Its a place to learn and know interesting perspectives. Just as there have been discussion on inefficiencies of agriculture in the US, fights in McDonalds over glasses and other US political stuff things like this get discussed.
It gives a perspective to people on poverty in the world and how things are else where beyond your cubicle and first world countries.
Stories like these, while tragic, are not new phenomena. Unless one is naive, one should already know that the world is full of corruption and that there isn't anything particularly novel about this brand of corruption. On the other hand, a story about cleverly planted subtle bugs in a high-frequency trading algorithm would make for a great HN story involving corruption since the details would be intellectually gratifying. But plain old selling of supplies meant for the poor? That's been going on forever. How is your intellect gratified by hearing about yet one more case?
That is why probably most people on this thread are discussing agricultural methods, distribution and issues related economy.
Besides you always have a right to flag this.
See [1]. From the abstract - "We provide empirical evidence that strongly shows that technology-induced private sector development is associated with a decline in aggregate corruption.".
Also see [2]. From the abstract - "The paper suggests that societies that continually stay open to productivity-enhancing activities will eventually enter a takeoff stage of anti-corruption efforts..."
[1] Corruption and Technology-Induced Private Sector Development. www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2006/wp06198.pdf
[2] Corruption and Technological Progress. www2.econ.osaka-u.ac.jp/coe/dp/dp_no.14.pdf