Street plays to enhance public awareness of food shortage

Street plays to enhance public awareness of food shortage

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Jan 4: Samudaaya Mangalore, a forum that fosters culture and tradition in Mangalore, organized its district level cultural Jatha with a series of cultural awareness programmes and street plays in front of DC’s office on January 4, 2010. The purpose of staging this street play is to focus public attention on the country’s food problems and to create awareness about the government’s anti-people policies that have resulted in severe food shortage.
















The street play “Annavannu Kodu Modhalu,” directed by Prashanth Belthangady, was performed with the purpose of eliminated the problems of hunger and food shortage in Karnataka. The play also depicted the sufferings of farmers and various issues such as land acquisition by multi-national companies and industries that force farmers to commit suicide in desperation. 

The renowned Kannada writer Sara Aboobakker who inaugurated the street play said that several reasons such as unemployment and illiteracy lead to hunger problems. Unfortunately, farmers consider suicide to be the only solution to their economic problems. She also brought attention to the fact that crores of rupees are wasted in conducting elections, but not a rupee is being spent on solving the economic problems of the poor. The number of people dying of hunger and starvation will decrease only if the government implements schemes for the development of the poor, she said. 

States such as Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu import and provide rice at subsidy rates; but this doesn’t happen in Karnataka. The Nethravathi River Diversion issue and the problem of food shortage it will give rise to haunts the people, she said. 

Nagesh Kumar, the district convener of Samudaya, said that thousands of people die of hunger and starvation regularly; and one of the causes for this is price hike. Apart from the rightists, no other party is bothered about the plight of the farmers and the problems of hunger, he alleged. 

Samudaaya will stage the street play in different parts of DK such as Thokkottu, Gurupura, Moodubidri, Ujire, Kalleri, Vittla, BC Road, Panjimogaru, Bajal, Kaikamba, Shirthadi, Belthangady, Puttur, Bantwal, and Bikarnakatte from Jan 4 – 7. 

Prof Krishnamurthy of Chitrapura, Gurucharan Rao, Ali Hasan, Derick Lobo, and C N Shetty were also present on the occasion.