Whenever we think about malnourishment and death of infants and children, African countries such as Somalia and Rwanda come to our mind. Not even in wildest dreams we thought about India, forget about Odisha. But, Nagada in Jajpur district forced us to bow our heads in shame today.

We boast about development and growth in our state. But, we never realised we have an inaccessible village called Nagada, which is yet to taste any piece of development. We had to wait for the death of 19 children to get a glimpse of Nagada and its horrible sight.

Kudos to the media, which dared to highlight Nagada instead of focusing more on Motilal, Papu Pom Pom and casting couch syndrome. But, the job is half done. The administration is still struggling to bring the villagers into mainstream and improve their living condition.

Now, we need to believe that Nagada is not lone exception. We may have many more Nagadas, which the government has not heard of. The media must play a proactive role to discover such hamlets and inaccessible regions that are still awaiting to see development.