The first global report on disability reveals how the exclusion of 1 billion people – invisible in official statistics and absent from aid budgets – is holding back development progress The UN millennium development goals (MDGs) may not be met by 2015 unless urgent action is taken to address the needs of people with disabilities, according to the first world report on disability. More than 1 billion people live with a disability,...

Yes, food prices are rising but more competition is not the answer — it's time to stop over-consumption. Slowly, surely, a new mixture of consensus and fault lines is emerging about world food. On the one hand, there is agreement we are entering a new era in which basic agricultural commodity prices are rising after decades of falling. This will hit the poorest hardest, as an Oxfam report this week on...

The head of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) warned today that the “slow-motion catastrophe” of non-communicable diseases could overwhelm even the wealthiest nations if the root causes of the epidemic, mostly lifestyle decisions, are not addressed. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, told delegates at the First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Noncommunicable Disease Control in Moscow that the fact the many of the chronic non-communicable illnesses in...

Children prefer snacking on chips, burgers, noodles, pasta, samosas and other junk foods being sold in schools canteens, leading to lifestyle diseases, an ASSOCHAM survey has found. Releasing the survey, “Rise in consumption pattern of junk food in school”, ASSOCHAM Health Committee chairman Dr. B. K. Rao said there was a need to improve children's nutrition by setting health standards for snacks and beverages sold in school canteens. The survey was conducted...

An Indian government science agency has established a formal mechanism to track patent claims filed in other countries to guard against India’s traditional knowledge, primarily in medicine, being passed off as innovation. The Global Biopiracy Watch System is a new component of an effort initiated 10 years ago by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to create a giant database of traditional knowledge contained in the Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha...