India has the largest number of stunted children below the age of five in the world, according to the latest UNICEF report released here. Approximately 200 million children, under the age of five, suffer from stunted growth in the developing world. The report "Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition" found that stunting is primarily caused due to childhood under-nutrition, which contributes to more than a third of all deaths in children...

An astonishing 200 million children under the age of five, almost all in Africa and Asia, suffer from the debilitating impact of stunted growth resulting from a lack of food and the right nutrients, a new United Nations report warned today. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition, also stressed that undernutrition contributes to a third of deaths of all children under five each year,...

A fact finding team of many civil society organizations has reported widespread occurrences of murders, tortures and cases of police atrocities in Chhattisgarh in the name of combating Naxalism. It is also being alleged that in the name of their own security, journalists are being stopped from going to so called “combat zones” where security forces have launched an Operation Greenhunt to flush out armed Maoists.  Fifteen members of the...

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) launched a new action plan on Monday to prevent up to 5.3 million children from dying of pneumonia – the biggest child killer worldwide – by 2015. Although nearly 2 million children die from the disease every year, with nearly all deaths occurring in 68 developing countries, relatively few resources are dedicated to addressing pneumonia. The Global Action Plan...

In their own manner, Indian Maoists have worked out the rationale of what they are doing. The grisly serial murders they are indulging in are, in the first instance, intended to warn god-fearing men and women in the areas they are entrenched in to behave and not act as police informers. Should their instructions be infringed, retribution would be swift and merciless. The brutal killings, specifically of CPI(M) cadre and...