2. One in every three malnourished children in the world lives
in India. In a nation with soaring Gross Domestic Product
rates and stock market indices, children continue to die
of malnutrition and starvation.

3. According to a UNICEF report, India has the highest number
of undernourished children in the world at 57 million. India
has the same rate of malnutrition as Ethiopia with 47 per
cent of its children undernourished. Nearly 2.1 million
children die of malnutrition every year in this country.

4. The major cause for such a tragedy is the lack of public
health services in remote regions, poor access to
subsidised health care facilities, the declining state
expenditure on public health and the lack of awareness on
preventive child health care.

5. Anaemia affects the vast majority
of pregnant women and teenage
girls, stunts children’s growth
and is a leading cause of
maternal death and babies with
low birth weight in India.
Similarly, diarrhoea, often caused
by unsafe drinking water or poor
sanitation, is the second leading
cause of death among children.

6. The Indian constitution supports the right of universal
education until age 14 and has had a long-standing goal
of free and compulsory education for all children between
the ages of six and 14. However, India has not been able
to achieve this goal.

7. The Indian educational system is the second largest in the
World after China. In , there were nearly 0.66 million
primary schools in India. However, despite the strong
constitutional backing for the provision of primary education
in India and its expansion over time, the system is
characterized by low achievements.

8. Huge gaps remain between
rural and urban areas, and
the probability of getting any
education at all sharply
depends on gender, caste
and income. Of the 200 million
children in the age group
6-14, it is estimated that 59
million are out of school.
Of these, 35 million are girls
and 24 million are boys.

9. The education infrastructure
are quite poor even as the
government is the largest
provider of education in
India with only about 10%
of primary schools owned
by the private sector. The
quality of education
provided by the public
education system is low,
too. Moreover, there is a lot
of ‘waste’ in the educational
system with dropout rates
as high as 40% for the
country as a whole and in
some Indian states they are
as high as 75%.

10. Though the number of primary schools in the country
increased, more than 100,000 habitations still do not have
access to a primary school within a distance of one
kilometer. Teacher-pupil ratios are inadequate: less than
2 teachers are available in rural areas to teach a class size
of around 100 students.

11. Poverty is another issue which complication the issue,
with more than 250 million people in India living on less than
a $1 a day. Although education is provided ‘free’ by the
government, the cost of uniforms, textbooks and
transportation costs are beyond the reach of many
households.

12. Coupled with poverty, the poor do not have the opportunity
to send their children to school, as they consider them to be
breadwinners from a very early age. Child labour is widely
prevalent, with many children forced to work in order to
supplement a meager family income and therefore do not
attend school.