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Direction (1-7): Read the passage given below carefully and answer the questions.

'Good nutrition allows children to survive, grow, develop, learn, play, participate and contribute- while malnutrition robs children of their futures and leaves young lives hanging in the balance'.

It is a well-known fact that in some developing nations, India being one of them, nearly half of children under 5 years of age succumb to death every year due to poor nutrition. The irony is, India being the world's second largest food producer and yet is also home to the large number of undernourished children in the world.

It is well acknowledged that investment in human resource development is a pre requisite for any nation to progress. In year 2012, while releasing HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) Report-2011, the then prime minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, expressed dismay at the 'unacceptably high' levels of malnutrition despite high and impressive GDP growth and said

it was a matter of 'national shame'. He, being renowned economist, also expressed that that 'the health of our economy and society lies in the health of this generation. We cannot hope for a healthy future for our country with a large number of malnourished children'.

India is home to 46.6 million stunted children, a third of world's total as per Global Nutrition Report 2018. Nearly half of all under-5 child mortality in India is attributable to under-nutrition. Children of today are citizens of tomorrow, and hence improving nutritional status of children becomes extremely important. Early childhood constitutes the most crucial period of life, when the foundations are laid for cognitive, social and emotional, language, physical/motor development and cumulative lifelong learning.

Malnutrition, a term that refers to any deficiency, excess or imbalance in somebody's intake of energy and/or nutrients, is a universal problem that has many forms. No country is untouched. It affects all geographies, all age groups, rich people and poor people and all sexes. All forms of malnutrition are associated with various forms of ill health and higher levels of mortality. Under-nutrition explains around 45% of deaths among children under-5, mainly in low and middle-income countries.

As far as adverse effects of child malnutrition are concerned, growth failure and infections are quite important. Malnourished children do not attain their optimum potential in terms of growth and development, physical capacity to work and economic productivity in later phase of life. It is commonly observed that school absenteeism is much higher in such a child that leads to poor performance in the class. Cognitive impairment resulting from malnutrition may result in diminished productivity. As per estimates of World Bank, childhood stunting may result in a loss of height among adults by 1%, which may further lead to a reduction in individuals economic productivity by 1.4%.

Micronutrient deficiencies can lead to poor health and development, particularly in children. Overweight and obesity can lead to diet-related non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure (hypertension), stroke, diabetes and cancer. Malnutrition is also a social and economic problem, holding back development across the world with unacceptable human consequences. According to UNICEF, one in three malnourished children in the world is Indian. It is estimated that reducing malnutrition could add some 3% to India's GDP.

In India as per National Family Health Survey IV (2014-2015, recent in the series) 38.4, 21 and 35.7% of children below 5 years suffer from stunting, wasting and underweight respectively (corresponding figure for NFHS III, 2005-2006 were 47.9, 19.8 and 42.5% respectively). Prevalence of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in India is 7.5%.

Progress to tackle all forms of malnutrition remains unacceptably slow. The 2018 Global Nutrition Report tracks country progress against the following global targets: child overweight, child wasting, child stunting, exclusive breastfeeding, diabetes among women, diabetes among men, anaemia in women of reproductive age, obesity among women and obesity among men. As per this report, India is listed among those countries, which are on track for none of the nine targets. The key driver behind the goal to reach Zero Hunger and malnutrition is to ensure that no one is left behind in the pursuit of food and nutrition security.

In the Indian context, this will also mean greatly improving the health of women and children. Outcomes of these nutritional interventions are evident in the declining patterns in some of the India's key health variables as reported by National Family Health Surveys NFHS-3 (2005-2006) and NFHS-4 (2015-2016) data.

According to the passage, India is

A) On track of reducing malnutrition

B) Is too slow in tackling malnutrition problem

C) Deprived of a good GDP due to malnutrition

D) In need of better policies for malnutrition