The Indian Academy of Pediatrics felt the need to focus on the rapidly expanding and under privileged urban poor who lack an organized health care delivery system in contrast to the rural population. They lack basic civic amenities including safe water supply and proper sewage disposal. It is therefore understandable that their child health indices are two to three times worse off than their counterparts. On the initiative of the Academy, Indian Pediatrics in collaboration with the Environmental Health Project has decided to bring out a series of well-researched papers highlighting important issues on this subject. It is expected that these papers would help in providing programmatic directions to the planners. Publication of these articles will be partly funded by Environmental Health Projec