Muslims, SCs, STs reflect better social indices, closer to national averages Early in the morning, Mohammad Nadeem, a 25-year-old ‘pakka adati’, big wholesaler, at one of Muzaffarnagar’s fruit and vegetable mandis, briskly sets about selling carrots and oranges. As he expertly sifts through sacks of fresh produce, it’s difficult to picture him hawking peanuts by the roadside. But for five years in this bustling western Uttar Pradesh mandi, Nadeem’s store...

-Reuters India is about to hit a milestone in its battle to eradicate the polio virus with no new cases reported in the past year, the country’s health minister said today, a dramatic drop from being the country worst-affected by the crippling disease. The last case was detected on January 13 in a two-year-old girl in Howrah. A full year without any new cases means India will no longer be classed as “polio-endemic”...

“Only one third of the journey has been completed” The last case of wild polio virus reported in India was exactly one year ago, on January 13, when stool samples showed that 18-month-old Rukhsar Khatoon in West Bengal had polio. She has since recovered, but it is the progress of whittling down from the largest number of cases in the world to zero that is fascinating to public health experts globally. Clearly,...

-The Economic Times It is a shame, said the Prime Minister, releasing a new report that says 42% of India's children suffer from malnutrition. Dr Manmohan Singh went on to talk of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the government's preferred scheme for tackling the problem, and of the need to to focus on 100 extremely backward districts.  An ICDS-like scheme is entirely appropriate but it would be a big mistake to...

-BBC   Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has branded malnutrition among children a "national shame", after a report said nearly half of children under five in the country were underweight. According to the report, 42% of children in that age bracket are suffering from malnutrition. Mr Singh said the level of malnutrition in India was "unacceptably high". The Hunger and Malnutrition Report also said that one in three malnourished children in the world is Indian. India...