Has Gujarat faltered in the fight against tobacco vis-à-vis other states? It would seem so, despite the data suggesting the percentage of men and women using “some form of tobacco” (smoking cigarettes, bidis, cigars, pipe, hookah, chewing paan with tobacco, using gutkha or paan masala with tobacco, using khaini, using usoing snuff etc.) have come down considerably. The National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) data for 2015-16, released a year ago, suggest that 51 per cent of men and seven per cent of women in the age group 15-49 “use some form of tobacco”, which is seventh highest among 21 major Indian states. A similar household survey held a decade earlier (NFHS-3), which took place in 2005-06, suggested that 10 per cent more men (60%) used “some form of tobacco”. As for women, in 2005-06, the tobacco use was found to be eight per cent. However, at that time, as many as nine other major states out of 19 for which survey results have been obtained had a higher per...

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in its new publication, ‘Strangers to Justice: A Report on Foreigners in Indian Prisons’, has regretted that only 5.7% of the total foreign prisoners -- i.e. 222 out of 3908 -- have received consular access. Prepared to understand issues of detention and repatriation of foreign nationals in Indian prisons, the report is based on Right to Information (RTI) replies from 26 states.

  Is the Government of India dilly-dallying over the issue of banning e-cigarettes, which have been declared by anti-tobacco activists across the world as providing “an entryway to nicotine addiction”, especially among the kids? It would seem so, if the latest developments are any guide.

The Government of India has rejected a right to information (RTI) plea, sent to the Social Justice Ministry for seeking Cabinet note, along with Annexures, if any, submitted to the Union Cabinet for securing the Constitutional amendment for providing 10% quota to the economically weaker sections (EWS), saying, as per the provision under Section 8(1)(i) of RTI Act, 2005, it is not obligatory “to give any citizen Cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers”.

  Former state health commissioner Dr Amarjit Singh, Gujarat cadre IAS, made a civil society consultation in Ahmedabad an occasion to come down heavily on Gujarat's performance in social sector. Quoting official data, he suggested that, despite economic growth, Gujarat remains one of the worst performers in the social sector. Not only does the state have one the highest out of school girls in the age group 15-16, 24.9%, he said, children’s learning levels too are extremely poor. Recalling his visit to a school during the Gujarat government-sponsored Gunotsav festival for improving quality of education when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was state chief minister, Dr Singh said, he went to a Jamnagar school, which was in good condition. Finding the photographs of national leaders hanging on the wall, he asked children who they were. None of the children could identify Sardar Patel or Mahatma Gandhi. Dr Singh said, he talked with the principal of the school as to find out what was the r...

  Four-and-a-half years after India declared its “intention” to ban e-cigarettes, considering them as risk to public health, especially the non-smoking youths (click HERE ), following the World Health Organization (WHO) in August 2014 seeking “stiff regulation” across the world, its “booming” $3 billion global market appears all set to dangerously invade India. The Union ministry of health and family welfare, in October 2014 had called e-cigarettes, which use battery-powered cartridges to produce a nicotine-laced vapor, a “backdoor entry” to health risk, because has nicotine, pointing out that expert panels have already recommended regulation or a ban. The ministry view came after e-cigarettes, imported and sold by small firms, began being sold by India’s largest cigarette maker, ITC. Meanwhile, over more than four years, they are available on online stores, including on Amazon India , Electronic Cigarette India and Vapour India . In fact, four-and-a-half years on, al...

A recent research, carried out jointly by two US-based non-profit organizations, Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Center for WorkLife Law (WLL), based at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, has found that 45% of women engineers as against 28% of men engineers complained that it was perceived as “inappropriate when women argued at work, even when it was work-related.”

A senior South African official has debunked the view currently being held by several African academics, particularly Ghana and South Africa, that Mahatma Gandhi was anti-black, saying, the country’s tallest leader Nelson Mandela as also Ghana’s anti-colonial leader Kwame Nkrumah were “influenced” by Gandhi. Anil Sooklal, an ethnic Indian, who is deputy director-general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), which is under the foreign ministry of the South African government, said, Mandela was “aware” of the limitations of Gandhi’s views and had insisted that one shouldn’t go by what he may have said at a particular moment by his action.