http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-china-indictment-20130724,0,5025701.story

I was very saddened to hear of this egregious event. I cannot believe that a school principal would let 23 students die due to contaminated food.

The next thing that caught my attention was the fact that several media reports lied saying that Meena Devi (the school principal) turned herself in voluntarily. As to why they would do this, I am not sure. Though I do have an inkling of a suspicion that the authors of the reports were in someway affiliated with the school principal. Maybe they were bribed to say it so as to make her look better. Although even if they did, I doubt that anything the authors could have written would have much of an effect.

I am somewhat happy to hear that Devi is now being interrogated in the Chhapra police station.

To hear that Devi urged the children to eat the food despite the complaints, confirms my suspicions that she is guilty. But what could motivate a person to kill over 20 children, I do not know. I cannot think of any reason  that the deaths of these children might be beneficial.

also, after hearing of this event, I wonder what other forms of corruption and mismanagement exist in Indian welfare programs. Could there have been more incidents such as this? If there have been, I hope that they will be uncovered quickly and the perpetrators quickly brought to justice.

I, too, agree with Jayati Ghosh when he says that there is much to be learned from this.