An increasing number of countries face a double burden of disease as the prevalence of risk factors for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancers increase and many nations still struggle to reduce maternal and child deaths caused by infectious diseases, according to a United Nations statistical health report released today. “This evidence really shows that no country in the world can address health from either an infectious disease...

The world is experiencing a change in the geographic distribution of diseases. Traditionally, infectious diseases, which claim the lives of so many children, affected poor countries, and noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, cardiac ailments and cancer plagued rich countries. But the latest statistics released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Friday show that the income level of nations is no longer so important, and that all countries now face the burden of...

Even as Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar on Thursday demanded repeal of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984, the All-India Kisan Sabha urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call a special session of Parliament to discuss the issue. Ms. Patkar, who was arrested at Parsaul village on Thursday and later released, said that instead of an amended Act, there should be a comprehensive Development Planning Act under which development should only...

Humanity’s current voracious consumption of resources cannot be sustained, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) cautioned in a new report today, warning that the world was already running out of cheap and sources of some essential materials such as oil, copper and gold. According to the report by UNEP’s International Resource Panel, by 2050, human beings could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per...

The CSR has declined in 27 States and Union Territories, recording an all-time low, while the adult sex ratio has improved, though slowly. WHEN the provisional data from Census 2011 were released on March 31, the worst fears of those working in the area of women and child development were confirmed. The horror of a declining child sex ratio (CSR), which first came to light in Census 2001, returned once again,...