India is critical to the global fight to end an epidemic of tuberculosis by 2030 and must step up funding to control the disease, the World Health Organisation said, citing concerns over broader cutbacks in government health programmes. India is the world's TB hotspot as it accounts for 23 percent of global cases and the most deaths - 220,000 last year - from the bacterial lung disease that spreads through coughs and sneezes. Campaigners blame the deaths on weak infection controls, poor oversight and low health spending. Still, India's TB programme reduced the prevalence?of the disease by more than half to 211 cases per?100,000 people from 1990 to 2013. "India is a positive, successful story up to a certain point. From now on, that positive story won't be sufficient and they'll need to do more," Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's TB programme, said in a telephone interview from Geneva. Read More at www.in.reuters.com