Bush Lies media buys. As usual.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1806579,00.html?imw=Y

President Bush has never been known for his eloquence, but his comment earlier this month that India's growing middle class was demanding "better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up" was neither particularly mangled nor, at first flush, offensive. .....

But Bush was not completely wrong, either. There's no doubt that China and India's growing middle classes are consuming more and different types of food. As people get richer they tend to eat more meat and dairy products, for instance, and that's exactly what's happening in China and India.

We all know how Indian press reacted to this news.  Most of them blaming the US for eating more instead and asking them to stop policing.  Over all readers may have been left with an impression that things are much better off in India and they are now eating more, thanks to globalisation.  The response that was metted out did not correct that impression and instead showed that US folks ate even more and that they should not bully.

Some like TOI even reacted thus:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Now_White_House_says_bon_appetit_to_India/articleshow/3028933.cms

While the Indian government, including the Prime Minister, maintained a dignified silence on the matter, it was mostly the media, his headline seeking colleagues, and Left politicians who feasted on the controversy and made a meal of it in the end.

Only a few had the courage to show that it was not just a dumb statement out of Bush's potty mouth, but a blatant lie!  And for that lie, Sir, I DO take offense.

http://www.countercurrents.org/kavita090508.htm

But in India, since the entry of globalisation, the average per capita consumption of food grain has actually gone down from 177 kg per person to 155 kg per person: which is the same as the hunger levels seen during famine in times of the British Raj. And in India, foodgrains absorption is rising fast for the (mainly urban) middle class, which boosts the national average. A large section of rural poor are actually reduced to as low as 136 kg per capita per year – which is the same as that of starvation-hit sub-Saharan Africa. Bush grudges the 350 million-strong Indian middle class its improved diet: he is blithely silent about over 350 million rural Indians who are below the average food energy intake of sub-Saharan African countries! Studies have shown a long-term tendency towards declining per capita calorie consumption, especially in rural India – that is, Indians are growing hungrier year after year. Deaths by hunger are an all-too common phenomenon which Indian rulers are united in denying.