked, to a person in need. Snap a photo, share it online and, just as with the Ice Bucket Challenge, nominate friends to take part, she suggests.

Kalanidhi kicked off the campaign Friday, and posted on her personal Facebook page. Responses poured in by the hundreds, prompting her to create a page for the campaign on Saturday. It received a hundred likes in just five hours. As of today, the number of likes has topped 40,000 in what she calls a “social tsunami.”

[NPR]

Have yachts vs have nots?

The gap between rich and poor is getting wider.

Are you shocked? Unfortunately, probably not. You might be when I tell you how wide the gap actually is, though.

The latest statistics show that the richest 85 people in the world now own the same wealth as the entire poorest half of the world’s population.

… But it’s not just about money.

It’s about the fact that this tiny number of people control and exploit so many of the world’s resources, not to mention their disproportionate influence on the economic and political decisions that affect ordinary people’s lives. And as the ‘have yachts’ gain power, billions of ‘have nots’ go without food, education and medical help.

[Courtesy Oxfam] 

Does Foreign Aid Work?

Fareed Zakaria speaks with Helene Gayle, president of CARE USA, and Bill Easterly, professor of economics at New York University, about whether foreign aid is effective. Some excerpts:

The context here is Bill Gates did his annual letter in which he argued that our foreign aid has been astonishingly effective and that people should stop attacking it.  One of the people who has attacked it and whom Gates mentions by name often when he makes this point is Bill Easterly. So, Bill, what is your response to Gates’ basic argument?

Easterly: Well, you know what sends me at the moment is that foreign aid is really on the wrong side of the debate that we see going on right now in the world between freedom and autocracy.  And we see, too often, the aid agencies and the philanthropists, like even Mr. Gates himself, siding with the autocrats in many poor countries against the poor people who are rising up, seeking their own freedom.

Gayle: I think the case has been made that aid is very effective and that being able to provide resources in the right way makes a difference.  It saves lives.  It educates children.  It helps to feed people.  And I think we know that, for instance, rates of poverty have decreased dramatically over the last decades. And so I think the numbers are there that show that, clearly, aid has made a difference. I think the debate is really around how can we make aid more effective.

Watch the video for the full discussion. 

NBA star builds hospital in The Congo

Three years ago, a woman gave birth to premature triplets in a small village clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The doctors were not equipped to provide the medical care these tiny patients required, so the parents were told the babies would simply be left to die.

But the triplets’ father had heard about a new, state-of-the-art hospital just up the road built by Congolese American and former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo. The father begged the doctors to call the United States.

Mutombo says that phone call is just one example of why he decided to open a hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa. Built with funds raised through his Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, the hospital bears the name of his mother, Biamba Marie Mutombo, who he says taught him the importance of helping others.

“For everything she did for her children and for her family, the value of love and giving back and sharing. Not just with you, not just with your family, but with the people you encounter in life, with your community, and that was the kind of love that my mom gave.”

Mutombo hopes his hospital will help provide medical care desperately needed in the Congo. He says the hospital has treated more than 30,000 patients and employs nearly 400 doctors and nurses.

And those triplets? They spent more than three months on life-saving machines and now are thriving toddlers. The parents were so grateful that they named the babies after the 7-foot, 2-inch basketball player.

[CNN]

85 of World’s Richest have same wealth as 3.5 Billion Poorest

The world’s 85 wealthiest people have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people on the planet – half the Earth’s population. That’s according to Oxfam’s latest report on the risks of the widening gap between the super-rich and the poor.

The report, titled “Working for the Few,” was released Monday, and was compiled by Oxfam – an international organization looking for solutions against poverty and injustice.

Also, according to the Oxfam data, the richest 1 percent of people across the globe have $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the planet’s population – which effectively “presents significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems.”

“It is staggering that, in the 21st century, half of the world’s population — that’s three and a half billion people — own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus,” Oxfam chief executive Winnie Byanyima told a news conference.

And the number of the rich is steadily growing: for example, in India the number of billionaires skyrocketed from six to 61 in the past 10 years, and their combined net worth is currently $250 billion.

The report comes ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos which begins later this week, and urges the world leaders to discuss how to tackle this pressing issue.

P.S. – Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available, according to Oxfam.

 [RT]