wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Raj Patel, visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, fellow at Food First, and author of The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy, discusses the global food crisis, and how rising prices are playing a role in the unrest in the Middle East.

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India's economy is on the rise, but with an estimated 421 million people living in poverty, its levels of malnutrition are still staggeringly high. The governing Indian National Congress Party is pushing to enshrine the right to food in the country’s constitution and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene.

We want to hear from you: Should government guarantee the basics of human survival? What would you make a basic human right?