More than one Mother’s Day: Time to further reduce maternal mortality rate

Life expectancy in India has increased almost four years in the last decade. Every 24 hours, India added more than nine hours to the life of a newborn — thereby ‘allowing’ a baby born today four more years of life. To a large extent, this progress is due to substantial reductions in infant and maternal mortality, dropping a quarter and a third over the last decade.

Yet, India can do better. It ranks 145th out of 193 nations on infant mortality, and 129 of 184 nations on maternal mortality, according to the World Bank.

New research by US India Policy Institute’s Abusaleh Shariff and People Research on India’s Consumer Economy’s Amit Sharma shows smart next steps for Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

Read the full article