A new study looking at cancer mortality in 2010 in India found a high 71 per cent (3,95,400) deaths in people between 30 and 69 years. Cancer accounted for 8 per cent of the 2·5 million total male deaths and 12 per cent of the 1·6 million total female deaths in the same age group. The high mortality rate during the middle age is very different from the developed countries,...

The purpose of this piece is not to defend the Planning Commission on poverty figures but to indicate that the methodologies have evolved over time after considerable research and they are useful for policy purposes if not for linking with entitlement programmes (some of us have written earlier that the poor and vulnerable are more numerous than the commission's poverty figures and these should be delinked from entitlement programmes).  The commission...

Tata Memorial Hospital, Lancet, Centre for Global Health Research and University of Toronto jointly releases study findings on cancer mortality in India in 2010.  The findings are:  There were 5.56 lakh cancer deaths in India in 2010.  71% (3.95 lakhs) of these deaths occurred in people aged 30-69 years (2 lakh men and 1.95 lakh women).  Cancer deaths accounted for 6% of deaths across all ages, but among the 30-69 years age group, this...

India's HIV control programme could soon get merged with the country's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), if the Planning Commission has its way. The Commission's steering committee on health for the 12th five-year Plan has proposed "incorporating AIDS control, universal healthcare and universal access to essential medicines" into NRHM. Planning Commission member in-charge of health Syeda Hameed said, "It is a serious recommendation to incorporate NACO under an overall National Health...

The Budget provides proof of the United Progressive Alliance government having forgotten the importance of its own “flagship schemes”. BUDGET 2012-13 provides conclusive proof that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has lost its way. It has managed the remarkable feat of upsetting almost everyone and making no one happy. The Budget is highly regressive in both taxation and spending terms and will raise prices of essentials, so aam aurat and...