-The United Nations A United Nations-backed campaign will seek to vaccinate more than 111 million children under the age of five against polio in 20 African countries in just four days. “The upcoming campaign in West and Central Africa will aim to cover all children, immunized or not, in order to boost their protection levels and deprive the virus of the fertile seedbed on which it depends for survival,” said the World...

According to data released Monday by India’s Planning Commission, the number of people living in absolute poverty in India decreased by 12.5% between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010. India’s official poverty rate stands at 29.8%, or close to 350 million people using 2010 population figures, down from around 37.2% or 400 million previously. The announcement was based on an analysis of data gathered from roughly 100,000 households between July 2009 and June 2010,...

At a time when economic wisdom is seen as lying in allowing unrestrained play of economic power and cutting social sector spending, here is a report emphasising the economic sense in addressing hunger, especially child malnutrition. It also brings out the positive impact of employment guarantee scheme, which has been a thrust area of the UPA government but has seen a cut in allocation in Budget proposals for 2012-13. The report...

-Reuters   Cheap generic drugs were meant to change the life of Nandakhu Nissar, whose mouth is swollen by a cancerous tumour. But the cashless and hungry 55-year-old sleeps on a pavement staring up at the windows of Mumbai's biggest cancer hospital.  "What is a generic drug?" shrugs Nissar, who has travelled over 1,500 kms (900 miles) from his home in the hope of treatment. "I have borrowed money from friends and relatives...

-First Post A ten percent spike in food prices could push 30 millions more people into extreme poverty in India, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said. Ironically,  data released by the Planning Commission on Monday showed that poverty had declined significantly between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010.In absolute terms, there were 35.5 crore poor people in 2009-10 against 40.7 crore five years earlier. As per the data, poverty across the...