India home to world's 42pc underweight children

Nevada (US), Oct 14 (ANI): "India is home to 42 percent of the world's underweight children and 31 percent of its stunted children", according to 2010 Global Hunger Index report.

The 2010 Global Hunger Index was calculated for 122 developing countries and countries in transition by International Food Policy Research Institute, Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide. Report says that there are more than one billion hungry people in the world and argues that improving child nutrition would reduce global hunger.

Renowned Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has urged India to wake up and deal with her monumental child malnutrition crisis at an emergency level.

In a statement in Nevada (USA) today, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, expressed shock at the findings of this report.

Rajan Zed further said although India was on track to become a global power, but her new prosperity had remained evasive for many. Despite economic miracle, many Indians still lived in desperate poverty.

Inequalities in opportunities blocked poor people from participating in the growth process and they remained trapped in vicious cycle of poverty. It was blight on a country, which prided herself on having joined the league of hottest growth economies.

Zed argued that problems like severe malnutrition; spiraling food prices; ineffectual government programs; lack of access to medical facilities, potable water, energy sources, sanitation; illiteracy; etc., needed to be immediately dealt with. According to an estimate, about one third of world's poor lived in India. (ANI)