Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Updated: Jul 20, 2012 02:16 IST

India shabby treatment of its children is reflected in a new global survey released on Thursday which says the country’s position on child development index (CDI) of 141 nations has fallen by 12 places between 1995 and 2010 because of not much improvement in child development indices.

India is among 14 countries including many African nations and its neighbor Nepal and Pakistan whose ranking has fallen. “India’s CDI fell by three ranks between 1995 and 1999, by another nine ranks between 2005 and 2010,” the report released by international NGO Save the Children said.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in south Asia are better than India in the overall ranking with stark improvement in school enrollments and health indicators.  “Five large countries – India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and China – account for about half the global under-five mortality,” the report said 

report ranking India as 112 comes at the time several incidents of abuse of child rights have been reported from across the country including a child being forced to drink her urine for bedwetting in a school in Shantiniketan.
 
The damning aspect of the report is that India has been rated as fastest growing economy after China in recent years but the growth does not seem to be reaching its children.  Among the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) — called club of fastest growing economies — India has the lowest CDI.

“Three – Brazil, South Africa and Russia – are on the diagonal (that is, they occupy the same quartiles of the CDI and the Human Development Index). China and India both qualify as of medium development on the HDI; but while China is in the highest quartile of the CDI, India is in the lowest,” the report said.
It also highlighted that China has prioritized investment in children resulting its CDI being two quartiles higher than HDI. But India has failed even though the economic competitors score highly on net enrolment rates. “More than 40% of India’s children are moderately or severely underweight, compared to less than 5% of China’s; and India’s under-five mortality rate exceeds 60 out of 1,000, while China’s is below 20,” the report said.

Because of this, India is the only national among emerging economies whose child development index has fallen between 2005 and 2010, the survey said.

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