Feed the children

Next time you leave some food on your plate spare a thought for the millions of rural children who don't get enough to eat.

At least 10 million pre-school students are physically underdeveloped because of malnutrition. This should be a national concern given its two decades of galloping economic growth.

Despite substantial improvements in people's health and well-being since the early 1980s, under-nutrition among rural children remains a silent emergency. Chronic malnutrition, or the lack of adequate nutrition over time, causes three times as many child deaths as food scarcity.