Children are now much higher on the global AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) agenda and there is a major shift in commitment, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Board, to increase support for Preventing Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT). India has received extended support from the Global Fund for Preventing Parent-To-Child Transmission (PPTCT), according to the Fourth Stocktaking Report, produced by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund,...

With the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen just 13 days away, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has highlighted the need to ensure that the energy needs of developing countries are central to any new climate agreement, after a new report found that almost a quarter of the world’s 6 billion people live without electricity. The majority of the 1.5 billion people who live in the dark are in the...

Opening more medical colleges is not the solution to India’s chronic shortage of doctors in the rural areas.  India is the largest supplier of foreign medical graduates to the United States and the United Kingdom. Yet, its own rural areas have remained chronically deprived of professional doctors. The historical antecedents of these shortages could be traced to a landmark health policy document, the Bhore Committee Report of 1946. That report...

“This is a country on the make.” The speaker was a young assistant to one of India’s rising political stars. And from his perspective, it did look that way. We were sitting in the lobby restaurant of New Delhi’s luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel. That evening, the Taj was not only the place for a government reception following Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decisive re-election victory, but it was also the scene...

Some 300 million children in South Asia, or half of the region’s under-18 population, suffer from chronic levels of poverty, according to a new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study presented today at the opening of a conference in Bangladesh. To combat the enormous amount of poverty afflicting children, UNICEF urged leaders across the region to strengthen efforts tackling the lack of food, education, health, information, shelter, water and sanitation for...