Church has a problem
The World Council of Churches meeting will be held in Brazil?s. Port Alegre town. Christian leaders and envoys from across the globe will attend the meeting with an agenda to remove internal rifts within Christianity and to remove the differences of Christianity with Islam. The Council will also seek to clarify new priorities for membership that covers more than 500 million followers, mainly Protestant denominations, Anglicans and Orthodox churches. The Roman Catholic Church, which counts more than one billion followers, is not a full-time WCC member, although it cooperates closely in many areas. The stunning growth of Pentecostal and other evangelical style churches has left many WCC members struggling with shrinking congregations and declining influence in some regions-particularly in Africa, Latin America and China. At the same time, the mainstream denominations are watching church attendance fall steadily in Europe and elsewhere. ?Christianity is undergoing radical changes,? said one of the policy documents of the conference. ?While Christianity appears to be on the decline in some parts of the world, it has become a dynamic force to others.? Nearly 350 member churches and Islamic delegates are also expected at the conference to look for new points of contact between the two faiths.
Health sans service
The mortality rate among women and children in the country is a matter of serious concern, as there is a great need to improve the ?deplorable? status of women and children. Pregnancy, childbirth and their consequences are still the leading causes of death, diseases and disability among women of reproductive age in the country. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO)'sGlobal Health Report 2005, ?Make Every Mother and Child Count.? India ranks amongst the 51 countries that have shown a slow decline in reducing infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio. In India, every year 30 million women experience pregnancy and 27 million give live births. Of these, an estimated 1,36,000 maternal deaths and one million newborn deaths occur each year. Anemia accounts for 40 per cent of maternal mortality in India. If we can cure the anemic condition of pregnant women then most deaths could be avoided. The National Health Policy-2002 guides towards what needed to be done and how this could be done as it has laid down goals for bringing down the infant mortality rate to less than 30 per 1,000 live births and maternal mortality ratio to less than 100 per 100,000 live births by the year 2010.
Net National Product
As per latest released figures, the country'sper capita income (Net National Product at factor cost) for 2004-05 (at the base year of 1999-00 prices) is estimated at Rs.19,649 whereas in 2003-04 it was Rs. 18,517. In other words, there is an increase of 6.1 per cent during the year. In 2004-05, the per capita income is estimated at Rs. 23,222 (at current prices) as against Rs. 21,142 for the year 2003-04.
