5 assets or access to credit, rising food prices, many people in Bangladesh are deprived of this basic need. According to reliable data, 20% of the population of Bangladesh is still calorie deficient. Low birth weight among Bangladeshi infants is among the highest in the world. Relationship between poverty and hunger is well established. Level of calorie intake is one of the methods to measure poverty. Poverty can be a cause and an outcome of food insecurity and hunger. Hunger deprives ability of individuals to learn and work to fulfill potential. It makes them vulnerable to disease and premature death. Food insecurity can strike at multiple levels- individual, household, community, and nationwide- and has multiple impacts ranging from a protein or micronutrient deficiency that has severe health consequences to milder forms that affect attention and cognitive ability.2 Food insecurity is considered an outcome of social and economic processes that lead to lack of access to food. These are: lack of adequate education and living wages, lack of access to health care and health information, and exposure to unsafe living conditions such as unsafe water, poor housing, and dangerous neighborhood environments.3 In his seminal book published in 1981, Poverty and Famines, Amartya K. Sen noted that hunger and malnutrition are not necessarily attributable to a lack of available food. The main thesis of Sen’s approach is that it is not the lack of food that people are hungry but hunger stems from disempowerment, marginalization and poverty and they lack economic access to adequate food. It is for this reason that the recognition of food as a human right can be vital to achieving sustainable and long-term food security.4 2. Aims and Objectives of the Study The study report will examine the food security situation in Bangladesh, and shed light on current shift from basic need approach to right based approach to food. The study will highlight on the definition and contents of the right to food. The report will also analyse the constitutional provisions of different countries and international instruments on right to food. It will make a critical assessment the laws and policies on food security in Bangladesh and determine to what 2 DeRose LF, Messer E, Millman S. ‘Who's Hungry? And How Do We Know? Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation’. New York, NY: United Nations University; 1998 3 Ibid 4 Olivier de Schutter, Countries tackling hunger with a right to food approach, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, p. 1.