-The Telegraph New Delhi: For 10 months, the Narendra Modi administration withheld from the public the findings of a study by India's government and Unicef that charts "unprecedented" improvement in child malnutrition over the past decade but shows Gujarat in an unflattering light. Under pressure after The Economist reported the findings a fortnight ago, the government last week released the national-level data from the Rapid Survey on Children. But it is still...

-PTI New Delhi: Under fire for holding back state- wise findings of UNICEF's Rapid Survey on Children, the Women and Child Development Ministry has constituted a committee to examine the report following differences of opinion over the survey methodology. The committee, which is likely to submit its report within a week, includes officials from the ministries of Health and Family Welfare, and Statistics and Programme Implementation. It will work upon to reach...

-FirstPost.com The last time a comprehensive study was published on nutrition or health in India, it was back in 2007. Another study was done in 2013 and 2014 by Unicef, the UN agency for children, in collaboration with the Indian government. But the results of the study, which were to be published in October 2014, never saw light of day. At least, not in their entirety. A limited set of data on...

-Economic and Political Weekly This article examines the decline in coverage levels of the Routine immunisation Programme in the better-governed states across three rounds of the District Level Household and Facility Survey. The analysis points to an urban conundrum where proximity to urban centres is a "risk factor." An understanding of peri-urbanisation processes is essential for improving outcomes and governance in urban health services and the National Urban Health Mission. Purnamita Dasgupta...

-India Today In a shocking revelation, the Centre on Tuesday admitted that almost half of India's children are devoid of routine immunisation. While the immunisation in rural areas is around 58 per cent, the figure for urban areas stands just over 67 per cent. Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda, while speaking in the Rajya Sabha, attributed the dismal rate of immunisation to lack of awareness among parents and non-availability of...