India tops in global pneumonia deaths of children under five years of age with 3.97 lakh reported in 2010, says a Unicef study.

The third annual International Vaccine Access Centre’s (IVAC) Pneumonia Progress Report 2012 says that almost 1,088 children under five years of age die everyday in India, an increase of 6.7 per cent from 2008 IVAC data which pegged the deaths at 3.71 lakh annually. Recent estimates from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) show that pneumonia continues to be the number one killer of children around the world — causing 18 per cent of all child mortality, an estimated 1.3 million child deaths in 2011 alone.

Dhaka has been ranked the top city in the world to face the highest climate change risks in the coming years.

Nigeria's worst flooding in at least half a century has killed 363 people since the start of July and displaced 2.1 million people, an emergency agency said on Monday.

Four Nigerian villagers took Royal Dutch Shell to court on Thursday in a landmark pollution case that campaigners said could open the door to more compensation claims against international companie

Being an Indian and below 5 years of age is a rather dangerous prospect right now. The odds seem to be piling up against Indian toddlers — a recent Unicef report has claimed that 16.55 lakh below-5 kids die each year in the nation, leading the world in child mortality.

According to the ‘Child Mortality Estimates Report 2012’, India’s under-five death toll is higher than the deaths in Nigeria, Congo and Pakistan put together. The killer diseases may be many — pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria figure as the top causes of death; but it all boils down to the nutrition of the mothers during pregnancy, and that given to the baby, say experts here.

Kuala Lumpur Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), India’s biggest government-owned energy explorer, is considering bidding for part of ConocoPhillips Canadian oil sands holdings worth around $5 billion, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Houston-based company has been looking to sell assets in a number of countries including Nigeria as part of a global restructuring. ConocoPhillips recently completed the spin-off of its refining activities into Phillips 66, a newly created independent US company.

India’s lessons that finally led to eradicating crippling polio reached Nigeria after it sought India’s expertise recently in combating the virus.

While India was taken off polio endemic list this year after it did not report any polio case, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan have remained to be few countries that are still endemic. Earlier, experts from India had visited Pakistan after Shahnaz Wazir Ali, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s national focal person on polio eradication led a nine-member delegation to India and asked for India’s help.