Factors in 2010: diabetes, high blood pressure, tobacco smoking, including second-hand smoking, and alcohol use

The three leading risk factors for global disease burden in 2010 were high blood pressure, tobacco smoking, including second-hand smoking, and alcohol use, while in 1990 the leading risks were childhood underweight, household pollution from sold fuels, and tobacco smoking, including passive smoking.

Directs NIPH to do a comprehensive study

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Union of India on an application from the Centre for Public Interest Litigation alleging that though 14 States had banned gutka, the ban was not being effectively implemented. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadaya issued notice after hearing counsel Prashant Bhushan. He said that only gutka (mixture of pan masala and tobacco) was banned by 14 States. Neither pure tobacco nor pan masala (without tobacco) was banned and as a result manufacture was still going on.

Anti-tobacco activists urge the Government to follow the Australian example

Days after Australia became the first country in the world to have brought in plain packing of tobacco products, anti-tobacco activists in the country have urged the Indian Government to follow this health-friendly trend. Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Panda this past Friday introduced a Private Members’ Bill seeking plain packaging of tobacco products in the country by making amendments to the current Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003.

The Union Health Ministry, in its efforts to push for a countrywide ban on edible products containing tobacco, has written to all states and Union territories pointing to a 1982 Allahabad High Cour

The incidence of oral cancer could see a drop. This is the hope held out by a survey conducted four months after the state banned gutkha and pan masala in July.

Directors of 14 regional cancer centres across the country, including the Indian Dental Association and Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Health Minister Ghulab Nabi Azad urging them to bring in a nationwide ban on the sale of gutka/pan masala products in the country.

The move comes after cancer specialists/oncologists, oral cancer victims and public health experts lauded the government for banning gutka in over 10 States under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regulations, which prohibit the addition of tobacco or nicotine in food, and urged the government to ensure effective implementation of this notification in all the States.

Tobacco export from India had increased 27.6 per cent during 2012, compared to 2011

Tobacco will become the first cash crop in the country to be covered by crop insurance in the country. Tobacco growers, chiefly in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh where the finest quality of tobacco is grown, will benefit from this. It was initially proposed that the Centre should bear 50 per cent of the insurance, the states 25 per cent of the insurance cost, with the remaining 25 per cent coming from tobacco growers. But, realising that growers were not in a position to bear their share, the Tobacco Board is considering bearing 50 per cent of the farmers’ burden itself. If this is effected, growers will have to bear only 12.5 per cent.

When it comes to pictorial warnings on tobacco packets, India ranks a low 123 among 198 countries surveyed on the warnings parameter.

Pictorial warnings on cigarette packs continue to sully India’s anti-tobacco efforts on the global arena.