At least 21 children died and more than two dozen others were sick after eating a free school lunch that was tainted with insecticide, Indian officials said yesterday.
It was not immediately clear how chemicals ended up in the food in a school in Bihar State. One official said the food may not have been properly washed before it was cooked.
The children, between the ages of eight and 11, fell ill on Tuesday soon after eating lunch in Gandamal Village in Masrakh block, 80km north of the state capital, Patna. School authorities immediately stopped serving the meal of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes as the children started vomiting.
Savita, an 11-year-old student who uses only one name, said she had a stomach ache after eating soybeans and potatoes and started vomiting.
“I don’t know what happened after that,” Savita said in an interview at Patna Medical College Hospital, where she and many other children were recovering.
The lunch, part of a popular national campaign to give at least one daily hot meal to children from poor families, was cooked in the school kitchen.
The children were rushed to a local hospital and later to Patna for treatment, state official Abhijit Sinha said.
In addition to the 21 children who died, another 26 children and the school cook were hospitalized, he said. Ten of them were in serious condition.
Authorities suspended an official in charge of the free meal scheme in the school and registered a case of criminal negligence against the school headmaster, who fled as soon as the children fell ill.
Angry villagers, joined by members of local opposition parties, closed shops and businesses near the school and overturned and burned four police vehicles.
Bihar Minister of Education P.K. Sahi said a preliminary investigation suggested the food contained an organophosphate used as an insecticide on rice and wheat crops. It is believed the grain was not washed before it was served at the school, he said.
However, local villagers said the problem appeared to be with a side dish of soybeans and potatoes, not grain. Children who had not eaten that dish were fine, although they had eaten the rice and lentils, several villagers said.
Sinha said the cooked food and kitchen utensils have been seized by investigators.
“Whether it was a case of negligence or was intentional, we will only know once the inquiry has been conducted,” he said.
India’s midday meal scheme is one of the world’s biggest school nutrition programs. State governments have the freedom to decide on menus and timings of the meals, depending on local conditions and availability of food rations. It was first introduced in southern India, where it was seen as an incentive for poor parents to send their children to school. Since then the program has been replicated across the country, covering about 120 million school children. It is part of an effort to address concerns about malnutrition, which the government says nearly half of all Indian children suffer from.
Although there have been occasional complaints about the quality of the food served, or the lack of hygiene, the tragedy in Bihar appeared to be unprecedented for the massive food program.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from