India has a reason to smile on thepolio front, as it was taken off the list of polio endemic countries by the World Health Organisation (WHO), health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced at the Polio Summit 2012 held at Vigyan Bhawan on Saturday.

The summit had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also in attendance.

"WHO has taken India's name off the list of polio endemic countries in view of the remarkable progress that we have made during the past one year," Azad said.

The heath minister also disclosed that from 2 lakh polio cases a year, the country has recorded not a single polio case in the past one year.

"We have won the battle but the war is not yet over. Let us continue our efforts with the same vigour, so that India can be declared polio free in the year 2014," Azad said.