New Delhi, Jan 30: Child and maternal malnutrition continues to be the most challenging risk factor for health loss in India, the Economic Survey said on Monday.
It listed air pollution, dietary risks, high blood pressure and diabetes as other key health risk factors facing the country.
The Survey noted however that there has been significant improvement in the health status of the individual as life expectancy at birth has increased by approximately 10 years from 1990 to 2015.
Limited affordability and access to quality medical services are however among the major challenges contributing to delayed or inappropriate responses to disease control and patient management, said the Economic Survey for 2017-18, tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The share of out of pocket expenditure (OoPE) on health stands at a staggering 62 per cent and adversely impacts the poorer sections and widens inequalities, it said.
While the expenditure by the government healthcare providers accounted for about 23 per cent of the Current Health Expenditure (CHE) as per National Health Accounts 2014 -15, the share of private hospitals and clinics stood at 31 per cent.
The findings of household health expenditure survey in India indicate that about 10 per cent of OoPE on health was spent by households on diagnostics (including medicines and diagnostic test as part of package) during 2013-14, the survey said.
There is a wide difference in average prices of diagnostic tests across various cities in India, and the range in the prices is substantial, it noted.
“There is a need to prioritise standardisation of rates by devising appropriate quality assurance framework and regulatory mechanism,” it added.
The Survey said that although the government has already enacted “Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 and notified the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules, 2012 to regulate the clinical establishments across the country, presently, the act is applicable in 10 States/UTs, which needs to be taken up by remaining States while ensuring strict compliance as well”.
New Delhi , Jan. 27 : The much-awaited Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 11th edition of the tournament will begin on Saturday.
Up to 578 players, out of the 1,122 players, have been kept for the final two-day auction, which includes 244 capped players (62 from India), 332 uncapped players (34 from overseas), and two players from Associate countries.
The players have been divided into different sets and the auction will kick start with the ‘marquee’ list, where 16 players, in two batches of eight each will go for the bid.
The marquee list includes Gautam Gambhir, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan and Harbhajan Singh from India while from overseas, players such as Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Christopher Gayle, Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Shakib Hasan – each priced at Rs 2 crore – are on that list.
The auction pool will also include players from the Under-19 India team squad in the form of skipper Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Himanshu Rana, Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Arshdeep Singh and Harvik Desai.
Players who have already been retained by the franchises are- MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja- by the Chennai Super Kings; Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah by the Mumbai Indians; Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan by the Royal Challengers Bangalore; Sunil Narine, Andre Russell by the Kolkata Knight Riders; Rishabh Pant, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer by the Delhi Daredevils; Axar Patel by the Kings XI Punjab; David Warner, Bhuvneshwar Kumar by the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Steven Smith by the Rajasthan Royals.
The eight IPL franchise have been allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 80 crore on their squad salaries.
Madurai, Jan 25 : The Madras High Court has allowed a 40-year-old convict serving life imprisonment in the central prison in Tirunelveli district to go on a two-week leave for the “purpose of procreation”.
A division bench of Justices S Vimala Devi and T Krishna Valli granted the two-week temporary leave to Siddique Ali, an inmate of Palayamkottai Central jail on a Habeas Corpus petition filed by his 32-year-old wife.
The bench then observed that it was time the government forms a committee to consider allowing conjugal visits to prisoners and that many countries had given them such rights.
“It is time the government constitutes a committee to consider possibilities of providing conjugal visits and analyse the merits and demerits of permitting conjugal visits,” it said.
The judges further noted that the Centre had already passed a resolution that conjugal visits are a right and not privilege and prisoners should be entitled to have their wish.
“The right of prisoners for conjugal visits has been recognised in a few countries. If prisons are overcrowded the government should find solution for such problems,” they said.
“Conjugal visits help prisoners maintain relationship with families, reduce recidivism and motivate and an incentive to good prisoners. Reforming the prisoners is part of the correctional mechanism provided in the criminal justice,” the judges observed.
In the present case, the judges said preliminary investigation has found that there was a possibility of the prisoner having a child.
After due medical treatment on release, an additional two weeks leave could be considered, they added.
Rejecting the plea of prison officials that Ali’s s life was in danger and there was no provision in the prison manual for giving leave on such grounds, the judges stated that under extraordinary reasons prisoners could be given leave.
“Providing for release of prisoner for the purpose of procreation of child with available law can be done. It can be interpreted as a request covered under extraordinary reason” they said.
The judges then directed the prison authorities to follow usual procedures and safeguards when the prisoner was out of jail.
Moscow, Jan 25: Russia on Wednesday accused the United States of promoting unverified reports about chemical weapons attacks in Syria in order to cloud Moscow’s latest peace initiative, while the Syrian government dismissed the reports as “lies.”
The United States and 28 other countries are launching a new plan to better identify and punish anyone who uses chemical weapons, amid new reports of a suspected gas attack in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus earlier this week.
In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused the US of promoting “rigged, unverified reports” of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria to hamper Russian peace efforts.
Russia is hosting peace talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi next week that some Syrian opposition figures said will run counter to UN peace initiatives.
Ryabkov’s remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Moscow “ultimately bears responsibility for the victims” of the latest suspected chemical attack.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry dismissed the allegations as “unacceptable” and blamed Western nations for blocking probes and pressuring investigators after previous attacks.
The US and Russia reached an agreement in 2013 to remove all chemical weapons from Syria, but there have been several reported chemical attacks since then, including one last year that led President Donald Trump to order a retaliatory missile attack on a Syrian air base.
The planned talks in Sochi could also be overshadowed by the heavy fighting in northwestern Syria, where Turkish troops and allied Syrian forces are battling a Kurdish militia.
France and the United States have urged Turkey to exercise restraint in its offensive on Afrin, where the United Nations says an estimated 5,000 people have been displaced.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the incursion is progressing “successfully” and will continue until the last “terrorist” is eliminated.
He renewed a threat to extend the offensive east to the city of Manbij, which is also under the control of US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.
He said he plans to “foil games along our borders starting from Manbij,” adding that “we will clean our region from this trouble completely.”
Erdogan said that Turkish troops and allied Syrian fighters have killed at least 268 Syrian Kurdish fighters since the operation was launched on Jan. 20. He said Turkish troops have suffered seven or eight losses.
At least 27 civilians, including eight children and four women, have been killed in the fighting in Afrin, mainly in Turkish airstrikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the civil war.
Ankara views the main Syrian Kurdish militia as a threat because of its links to Kurdish insurgents fighting in southeastern Turkey. The Syrian Kurds are the main US ally against the Islamic State group in Syria, and played a key role in driving the extremists from much of the country’s northeast.
The US has urged Turkey, a NATO ally, to exercise restraint. American troops are based in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria but not in or near Afrin.
Davos, Jan 25: Union minister M J Akbar on Wednesday asserted that India is a responsible nuclear state and believes in ‘no first use’ of such weapons, even as he questioned why no action is being taken at the global level against proliferation.
Speaking at a session on nuclear threats to international security here at the World Economic Forum (WEF), he said many countries see nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrence and see “missiles as a message”.
The minister of state for external affairs said just a few days ago India joined the Australia Group and is party to other such pacts.
“The world recognises that India is a very responsible nuclear state. Also, we are like that not because someone asked us to do so, but because we want to be like that,” Akbar said.
He said India’s approach is clear — it wants a nuclear regime that is non discriminatory.
“We have got support from so many countries on our approach and we hope that the world will work together on reducing if not eliminating the nuclear threats,” he said while adding that he is hopeful as everyone takes the threat of destruction seriously.
Asked about both India and Pakistan having nuclear weapons, he said, “We can only speak from our position. I can’t speak on behalf of another country and we have these weapons as form of a deterrence and we believe in no first use.”
“We would want to get an agreement at global level on ‘no first use’. If ideals can’t be achieved at least we can work towards good. It’s easy to hear the noise but a little less easy to hear the silence,” he said.
Akbar said India is very proud that its objective is peace. We want peace but peace not necessarily comes from pacifism, he added.
Akbar said people have gotten away with proliferation and strong actions are needed against that.
Speaking in the same session, Beatrice Fihn of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said the only solution is to abolish and eliminate nuclear weapons and it makes no sense for responsible countries to have such weapons that always present a major risk.
She said these weapons create, rather than resolve, crises.
Akbar, however, said demands of security cannot be simply wished away and wondered why is it that no country is taking unilateral decision against nuclear weapons.
“We are in Europe which has nuclear states and why don’t they lead the way? Can they seek public opinion on disarmament? At our level, we work very strongly through multilateral framework which is the only way forward.
“We urge other nations to take steps and we hope this diligence with which we work towards a safer world will yield result,” he said.
Akbar asserted that we need to question why no steps are being taken against proliferation.
The panel discussed the increasing number of nuclear states and threat of “first use” of nuclear weapons as dual global risks on the rise.
The panel members discussed what political, diplomatic and military options can mitigate or manage such existential threats.
They also sought to understand why nuclear threats are back on the table.
Other areas of discussion included re-evaluating the risk/reward balance in nuclear deterrence and how to keep the human factor in focus.
Beijing, Jan 24: China is planning to build a 161- km-long, six-lane intelligent expressway by 2022 in Zhejiang Province in the east, local authorities said today.
The freeway, linking Hangzhou with Ningbo, is expected to increase the average traffic speed by 20 to 30 per cent, slashing the travel time between the two cities from two hours to just one, they said.
China’s expressways have the speed limits of between 100 kmph and 120 kmph, with the average traffic speed estimated at 90 kmph.
The new intelligent expressway system will incorporate a monitoring system as well as a warning system to maintain the safety of vehicles while increasing the average traffic speed, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
“It will also include Internet of Vehicles technology, supporting autonomous driving in the future,” said Ren Zhong, deputy director of the provincial department of transportation.
“We will make mobile charging for electric vehicles possible on the super highway in the future,” he added.
China had opened one-km section of its first solar expressway for testing last month.
According to the project developer Qilu Transportation Development Group, solar panels, covering 5,875 square metres, have been laid beneath a part of ring road surrounding Jinan, capital city of Shandong Province in east China.
The road surface has been made of a transparent, weight- bearing material that allows sunlight to penetrate.
The panels can generate 1 million KWH of power in a year, enough to meet the everyday demand of around 800 households, the developer said.