23 Little Lives

Who is responsible after 23 Indian children died from eating tainted school lunches provided by the government?





The parents in Gandaman village in India's Bihar state are poor and illiterate but like parents anywhere they dream of a better life for their children.

As they toil in the fields, living hand to mouth, they send their kids to school in the hope they will find a path out of the grinding poverty and deprivation. But one shocking day in July, going to school cost 23 children their lives.

The students, none older than 10, died after eating their school lunch, a meal provided under a nationwide government programme to 120 million children every school day.


The programme is credited with helping reduce child malnutrition, but now Indians are asking why a programme set up to save children's lives has instead killed 23.

As they probed the case, police quickly discovered that the food given to the children in Gandaman village was tainted with a cheap and readily available pesticide.