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Thursday, July 30, 2009 (08:15:46) |
| Tags : India, Environment, Forests |
India not likely to meet millennium goals by 2015: Ramesh |
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| New Delhi: India is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015, the deadline it had promised, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said here on Wednesday.
"It's a matter of great distress that we won't reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015," Ramesh said at a conference of the Parliamentarians' Group on the Millenium Development Goals (PG-MDGs).
Citing various challenges, especially in the field of health, he said the eight goals to eliminate poverty and social injustice will be difficult to meet by the set deadline.
In 2000, 189 heads of states met at the United Nations Millennium Summit and signed the Millennium Declaration.
As per this declaration, the eight goals - eradication of hunger and poverty, achieving universal education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environment sustainability and developing a global partnership for development will be met by the signatories by 2015.
While the civil society has been crying hoarse that India will find it difficult to meet the goals within the deadline, the government had so far refused to admit so.
Supriya Sule, MP and the chairperson of PG-MDGs that aims at taking up the key issues by parliamentarians in order to achieve the goals, went one step ahead at the conference and said that the MDGs have become "a matter of conversation".
"MDGs have become more a matter of conversation instead of implementation. Elections elsewhere like the US are fought on the issue of health policies. But here education and health are said to be issues of women's concerns!" she said.
"Having said that, I am glad that the Right to Education Bill, with all its lacunae, has been passed by the Rajya Sabha and will be in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. It means we are moving forward and change is evident," Sule added.
To make all parliamentarians aware of the key social issues in order to fight for them, PG-MDGs presented a kit containing brief summaries of key issues and policy briefs to the members coming to the conference. (IANS) |
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