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...

All epidemiological data in Chhattisgarh are ‘guesstimates' Underestimation of malaria mortality figures Public hospitals ill-equipped to handle severe cases Last week, the medical journal Lancet published the results of a malaria survey undertaken by researchers as part of the Million Deaths Study, an ambitious programme that strives to document the causes of nearly one million deaths in India from the period 1998 to 2014. As per the survey 2,05,000 Indians die of malaria every...

Ample monsoon rains and higher prices of farm goods are likely to lift Indian fertiliser demand in 2010/11 by 13 percent to a record 60 million tonnes, testing local fertiliser makers' ability to raise output in sync with the demand, industry officials said. India's June-Sept monsoon rains, a key factor in determining food grain production and fertiliser demand in the country, were 2 percent above normal in the current year, weather office data showed....

Seeking to pressurise the central government further on the issue of rotting food grains, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday, Sep 18 urged the farmers to unite and corner the Congress-led UPA. The saffron party held a dharna in the national capital demanding better storage facilities, and minimum support price for farmers' produce. Speaking to the famers who gathered at the dharna, senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh said, "There is an...

We need to make sure nutrition is not easily neglected. And that means putting pressure on leaders throughout society to focus on nutrition. I have just finished a trip to India to help contribute to the efforts on ending malnutrition. The politicians and media were talking about the sparkling new economic growth and development figures. There was no such attention given to the “other” growth and development figures — those related...