-The Telegraph New Delhi: A public health expert has questioned the Indian government's commitment to effectively tackling tuberculosis, citing slashed funds, late diagnoses and a failure to curb incorrect or inappropriate prescriptions by many private practitioners. India's plans to eliminate TB as a public health problem by 2050 will remain unachievable without sustained financial support, strong political will and stringent regulation, Mahavir Golechha has said. Golechha is a faculty member with the health...

-IPS News SUNDARBANS: November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. There is little agricultural wage-work to be found, and the village moneylender's loan remains unpaid, its interest mounting. The paddy harvest is a month away, pushing rice prices to an annual high. For those like Namita Bera,...

There is some good news amid gloom! Preliminary findings of a survey in India as quoted by the Global Nutrition Report 2014 shows that prevalence of malnutrition among children aged below 5 years has come down between 2005-06 and 2013-14, even though we have a long way to go. (See links and bullet points below). The survey on malnutrition and hunger, called the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), was conducted after...

-The Hindu Business Line Report lauds rapid progress in health indicators, especially in Maharashtra India is making rapid strides in overcoming the problem of malnutrition, with the number of stunted children under the age of five declining by over 10 million, says a ‘Global Nutrition Report'. The "first-ever comprehensive narrative on global health and country-level progress toward reducing malnutrition", brought out by a consortium of nations, organisations, researchers, and academics, covers each of...

-The Hindu India has dramatically reduced not only the number of underweight children but also the numbers of stunted and wasted children, new details of yet-unreleased official nutrition data show. The proportion of children under the age of five who are stunted has fallen from 48 per cent to 39 per cent between 2005-6 and 2013-14, the new numbers show, meaning that India now has 14.5 million fewer stunted children. Stunting is...