Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said a nation-wide Comprehensive Environmental Assessment found that 88 industrial clusters were critically polluted. Out of these 88 clusters, 8 are in Maharashtra including Tarapur and Chembur. The environment Ministry will not give clearance to any industry in these 88 clusters unless Action Plan is prepared and implemented to improve the environment in these areas, said Mr. Ramesh,...

Roads “as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks” was a promise that Lalu Yadav had once given to the people of Bihar. Ironically, it is his rival Nitish Kumar who seems to be delivering on that front. Despite three years of floods followed by a year of drought, ‘backward and benighted’ Bihar reports a miraculous figure: 11% GDP growth, second only to Gujarat. The state’s economy has never grown so fast...

A new study has shown that a compound extracted from licorice root, commonly used in candies, can help fight rare, but deadly infections. Eat candies to ward off rare, but deadly infections. A team of scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch and Shriners Hospitals for Children have revealed that a compound called glycyrrhizin might be an effective tool in battling life-threatening, antibiotic-resistant infections resulting from severe burns. The...

TIRUNELVELI: For the first time in the State, the Indian Red Cross Society’s Tirunelveli chapter has kicked off a novel initiative of collecting unused medicines from the public, segregating and stocking it in a pharmacy to be given strictly to the poor Patients carrying prescriptions given by a qualified doctor. After seeing a sizable quantity of valuable drugs remain unused in the shelves of his house and of his friends,’ the...

Insufficiency and prescribing medicines from outside continues  CRM draws attention to ‘irrational’ use and non-availability of essential medicines Supplies are mostly top-down, based on availability instead of being demand-based No State provides free medicines to below the poverty line (BPL) Patients under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). “The insufficiency of drugs and thereby the imperative of prescribing medicines from outside continue widely. This could also be linked to insufficiency of understanding...