The irony emerged from UNICEF report is that most of the children die from
diseases which are preventable. The right to food for children is still a
distant cry –hence the malnutrition was named culprit of swapping so many
budding life in India. So, there is no denying fact that things are far from
rosy and we may fall short of Millennium Development Goals. The intra-and
inter-regional disparities are another crucial area need to be attended. There
is no denying fact that the poor populace feel left out of the financial
windfall. A more dangerous trend of sympathising and aligning such left-outs
with anti-establishment rebel groups has amply demonstrated in many studies.
So, these are interrelated and inclusive growth may provide us the answer.
Sensitisation of common mass is one of the easiest ways to force those who are
in power to switch their mind from petty politics and ruling by divide on the
basis of religion or caste.
--- On Wed, 6/8/08, Gladson Dungdung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Gladson Dungdung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [ =>> Jharkhand <<= ] Two million children die in India annually:
UNICEF
To:
Date: Wednesday, 6 August, 2008, 9:53 AM
Jharkhand Forum | Jharkhand Blog | Jharkhand Video | Jharkhand Network
Two million children die in India annually: UNICEF
Tue-Aug 05, 2008
New Delhi / Press Trust of India
Over two million children in India die every year due to malnutrition,
pneumonia and diarrhoea, a UNICEF report released on Tuesday said.
Around 2.1 million children died in India in 2006 while the number was 4,15,000
in China. In 2004 and 2005, nearly four million children had died in India
where the Infant Mortality Rate is 57 per 1,000 births, the State of the Asia
Pacific's Children Report 2008 said.
Health care fails to reach poorest sections of people in India, it said, adding
the country needs to improve in many areas including nutrition, water and
sanitation, education, gender equality and child protection.
Unless India takes steps to address them, efforts to attain the Millennium
Development Goals, that aims to achieve education and health care for all by
2015, will fail, the report said.
"The divide between rich and poor is rising at a troubling rate within
sub-regions of Asia-Pacific, leaving a vast number of mothers and children at
risk of increasing relative poverty and continued exclusion from quality
primary health-care services," it said.
In India, one out of every three women is underweight putting them at risk of
having low birth weight babies and these babies are 20 times more likely to die
in infancy than healthy babies.
South Asia is also the only sub-region in the world where female life
expectancy is lower than male life expectancy and where girls are more likely
to be underweight than boys.
"Unless discrimination against women and girls is addressed, high rates of
maternal and child mortality will remain stubbornly entrenched," the UN report
said.
Public health expenditure in Asia-Pacific region remains well below the world
average of 5.1 per cent as South Asia spends only 1.1 per cent of GDP and 1.9
per cent being spent in the rest of the region, it said.
The report stressed on political will and sound strategies to increase
investment in public health services targeting the poorest and most
marginalised.
The UN body, in its report, has recommended to strengthen health systems by
involving communities in preventative public health interventions.
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