Shudir Baran Mazi

Safe food is a fundamental human right. We eat to live, eat to live healthy. There is no substitute for food for sustenance. But how safe is what I eat in the name of food every day? All around I see only the ceremony of adultery. National health is under threat today due to lack of safe food. There is no alternative to safe food for healthy living. But we are buying food every day with money. Every human being needs clean, safe and nutritious food for good health.

And this pure, safe and nutritious food is absolutely essential to build a healthy and prosperous nation. Without good health all our needs are in vain. Good health requires safe food, safe environment and economic security. Healthy Food Healthy Life, or Safe Food Safe Life, Safe Nation. But getting clean, safe and nutritious food in our country has been made difficult by some unscrupulous ultra-profit businessmen and crooks. Food is being made unsafe and poisoned at every step from production to marketing.

17 million people are in fear today. It is my fundamental and constitutional right to live healthy. Ensuring that assurance is the main function of a state. We eat to live, not to die. Kidney, liver, cancer and heart diseases are increasing at unimaginable rates due to food insecurity. Food fulfills the nutritional needs of people, keeps them healthy and makes them active. But what we are eating in the name of food is actually food or poison. In fact we are constantly buying poison with money in the name of food.

Junk food is constantly pushing us to death. We are getting sick. Sick people are burden for family, society, country and nation. Additional time, money and thought are spent on caring for a sick person. Work hours are wasted. Millions of people's lives are threatened today due to adulterated food. Now food means formalin, carbide, hydrogen, peroxide, aspartame, ethopane and various harmful dyes and poisons. We are helpless, we are hostages to adulterers. How long will this situation continue in a country? Along with adulterated food, syndicates supplying adulterated and expired medicines are also active. Life-saving drugs play an effective role as life-destroyers due to adulteration and expiration.

We are constantly being preyed upon by a group of very greedy profiteers. National health care and the economy are threatened today by food adulteration. Children are born sick and malnourished due to adulterated food. As a result we see before us a malnourished and sick nation. Which we do not want in any way. Due to food adulteration, various types of cancer, liver cirrhosis, kidney failure, heart disease, hypertension etc. are increasing at an alarming rate. Patient queues at hospitals and doctors are getting longer and longer. If we cannot provide safe food, the nation will eventually become paralyzed. 3 lakh people are suffering from cancer every year due to food adulteration alone. The number of people affected by kidney disease is about 3 lakh, the number of people affected by diabetes is 1 lakh 50 thousand. Apart from this, the number of children with congenital disabilities including physical complications of pregnant mothers is about 17 lakhs in the country.

Food adulteration and counterfeit drugs have become epidemics in manufacturing countries. 70% of Dhaka city and 50% in rural areas are adulterated. If the state does not immediately take effective measures against adulterated food and counterfeit drugs, it will be difficult to deal with this situation. Food adulteration is not only physical damage, but national development is also hindered due to food adulteration. Adulteration of food is a crime of murder. Manufacture of adulterated drugs and sale of expired drugs is also an offense of murder.

There is no drug or medicine after adulteration and expiry. It becomes poison. They cannot be sheltered in any way. Be strict and vocal against counterfeiters. Zero tolerance policy should be adopted for safe food and medicine. The campaign against counterfeiters should always be ongoing. A social movement should be built. No matter how powerful an adulterer is, he is an adulterer by identity and nothing to the power of the state. Cases of state murder and sedition should be filed against the counterfeiters. Anyone who takes a stand for counterfeiters should also be brought under the law.

The number of adulterers is not high. Maybe a handful. But its consumers are 16 crore people and future generations. It is our responsibility to keep them safe. Countless people are being pushed to death by adulteration and poisoning of food. Food adulteration is punishable by life in India and death in China. In our country too, in section 25(c) 1(e) of the Special Powers Act of 1974, there is a provision that adulterating or selling food and medicine shall be punished with death penalty or life imprisonment or 14 years imprisonment. But why is the law not enforced? Sometimes the adulterers are fined through mobile quota, but they again carry out the festival of adulteration with renewed enthusiasm.

Soft drinks that increase the risk of kidney, liver, cancer should be banned. Within a month, their charges should be disposed of and the maximum penalty should be death sentence or life imprisonment by declaring them non-bailable and non-amnesty. By ensuring proper enforcement of laws, we can ensure pure, safe and nutritious food. Enact and enforce new laws as necessary for food safety, life safety and national health security. It is our expectation that pure, safe and nutritious food should be ensured for building a healthy and beautiful nation in the future.

The writer is a, Teacher, Haimchar Govt. College, Haimchar-Chandpur.