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School serves Salt and Roti to children, but journalist charged for ‘defamation’

Mirzapur | The Uttar Pradesh state government has filed a case against the journalist who shot the video showing schoolchildren eating ‘Salt’ and ‘Rotis’.

In its complaint, the Block Education Officer of the area has accused the journalist, Pawan Jaiswal, and a representative of the local village head of a conspiracy to defame the Uttar Pradesh government.

The three-page first information report, however, mentions that only rotis were cooked in the school on the day when the video was shot. It advises that the village head’s representative should have arranged for vegetables instead of calling a reporter to the school premises.

The FIR states that the video was used to ‘defame’ the state government. The video was shot by the local journalist, who works with the Jansandesh Times, and then forwarded to the news agency ANI.

The journalist and the village head’s representative have been accused of cheating and criminal conspiracy.

“I ordered an inquiry and the incident was found to be true. Prima facie, it is the fault of the teacher incharge of the school and the supervisor at the gram panchayat. Both have been suspended,” Anurag Patel, the top government officer in Mirzapur, had told NDTV, a day after the incident.

Children given ‘Salt’ and ‘Roti’ as a part of “nutritious” mid-day meal

Children at a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district on Thursday were served ‘salt’ and ‘Roti’ as a part of Nation’s flagship mid-day meal programme.

About 100 students were filmed eating their ‘meal’.

The mid-day meal scheme was launched by the government of India to increase the nutrition of school children with an annual budget of Rs 12,000 crore approximately.

The matter came to light after the video showing the children eating just Rotis and salt became viral.

The website of the Uttar Pradesh mid-day meal authority, in-charge for all of the meals, incidentally has an extensive menu to be served to the kids.

It includes pulses rice, rotis and vegetables. Fruits and milk are included on certain days, according to the meal chart.

Watch: Roti Rice & Salt: How UP children are forced to eat non-nutritional mid-day meal

 

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