Noted Gandhian and economist L C Jain passed away on Sunday afternoon at the age of 85 after a courageous battle against cancer. L C Jain — organizer, commentator, activist — was born in 1925, the child of India's first freedom movement. He spent more than six decades of his life as an impassioned crusader for what Gandhi called India's second freedom struggle. Jain was known as a fierce opponent of...

As the country grapples with a “mixed burden” of diseases that beset the developing as well as developed countries, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday said adequate research was needed to deal with the challenge of non-communicable and re-emerging diseases. Addressing the centenary celebrations of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) here, Mr. Azad said as the country moved from a developing nation to the...

He got flat, meant for weaker sections, under MPs' quota Maharashtra's new Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan may return a flat allotted in May 2003 under the MP's quota, now that a Right To Information application has revealed that he owns the flat provided under the discretionary quota. The application by RTI activist Anil Galgali, seeking the names of those who owned flats under the Chief Minister's discretionary quota, showed that Mr. Chavan...

Developing countries should act now to head off their own "obesity epidemic", says a global policy group. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says obesity levels are rising fast. In a report in the Lancet medical journal, it says low-income countries cannot cope with the health consequences of wide scale obesity. Rates in Brazil and South Africa already outstrip the OECD average. Increasing obesity in industrialised countries such as the UK and...

In what will be a first for an Indian company, the local unit of beverage giant Coca-Cola has applied to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for permission to use stevia, a natural sweetner, in its products. Coca-Cola, in a joint application with Malaysian company, Pure Circle, which specialises in extraction of natural goodness from plants, has requested for use of stevial glycosides (commonly called stevia) singly or...