HIV and Hunger, Diseases in India

India, home to a quarter of the world's hungry people with nearly 40 percent of the population malnourished, is facing an unprecedented food crisis, international charity organisation Oxfam said. 'Despite the doubling of the size of its economy since 1990, the number of hungry people in India has increased by 65 million because economic development excluded the rural poor and social protection schemes failed to reach them,' PTI reported quoting Oxfam National Humanitarian Hub Manager Zubin Zaman told reporters in Guwahati.
Zaman also called on the private sector to shift to a business model where profit is not made at the expense of poor producers, consumers and the environment.
Oxfam launched its global 'GROW' campaign for hunger free world here along with Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Patna.
'The four-year long campaign has been launched to address the problem of spiralling food prices and endless cycles of regional food crisis which will create millions of hungry people unless we transform the way we grow and share food,' Zaman said.
The campaign will make efforts to lead transformation to a fairer sustainable system by investing in agriculture, valuing the world's natural resources, managing the food system better and delivering equality to women who produce much of the world's food.

India, where 95,000 adolescents are living with HIV, has been listed along with the sub-Saharan countries having the highest number of youngsters infected by the deadly virus, according to a UN report.
In the age group of 10-19 years, India with 46,000 infected girls and 49,000 boys has been ranked tenth in the list of countries most affected with HIV in 2009, PTI reported quoting the report 'Opportunity in Crisis: Preventing HIV from early adolescence to young adulthood' as said.
The report, released yesterday, said that most infected adolescents live in sub-Saharan Africa and most of them are women, and most do not know their status.
It said globally young women make up more than 60 percent of all young people living with HIV.
'For many young people HIV infection is the result of neglect, exclusion, and violations that occur with the knowledge of families, communities, social and political leaders,' said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.
According to the report, every day an estimated 2500 young people are infected with HIV.
Further, those aged 15-24 years accounted for 41 percent of new infections among adults over the age of 15 in 2009.
This is the first time that UN agencies are focusing on presenting data that would prevent HIV from early adolescence.
The report said that while HIV prevalence has declined slightly among young people, young women and adolescent girls face a disproportionately high risk of infection due to biological vulnerability, social inequality and exclusion.
In India, the report said the epidemic is driven largely by sex workers and 4.9 percent of female sex workers are HIV-positive.
It also said that India was making progress in providing sexual education by overcoming socio-cultural and political opposition.