New Delhi, July 19, 2012, DHNS
India fares poorly among middle-income countries as far as overall well-being of children is concerned in areas such as child health, education and nutrition during the last decade, states a report.
India has slipped12 ranks since 1995 and is placed at the 112th position in the global “Child Development Index (CDI)” released by Save the Children, a leading child rights NGO.
The report covered 141 countries out of which India has emerged as among the 14 countries whose ranks have dropped.
According to the report released on Thursday, since 1995, India’s CDI has come down to 100 from 103 between 1995 and 1999, and by another nine ranks, 103 to 112, between 2005 and 2010.
“This is a wake-up call for India. Save the Children has reiterated economic progress must result in inclusive growth for all, especially the poor and the marginalised,” said Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children, India.
The CDI, launched in 2008 as a tool to monitor the progress in child well-being, ranks the best and worst places for children and improvements in child well-being globally in terms of the number of children in school, under five mortality rates and number of underweight children.
Among other countries, the United States is ranked 24 in the index, China is at 29th position, Australia is at 16th position and Somalia is at the bottom.
On the positive side, the report also revealed that conditions for children have improved in 90 per cent of countries since the second half of the 1990s. “Compared to those years, a child is now a third more likely to go to school and a third less likely to die before their fifth birthday,” states the report.
The 2012 edition of CDI has shown some encouraging results indicating that on an average, the lives of children as per the mentioned three indicators improved by more than 30 per cent.
However, the report also highlights that nutrition is lagging behind and that the proportion of acutely malnourished children grew by 1.2 per cent during the 2000s. In India, 42 per cent of children are underweight, while 58 per cent are stunted by the age of two years.
India’s children neither healthy nor happy: report