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India's children: imperilled by hunger

There is bad news about India's children. They account for one third of the world's malnourished children, and the country's rate of malnutrition is, at 47 per cent, the same as Ethiopia's. A new United Nations Children's Fund report titled "Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition" reveals these grim facts. Half the world's underweight, undernourished children come from South Asia, compared with one-third from sub-Saharan Africa. In India, girls suffer more from malnutrition than boys. The UNICEF report suggests that at least 600,000 deaths of children under five can be prevented by simple health interventions, improved sanitation, and better food practices. By contrast, China has made remarkable progress, bringing down its malnutrition to eight per cent and contributing significantly to the overall improvement in East Asia's score. The lack of progress in the war against malnutrition erodes a primary Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations — halving hunger and eradicating extreme poverty by 2015. The UNICEF report points out that fighting malnutrition means tackling poverty, the lack of education, the marginalisation of girls, and social inequalities. Clearly, food aid alone will be insufficient to meet the global crisis of malnutrition.

In India the rate of malnutrition varies across States. Madhya Pradesh at 55.1 per cent and Bihar at 54.4 per cent top the list but this in no way implies that `prosperous' States have well-nourished children. Recent media reports from Thane district in Maharashtra revealed a shocking increase in the number of children dying from malnutrition right at the doorstep of Mumbai, India's financial capital. Last year, 1,100 children below the age of six are reported to have died in Thane district; and while the causes of death are listed as pneumonia or other acute conditions, doctors say many of these children suffered from malnutrition and, in consequence, low immunity to disease and death. Many of the victims were children of migrant workers, who suffer from economic deprivation linked with unemployment. This exemplifies the connection between socio-economic conditions and malnutrition. Malnutrition also stems from the low status of women in Indian families. The nutritional needs of pregnant women are given inadequate attention; this social failure, in turn, contributes to low birth weight babies. Men have primary control over the typical household's resources and, as a result, children's access to food has subordinate importance to theirs. Instead of being in denial over this critical issue, governments must ensure that all citizens can afford the cost of basic nutrition; they should also spare no effort in promoting gender equality in communities and within households. The risk of endangering the well-being of an entire generation is very real and urgent action is needed to safeguard the country's present and future.

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