In Bihar, official helps widow who wasn't allowed to cook for school

Children at the government middle school in Kalyanpur, Bihar have been going hungry for the past week. The reason: Parents didn’t want their children to be fed by a widow.

However, things changed on Friday when Gopalganj’s District Magistrate Rahul Kumar sat down on the floor along with students and had the mid-day meal prepared by the woman.

For the past week, students at the school were not being given a mid-day meal as parents protested against the food being cooked by Sunita Kunwar, a widow.

The parents were, in fact, so enraged that they even forced the school to shut down since last Wednesday.

Upset over the developments, Kunwar, a widow for the past 15 years and a mother of two, lodged a complaint with the district administration. Following this, DM Rahul Kumar visited the village on Friday, sat down on the floor along with students and had the mid-day meal prepared by the woman.

After Kunwar was reinstated, DM Kumar tweeted: “Sometimes you do symbolic things to overcome people’s beliefs. Asked the same widow cook to serve me the meal.”