Human Development, Poverty, Health & Nutrition Situation in India

This study was undertaken to assess the trends in HDI, human poverty index (HPI) and incidence of poverty among Indian states, the socio-economic, health, and diet and nutritional indicators which determine the HDI, changes in protein and calorie adequacy status of rural population, and also trends in malnutrition among children in India. This paper shows that, while India's HDI value has improved over a time; its rank did not improve much compared to other developing countries. Human poverty has not reduced considerably as per the HPI values. The undernutrition among preschool children is still a major public health problem in India. The time trends in nutritional status of pre-school children showed that, even though, there is an improvement in stunting over the years, the trend in wasting and underweight has not improved much.