Nearly half of Indian children are undernourished

Such statistics normally go uncovered by the media, just because there is a lot of fad to document other interesting masala newsitems. AIDS gets more coverage than TB or diarrhea, even though the latter two contribute to more child deaths than AIDS. Undernourishment is hardly noticed on the faces of smiling children, but it gets translated to increased vulnerability to other lethal diseases, a shorter lifespan, and retarded intellectual growth. Even this article simply states what the WB report found, without bothering to analyse the repurcussions of the report. Media has become too lazy. As P. Sainath says, the media of today is completely event based, and documents incidents as and when they occur. What is needed however, is a more process oriented approach, where situations are analyzed from start to finish, and learnings are derived from them for prevent similar mishaps in the future, or find long term solutions to problems.

A better article is from the BBC about water development. 20% of the world's population still lacks access to safe drinking water, and this is the prime cause of deaths due to water borne diseases like diarrhea and cholera. It says that governments, NGOs, politicians, and businesses, all have a role to play in executing successful water policies. Water quality is depleting due to receding watertables because of lesser rainfall, which in turn is caused due to increased deforestation. Urbanization has also been a great contributor to increasing the consumption of water. There is much to be learnt from people at the ground, but their opinions are never sought and incorrect policies are drafted that worsen the situation. In short, what the article recommends is that a holistic approach is required, and all stakeholders have to understand the problems from a bigger perspective and then try to solve them.

A related article on the WHO initiative to eradicate TB from the world -- it shows that government control actually works.