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,...

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...

Hundreds of thousands of sick people in India are suffering unnecessary and excruciating pain because of a lack of funds, according to a new report. The Human Rights Watch group says that budgetary constraints result in poor medical training, restrictive drug regulations and poor patient care. The group says that many major cancer hospitals do not provide patients with the painkilling drug, morphine. This is even though it has a reputation...

Dramatically reducing global child mortality would cost much less than people around the world think, an international aid agency says. Launching its biggest-ever campaign, Save the Children said $40bn (£25bn) would radically lower the number of children who die of treatable diseases. The agency said there was insufficient pressure on governments to act, because people thought it would cost much more. It said about nine million children aged under five died...

Government nutrition scheme has no place for necessary animal protein The ICDS programme launched in the 1970s was based on the results of extensive surveys which identified rampant child under-nutrition in India. Using the weight-for-age and height-for-age criteria, only 10 per cent children under five could be classified normal. And 15-20 per cent were underweight even when they were short. The situation has not improved in the past 35 years...