image In February, India will be removed from the list of countries where polio is endemic.

This is a huge achievement made possible by people like Madara, a 76-year-old street hawker.

At a temporary immunisation camp in a slum in the northern district of Ghaziabad, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from New Delhi, he is busy at work shepherding boisterous children into queues.

All around, social workers break open tiny bottles containing a polio vaccine, selecting children f…