Up to 250,000 children are at risk of malnutrition and disease in southern Madagascar as a political crisis and tropical cyclones exacerbate severe food shortages, the UN children agency said.

UNICEF said that the rains had failed again in the Indian Ocean island's southern region, devastating the last harvest and reducing the amount of safe water available for human consumption.

Malnutrition has assumed alarming proportions in the State but in spite of the grave situation government has not made significant efforts in this direction. Earlier Women and Child Development Department of the State had sanctioned a paltry sum of Rs 2.70 per day for a malnourished child and this amount could provide 600 Calories to the child.

Although the country has made significant progress in reducing under-five child mortality, the rates of neonatal and maternal mortality still remain high, creating obstacle to achieving the target of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) four and five by 2015.

The Campaign for Right to Education in Jharkhand (CREJ) asked political parties to make child rights a part of their election manifesto.

Between India Shining and Jai Ho, through four years of high growth that India became the story of global markets, not much has changed on the ground, it would seem. Between aspirational Indians vying for better and richer lifestyles, there are millions still below the poverty line.

India trails badly on the human development indicators. Illustration: Saurabh Singh

HARSH MANDER

It is the State

Meena Menon

A study conducted by National Family Health Survey revealed that more than 70 per cent middle-aged Indian women are iron deficient.

More than 400 million women suffer from anaemia due to iron deficiency.

The report titled

We studied the implementation of the World Health Organization protocol for the treatment of malnourished children at the largest maternal and infant hospital in the northeast of Brazil. The implementation of the protocol resulted in a reduction in the mortality rate from 38.0% to 16.2%.

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