High rate of infanticide and mortality call for social awareness and policy reforms While India leaves no stone unturned in its unrelenting quest for global economic dominance, it would behove it to pause for a moment and address the issue of infanticide and child mortality. In this detail the cup can be seen as half empty. A burning desire for male children in India, according to a member of the National Human...

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we...

Four years ago, High Court asked the State to bring the rate to almost nil Infant mortality rate stands at 33, two points down from 35 in 2006 Rural infant mortality at 53 has not declined since NFHS-2 done in 1998-1999 Four years ago, alarmed by the level of child mortality in Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court directed the State government to “ensure that by September 30, 2011, the infant mortality rate due...

Malnutrition, illness and abject poverty have taken a severe toll on children in Mumbai's Rafiq Nagar slum. Situated in a vast dumping ground, swarming with flies, and packed with garbage heaps at every step, the destitute colony has seen a series of child deaths since April this year, even as authorities scramble to ascertain their causes.Seven-month old Asif Sheikh from Rafiq nagar slum died on Tuesday. His death comes less...

South Asia in general and India in particular have the dubious distinction of standing out for wrong reasons every time a new global poverty report is released. We not only have the largest number of Underweight children, a very high maternal mortality rate and the world’s highest number of out of school children but we also top the global malnutrition chart. (See links below for more details)  However the 2011 United...