World Poverty-Score Card

World Poverty-Score Card:

Hunger:

On empty stomach

eight hundred million
souls go to bed each night,
on the empty stomach
they wake up every morning
without hope of any meal to eat;
for the unfortunate
three million children-
malnutrition-will deny them
witnessing next birthday,
their parents,
mostly, mothers-
hunger-may reduce them to
moving corpses.

Poor Homes and Unsanitary Living

Conditions:

In slums and ghettoes
more than six hundred million
individuals live,
under conditions far less human;
in homes without clean water-
they dwell-
homes without adequate ventilation,
houses without electricity and fixtures,
homes lacking basic human needs,
dilapidated homes with fallen roofs.

Over half of world’s population

live in remote and isolated areas,
areas not readily reached by roads,
places without infrastructures to
sustain life;
places that may technically
be regarded as prisons,
unfortunate habitations
where dwellers become prisoners,
not by default but by accident of birth.

Sickness and Diseases:

Sickness and diseases have  

become un-welcome and
permanent stay-in with bivouac
of humans for ages,
over one-and-half-billion
women with low income or no job,  
account for more than half of
world sick patients,
with little or no dignity
death treat them more than
male folks,
because of socio-cultural and
biological reasons.

Every year, more than three million

children die of preventable diseases,
shots to strengthen body immunity,
most people can’t afford;
every year, over half-a-million
pregnant women die of
child birth related complications,
HIV/AIDS continues to claim lives,
fifteen million children had lost
their parents to the disease.

Every year, venereal, heart, cancer,

diabetes, and mental illnesses
harvest millions,
poverty and ignorance  
hamstring vast majority on
medical conditions that could
have been controlled,
if victims had economic and social
powers;
sadly, children are orphaned,
live never to have or to know
parents in a continuous vicious
cycle.

Literacy and Education:

Every year, more than hundred million

children are shut out of schools,
as more schools are closed down
because of global economic
downturns;
social services-under which schools
fall suffer tremendously-as cuts in
budget limit services schools’ can
provide.

More worrisome is the quality of

education and its products-globally-
teacher-student ratio keep declining,
higher education in economically
prosperous lands is becoming a
luxury and unaffordable in
developing economies.

Instead of being oases of knowledge,

moral development, and sound spiritual
training grounds,
schools and their managers have gone
into syncope,
leaving students to their fate
and human society keep reaping
rotten fruits from abandonment
with deadly consequences that
threaten future of mankind.

Social Services:

Hospitals, health, and medical

facilities have become the victims
of budget cuts on social services
provided by governments world over,
elderly, children, women, and
people living with disabilities are
getting reduced assistance by the day,
standard of living from where quality of
good life emanates keep going down.

Globally, workers are compelled to

work more jobs under unfavorable
labor laws that are barely different
from slavery;
today, half of world’s population
live on $2.50 per day, 
another billion souls live in
extreme poverty of less than-
$1.25 per day.

International Dimension:

Globalization! Globalization! Globalization!

Removal of artificial and natural borders,
integrating world economic order
into a single powerful economic order
by multi and trans-national corporations
through mergers, acquisitions,
down and right sizing, and
international market dominance
keep shrinking economic powers
of world workers.

Gender pay gap, color lines pay,

pay by specialization and knowledge
based on locations now on the rise;
workers live from hand-to-mouth,
more salaried workers are now
destitute living from
paycheck-to-paycheck,
as global economic condition
worsen.

Multi and trans-national corporations,

International organizations-governmental
non-governmental have become
modern-day slave owners,
through slave camps 
they run worldwide
in the name of commercial activities-
of demand and supply.

Gains and profits from masses’

misfortune create more wealth
and power for the super-rich,
technology and collapsed borders
they keep maximizing to have
unfettered access to man’s
collective wealth.

Let the world know:

a child without food and  
other necessities constitute
a crime against human.

Let humanity know:

women build nations,
a nation will be half-built or
remained stagnant  
when women have no
access to medical care,
have no food to eat,
have no homes to raise their
children,
have no education and
are denied economic power.

World must know:

future may be ruined when
a child is raised in a slum or in
a ghetto,
moreover, job ethics and
morals may be compromised,
when workers are underpaid and
unfairly treated.

Proclaim from public squares,

declare from rooftops,
advertise from your windows,
pronounce from agoras,
trumpet from the theaters,
herald from on the streets,
broadcast from highways:
a little more help-
a little plough back to-
the society by every one
will certainly create an oasis of love,
belongingness, and brotherhood
everyone shall be proud of.