-The United Nations More than 360 million people have disabling hearing loss, according to new global estimates released by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), which adds that production of hearing aids is not keeping up with the urgent demand. “Current production of hearing aids meets less than 10 per cent of global need,” WHO’s Shelly Chadha of the Department of Prevention of Blindness and Deafness said in a news release...

-The Hindu The United Nations has been drawing attention in recent years to the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, which have been adding to morbidity and premature deaths in most countries. In a declaration issued at a high-level meeting in 2011, the U.N. argued that low and middle income countries should actively pursue public health policies that will reduce the incidence of NCDs arising from diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and a...

-PTI Washington: Early breast cancer diagnosis and survival rates are very low among women living in rural India compared to those in developed nations, a new study has claimed. Researchers said women in developed countries survive roughly 10 years longer after a breast cancer diagnosis compared to women in poor-to-middle-income countries. The study by University of Michigan demonstrates the lack of access to good health care faced by women in poor countries, said...

-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...

-The Hindu A mix of social constraints and dearth of employment opportunities has kept women out of the labour market, leading to a huge opportunity cost to the nation Women in India face enormous challenges for their participation in the economy — in a way that mirrors the many injustices they suffer in the society at large. The labour participation rate of women — that is, the number of women in the...