Millenium Health Development Goals and India: An Update 2008

The book intends to draw the attention of policy makers, researchers and critics with regard to the achievement of the country in terms of the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDGs assume strategic importance for governments and development agencies as they provide a renewed focus and a way forward for the global development agenda. The Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2000, though not UN goals, represent a commitment by governments worldwide to do more to reduce poverty and hunger and to tackle issues of ill-health, lack of access to clean water, etc., by the year 2015. The book aims at giving an overview of the Health Status as against the goals and indicators prescribed by World Health Organization. Carrying out this challenging task warranted a sincere effort in terms of data collection an analysis. We used published/un-published data. In some cases estimates are being made. The results are quite disappointing across the states. However, it is interesting to note that the initiation and achievements of Empowered Action Group (EAG) states have been better in terms of cetrain key indicators compared to non-EAG states