-The Telegraph   Jharkhand’s flagship maternal and child health scheme has attracted the Centre’s attention and may now be replicated in other states. Mamata Vahan was launched in July 2010 by the state wing of the National Rural Health Mission as a free referral transport service to ferry expectant mothers to hospitals, aimed at encouraging institutionalised deliveries to reduce mother and child mortality. Launched as a pilot project in Ranchi — across Mandar,...

India ranks a dismal 134 among 187 countries in terms of human development index in the UNDP's latest Human Development Report. Against this bleak backdrop, the bugle of caution is rightly sounded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest Human Development Report (HDR), released in Copenhagen on November 2 jointly by Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. As the international community is busy preparing...

Karnataka, India’s IT success story and its most preferred destination for foreign investment, boasts of the country’s highest per capita income. Its economic indicators are nothing short of superlative and yet the South Indian State accounts for thousands of child deaths due to malnutrition. A recent report shows that despite high SGDP growth and heightened economic activity, Karnataka fares poorly in hunger index and child malnutrition. A recent report by news...

India’s disappointing human development status is well known. It is a virtual tailender among the newly emerging BRICS economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – which are expected to become the engine of global economic growth as the developed countries slow down. What is more serious is India’s status in its region. Not only is it well behind the long-term regional leader in development, Sri Lanka, it...

While higher income levels mean countries have more money to improve women's health, ultimately it comes down to how governments decide to spend the money We know that economic growth and human development do not always go hand in hand, as evidenced by the very different position of countries in per capita GDP rankings compared with human development rankings. But the link between health conditions and economic growth is usually thought...