CHENNAI, India — India is still hungry 62 years after it was freed from the British colonial yoke. The Global Hunger Index for 2009 places India at a low 65th, with the far more populous China doing much better. While China has reduced the number of "hungry" people by 58 million during the past decade, India's number has risen by 30 million since the mid-1990s.

Although India's hunger is no longer related to the famines and food shortages that plagued the country before independence (the last major famine was in 1943), out of a population of at least 1 billion, 240 million (21 percent) go to bed hungry night after night.

Ironically, India produces enough food for its millions, but does not generate enough employment opportunities to enable them to afford it. Even basic food, such as rice, wheat and lentils, remains beyond the means of many. Instances of severe hunger and even starvation are not rare.

Some experts aver that India's situation is much worse than that in either Sub-Saharan Africa or China (where only 9 percent of the population, or 177 million people, are considered hungry). The reason is simple: China, unlike India, does not produce enough food for its population. While India does produce enough food, it is terribly callous about storage, wastage, distribution and mass affordability.

According to a government report last year, the production of food grain was expected to rise 4.6 percent to an estimated 227.3 million tons for the year ended June 30, 2008. About 20 million tons of wheat, rice and lentils, the equivalent of Canada's annual wheat crop, are eaten by rats and birds, or spoiled because of improper storage and warehousing. Much grain is stored in the open.

Lopsided government schemes and misplaced priorities have led to perennial neglect of the nation's villages, where close to 65 percent of the population live. Many villagers are illiterate and know little other than farming or related activities. They have been displaced by industrialization and their income prospects could not be bleaker.

Hunger exists in India because people cannot access the food, the Global Hunger Index report notes. What's worse is the staggering 47 percent of "hungry" children under 6 years old who are horribly malnourished. Hungry children cannot concentrate at school and are likely to begin the chain of poor education, under-employment and poverty. Thus India's much-touted human capital remains underutilized.

As income distribution worsens, disastrous consequences follow, including mass suicides by farmers. About 200,000 farmers have taken their lives since 1997. Driven by debilitating debt and facing starvation, the farmers see no other options.

Two factors have pushed Indian agriculture into the red: rising costs of production and falling prices for farm produce. Both are the result of trade liberalization and corporate globalization.

In 1998, for example, India was forced to open up its seed sector to global corporations. The rural economy changed: Seeds that farmers had saved were replaced by corporation-provided seeds, which in turn needed corporate fertilizers and pesticides that could not be carried over from year to year.

Currently, the Indian government provides rice and wheat at subsidized prices to 316 million people, the poorest of the poor, through a public distribution system. However, the scheme is flawed. Food grain does not always reach the needy after it is sold to middlemen by unscrupulous traders.

Punjab, a northern Indian state, ranks best on India's hunger index. Yet, it ranks below Gabon, Honduras and Vietnam on the Global Hunger Index.

Any move to stamp out hunger must go beyond food stamps and public distribution. The root cause of hunger is unemployment, and unless sufficient job opportunities are generated, India won't be able to progress toward a hunger-free society. A lot more attention needs to be given to villages. This includes building better infrastructure that facilitates greater economic activity.

Moreover, improved medical care in rural regions would not only ensure better health for the inhabitants but also encourage migration back from the cities, which are "living hells," to quote Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Gautaman Bhaskaran is a Chennai, India-based journalist.