A need to turn the corner on child health

At 400 million, India is home to the world's largest child population. More than 50 per cent of the children are malnourished and almost 50 per cent of them do not attend school. That's the state of our country, soon to have the world's largest young population. > Read: The persisting problem of malnourishment Under-five mortality In 2012, almost 14 lakh Indian children under the age of five died due to preventable diseases including pneumonia, diarrhoea and measles. Let's put this into perspective by doing a comparison with the number of children who died just two decades back. In 1990, 28.5 lakh children in India died before reaching their fifth birthday. Despite the decline in child mortality, a large number of children are still dying, the death of each individual child being more than just a number. India continues to be responsible for the highest number of child deaths in the world, amounting to 21 per cent of the total global burden of child mortality. The official estimate of the country's under-five mortality rate is 56 per 1000 live births, as of 2012. This shows that India is far behind from achieving its millennium development goal of 42 per 1000… Read full this story

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