The latest UNICEF report presents a hard-hitting view of the condition of poor children in urban areas.

About 450 million children will be physically and mentally stunted over the next 15 years unless the world takes action to tackle malnutrition, a report from Save the Children warned Wednesday.

Every hour, 300 children die due to a lack of nutrients in their diet, while those who survive are permanently damaged in a way that impacts on their lives and the economic prospects of their countries, the British charity said.

The problem has become urgent due to volatile food prices, economic uncertainty, climate change and demographic shifts.

After 4,000 deaths and 19,000 victims over seven years, encephalitis has made it to the election manifestoes of most parties in Uttar Pradesh in 2012. On ground zero in eastern Uttar Pradesh, however, it is still to figure in the candidates’ campaign. Voters are angry and frustrated but say they are not surprised. Some are determined not to vote at all on February 8 and 11, when the seats in these areas go to polls.

KOLKATA, 30 JAN: With the recent crib deaths in state-run hospitals causing widespread public anger, the state health department is now blaming socio-economic factors for the high level of infant mortalities. According to senior health officials, many pregnant women in Malda ~ the district that has been the epicentre of the crib deaths ~ are malnourished. Out of the 15 blocks in the district, infant deaths are highest in Kaliachak. In fact, 45 per cent of the 105 infant deaths that have recently taken place in Malda are from Kaliachak.

Medical experts have said that pneumonia kills nearly two million children every year in the world under the age of five, while in Pakistan, one in every four children deaths are attributable to the disease.

Even as the number of crib deaths reported from the state-run Dr. B.C. Roy Postgraduate Institute of Paediatric Science since Tuesday has risen to 13 (with one baby dying on Thursday), the Health authorities said there were no instances of medical negligence.

Those who died were all very vulnerable and it would have been nearly impossible to save them. No negligence or any other reason was found that might have led to the deaths, said an official of the Health Department.

New Delhi: India might have vehemently opposed an antibiotic-resistant superbug being named New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase 1 (NDM1), but a study in a leading city hospital has found a worryingly high prevalence of the deadly gene.