India Does Not Like Toilets......

If you listen to corporate America (tell the story) Americans (you) are not qualified to work for them. You are not educated enough. You are not experienced enough. Trying to train you is a complete waste of time. 

That is why they (corporate America) absolutely have to have people brought over from India. People from India are smarter, and better, and more educated (Than you) in every possible way.

They are a shining example of high tech thinking in action.

But they do have one small shortcoming (which you excel at). You (Mr. and Mrs. America) are well versed at the high tech process of using a toilet. The super smart folks from India are still struggling with the concept.

Working for Microsoft they can do. Using a standard register toilet is somehow a mystery. The result is millions of malnourished and stunted children.

While you might not think it is a big deal……. please still place your know how (of using modern plumbing) on your resume. You should be proud of your abilities….let people know. Maybe the HR recruiter at Microsoft will even want a demonstration. Be proud.

As an American, nobody expects you to do much (these days) because of your lack of ability. The fact that you can handle modern plumbing is a credit to you and your country.

God Bless America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/poor-sanitation-in-india-may-afflict-well-fed-children-with-malnutrition.html?_r=0#

“children across India, where a long economic boom has done little to reduce the vast number of children who are malnourished and stunted, leaving them with mental and physical deficits that will haunt them their entire lives.”

“an emerging body of scientific studies suggest that many of the 162 million children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.”

“Like almost everyone else in their village, Vivekand his family have no toilet, and the district where they live has the highest concentration of people who defecate outdoors. As a result, children are exposed to a bacterial brew that often sickens them, leaving them unable to attain a healthy body weight no matter how much food they eat.”

“These children’s bodies divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritize infection-fighting survival,” said Jean Humphrey, a professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When this happens during the first two years of life, children become stunted. What’s particularly disturbing is that the lost height and intelligence are permanent.”

“Unicef officials and those from other major charitable organizations said they believe that poor sanitation may cause more than half of the world’s stunting problem.”

“Our realization about the connection between stunting and sanitation is just emerging,” said Sue Coates, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at Unicef India.”

“This research has quietly swept through many of the world’s nutrition and donor organizations in part because it resolves a great mystery: Why are Indian children so much more malnourished than their poorer counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa?”

“A child raised in India is far more likely to be malnourished than one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe or Somalia, the planet’s poorest countries. Stunting afflicts 65 million Indian children under the age of 5, including a third of children from the country’s richest families.”

“This disconnect between wealth and malnutrition is so striking that economists have concluded that economic growth does almost nothing to lessen malnutrition.”

“Half of India’s population, or at least 620 million people, defecates outdoors. And while this share has declined slightly in the past decade, an analysis of census data shows that rapid population growth has meant that most Indians are being exposed to more human waste than ever before.”

“In Sheohar, for instance, a toilet-building program between 2001 and 2011 decreased the share of households without toilets to 80 percent from 87 percent, but population growth meant that exposure to human waste rose by half.”

“The difference in average height between Indian and African children can be explained entirely by differing concentrations of open defecation,” said Dean Spears, an economist at the Delhi School of Economics. “There are far more people defecating outside in India more closely to one another’s children and homes than there are in Africa or anywhere else in the world.”

“India’s stunting problem represents the largest loss of human potential in any country in history, and it affects 20 times more people in India alone than H.I.V./AIDS does around the world,”

“India is an increasingly risky place to raise children. The country’s sanitation and air quality are among the worst in the world. Parasitic diseases and infections like tuberculosis, often linked with poor sanitation, are most common in India. More than one in four newborn deaths occur in India.”

“Open defecation has long been an issue in India. Some ancient Hindu texts advised people to relieve themselves far from home, a practice that Mahatma Gandhi sought to curb.”

“The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere,” Gandhi wrote in 1925.”

“Other developing countries have made huge strides in improving sanitation. Just 1 percent of Chinese and 3 percent of Bangladeshis relieve themselves outside compared with half of Indians. Attitudes may be just as important as access to toilets. Constructing and maintaining tens of millions of toilets in India would cost untold billions, a price many voters see no need to pay — a recent survey found that many people prefer going to the bathroom outside.”

“Few rural households build the sort of inexpensive latrines that have all but eliminated outdoor waste in neighboring Bangladesh.”

“One analysis found that government spending on toilets pays for itself in increased tax receipts from greater productivity, but the math works only if every member of a family who gets a toilet uses it.”

“We need a cultural revolution in this country to completely change people’s attitudes toward sanitation and hygiene,” said Jairam Ramesh, an economist and former sanitation minister.”

“India’s government has for decades tried to resolve the country’s stubborn malnutrition problems by distributing vast stores of subsidized food. But more and better food has largely failed to reverse early stunting, studies have repeatedly shown.”

“India now spends about $26 billion annually on food and jobs programs, and less than $400 million on improving sanitation — a ratio of more than 60 to 1.”

“We need to reverse that ratio entirely,” Dr. Laxminarayan said.”