India loses four tiny lives every minute

A UN report said that India loses 5,753 children below five years every day — four a minute. That contributes to 21% of total deaths in the world, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 23, 2008, 02:27:38 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India loses 5,753 children below five years every day — four a minute. That contributes to 21 per cent of total deaths in the world, said a UN report on children, released on Tuesday.

Terming the figures scary, UNICEF representative in India Dr Gianni Murzi, said the country was caught in a paradox between poor child survival rate and 9 per cent economic growth. “Time is full of promise for the Indian child if all unite to fight to this battle,” he said.

The UNICEF’s State of World’s Children Report 2008 said about 20 per cent of these children die within an hour of birth and another 30 per cent within 28 days. Pneumonia kills most children in India — about 2 million — followed by diarrhoea. Of those who survive, about 46 per cent are malnourished. “Everyone, from the Prime Minister downwards, are worried,” said Dr M.K. Bhan, secretary Department of Science and Technology, who wanted a national campaign to fight child malnourishment.

India comes in at 49 among 191 nations on the under-five-mortality rate with Sierra Lone topping the ranks with maximum deaths and Sweden at the bottom with least. India’s record is worse than its less developed neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal, who rank 55 and 63 respectively. India is better only than Pakistan, which has been ranked 42. South Asia is slightly better than west and central Africa, but lags behind all other regions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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