Activist Gul Panag, will be seen in Delhi’s Okhla industrial slum on Tuesday, talking to women in the slum cluster who have lost their newborns due to easily preventable causes.

Gul Panag will be speaking to about 100 mothers and women in the slum about Save the Children’s global report “Ending New Born Deaths- Ensuring every baby survives” and the issue of new born mortality, and the importance of a skilled frontline health worker, and what needs to be done to further improve child survival in the state. As Gul Panag spoke about the report and statistics with all the mothers and women in Oklha, she mentioned that, “While there has been significant progress on ensuring child survival in India, the fact that nearly 40 per cent of neo-natal deaths occur on the 1st day of birth in India is stalling progress on achieving MDG 4. India accounts for an astounding 29 per cent of the global deaths of newborns on their very first day of birth. About half the first-day deaths around the world could be prevented if every mother and baby had access to free and quality health care and skilled birth attendants.