A widow in Orissa's Jajpur district died of starvation after remaining bedridden for several days, a village leader said Thursday. Seventy-two years of age, Kolhanai Bewa, died at her village Mahisara last Tuesday after she did not get sufficient food to survive, local village council Chief Sudharsan Behera said. She was without food for three days before her death, he said.

India accounts for 57 million of the world's 146 million malnourished children. It has the same rate of malnutrition as Ethiopia (47 per cent) and Nepal and Bangladesh (48 per cent). This is in stark contrast with the figures for China (eight per cent), Thailand (18) and even Afghanistan (39), according to a global report released by the United Nations Children's Fund here on Wednesday.