Here we take a look at latest news reports to analyse is India growing as we are told by the media and government. Or are the decay which was plaguing it for long taking an upper hand.
1. In the latest report of WHO on premature environmental deaths, it states that with over 2.5 million deaths India tops the charts. It overtook China in this case. Here is the report from DNA a premier Indian News portal
urpassing China, India now accounts for the maximum number of premature deaths from ozone air pollution in the world, a new study said on Wednesday.
India's lives lost to the tiny particulate matter is "approaching" China's numbers, the study said noting that both the countries together accounted for 52% of the total global deaths attributable to PM2.5 and recorded some 1.1 million early deaths due to it in 2015.
India has witnessed a 150% rise in lives lost over the past two decades from ozone pollutants, according to the 'State of Global Air 2017' report.
"As the most populous countries, India and China account for most of the ozone-attributable Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) deaths across all years, but India accounts for much (about 67%) of the global increase since 1990.
"Over the last 25 years, India experienced a nearly 150% increase in ozone-attributable deaths, while China's number remained about the same," the report said.
It suggested that India outpaced China in 2015, with 8.6 ozone-related deaths for every 100,000 people, compared to China's 5.3.
Read more here:http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-india-reports-max-premature-deaths-due-to-air-pollution-2323063
2. Lets look at world hunger index 1017. As per the latest world hunger index India has dropped 45 places in last 3 years. in 2014 India was at 55 and now stands at 100. I just can t imagine what it will mean in number terms. Here is a report from The Hindu
India has a “serious” hunger problem and ranks 100th out of 119 countries on the global hunger index — behind North Korea, Bangladesh and Iraq but ahead of Pakistan, according to a report.
The country’s serious hunger level is driven by high child malnutrition and underlines need for stronger commitment to the social sector, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said in its report.
India stood at 97th position in last year’s rankings.
“India is ranked 100th out of 119 countries, and has the third highest score in all of Asia — only Afghanistan and Pakistan are ranked worse,” IFPRI said in a statement.
“At 31.4, India’s 2017 GHI (Global Hunger Index) score is at the high end of the ‘serious’ category, and is one of the main factors pushing South Asia to the category of worst performing region on the GHI this year, followed closely by Africa South of the Sahara,” it added.
As per the report, India ranks below many of its neighbouring countries such as China (29th rank), Nepal (72), Myanmar (77), Sri Lank (84) and Bangladesh (88). It is ahead of Pakistan (106) and Afghanistan (107).
North Korea ranks 93rd while Iraq is at 78th position.
The GHI, now in its 12th year, ranks countries based on four key indicators — undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting and child stunting.
The report ranked 119 countries in the developing world, nearly half of which have ‘extremely alarming,’ ‘alarming’ or ’serious’ hunger levels.
“India’s high ranking on the Global Hunger Index [GHI] again this year brings to the fore the disturbing reality of the country’s stubbornly high proportions of malnourished children,” the statement said.
Read more here at:http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-100th-on-global-hunger-index-trails-north-korea-bangladesh/article19846437.ece
3. Now lets look at new born deaths. as per reports India has the highest number of newborn deaths. Our performance is much worser than Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mauritana. We should be really ashamed with the way our hospitals become death traps for newborns. Here is a report from The Hindu.
India was home to 700,000 of the one million babies who died within 28 days of birth in South Asia in 2015, according to a Unicef report released in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
India consistently ranked a low sixth in newborn-care services among the eight countries in the region, including Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan ranked lower than India.
India accounts for 26% of newborn deaths in the world.
“The total number of deaths are highest in India because of its large young population and corresponding high number of births, but the high newborn mortality rate is an indicator of where India sits in the region, and the ranking needs to be a lot higher,” said Douglas Noble, Unicef regional health adviser for South Asia, speaking to HT from Nepal.
Newborn mortality rates (NMR), defined as deaths per 1,000 live births, in India are the third highest at 28.
Pakistan’s NMR is the highest at 46 followed by Afghanistan at 36, which are unacceptably high compared to the best-performing Maldives and Sri Lanka, where 5 newborn deaths happen per 1,000 live births.
The Unicef’s South Asia Health Atlas 2016 praised Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan for making remarkable progress in routine immunization given their public health challenges. It said Pakistan, Afghanistan and India need to see very significant improvements in the next few years to being down newborn death rates.
Giving each child three doses of the DTP vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus is the World Health Organization’s accepted indicator for routine immunisation coverage. In India, DPT3 coverage is 87% against Bhutan’s 99% and Bangladesh’s 94%.
“India has shown a jump up in routine immunisation coverage over the past three to four years and if it builds on this momentum and keeps going at the same pace, vaccinating 98% children will be possible very soon,” Noble sai
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3.a. What is more striking is that most of these deaths comes from North Indian states, primarily from Uttar Pradesh. Recently the Government hospital in Gorakhpur 100s of children died due to lack of oxygen supply in infant wards. Incidentally the current Chief Minister is a 4 time MP from Gorakhpur. Read a report from the Hindu
India’s most populous state has slid past Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to record the country’s worst infant and under-five mortality rate, according to newly released health data.
Although Uttar Pradesh’s infant mortality rate (IMR) improved from 73 deaths per 1,000 live births to 64 over 10 years to 2016, other states and countries did better; UP’s IMR is now the same as the strife-torn west-African nation of Mauritania (65), worse than another poor, chaotic African country, Burkina Faso (61) and only just better than Afghanistan (66).
Source:
Ahead of the swearing in of a new government in UP, data released from the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16 (NFHS-4) show that India’s most populous state now also has India’s worst under-five mortality rate of 78 deaths per 1,000 live births hich is comparable to that of Mozambique (79), an African nation with half of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. This is an 18-point reduction in under-five mortality from 96 per 1,000 live births ten years ago.
Source:
These newly released figures are likely to increase India’s IMR (41) and under-five mortality rate (50), which have improved over the last ten years, as IndiaSpend reported in March, 2017.
Despite being India’s most populous state, UP spends Rs 452 per capita on health, 70% less than Indian average, as IndiaSpend reported in February 2017.
One in two children in the state is not fully immunised, and the state has India’s second-highest maternal mortality rate (258 deaths per 100,000 live births).
A decade ago, when the last NFHS survey was conducted, Chhattisgarh had an IMR of 71 deaths per 1,000 live births which reduced to 54 in 2015-16; Madhya Pradesh had an under-five mortality rate of 93 per 1,000 live births which has reduced to 65 in 2015-16.
