News stories by Analysis by Neeta Lal

NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (IPS) - Despite being one of the world's fastest expanding economies, projected to clock seven-percent GDP growth in 2017, India – a nation of 1.2 billion – is trailing behind on many vital social development indices while also hosting one-fourth of the world's poor.

The world supped on an alphabet soup of acronyms over the nearly two weeks of climate change talks that just ended — UNFCCC, COP-15, IPCC, CDM, LDCF, MEF, CCS. But did any of these filter down to reach the average citizen?

As the global community observes World AIDS Day today, India is caught in a rancorous debate about a government scheme which mandates that all pregnant women in the country be tested for HIV so that its 1.2 billion people can have 'an AIDS-free generation'.

'A bullet whizzed past us smashing the window to smithereens! My terrorised daughter slid under the nearest table. Everybody ran helter-skelter to save their lives. Just then three menacing-looking youths dressed in black exploded into the wedding hall, brandishing AK-47s. They started shooting indiscriminately, and soon our wedding venue was transformed into a battleground for dead bodies.'

Despite getting suitably politically empowered, the Indian fair sex continues to lag behind on almost all crucial developmental parametres like education, health and economic participation.

Here is a sobering thought on the eve of Children’s Day celebrated across India on Nov. 14. Despite the country’s impressive economic growth trajectory and growing geopolitical heft, the benefits of that prosperity are not percolating down to its children who constitute a sizeable 30 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion population.

'For almost one full day, we were desperate, wet and hungry,' said Raja Angamutthu. 'Our house, farmland, utensils, everything was floating in a watery grave while we looked on helplessly!'

With the clock ticking away on the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Committee (UNFCCC) summit in Copenhagen in December, the fractiousness between the developed and the developing nations on who ought to do more to control climate change is getting increasingly strident.