Agence France Presse

New Delhi, February 2:

A panel of UN-appointed experts urged India today to step up investments in the health and education sectors to make good on a worldwide pledge to halve extreme poverty worldwide by 2015.

“India needs to step up investments to build the infrastructure required to deliver essential health services,” said Jeffrey Sachs, who led a panel of UN experts who in a report released in January accused wealthy nations of failing to cough up the money needed to reduce poverty by 2015.

The report commissioned by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan tracks country-specific progress made on the Millenium Development Goals, which include wiping out extreme hunger, making primary education universal and fighting AIDS and other deadly diseases.

The report said India needed “to make large investments in HIV prevention to forestall further transmission to the general population.”