The Delhi government has extended its ban on several forms of tobacco for a year. Cigarettes are still available, but popular alternatives such as gutkha, pan masala, and kharra cannot be manufactured, stored, or sold in the national capital. A notification issued by the Food Safety Commissioner for the National Capital Region said the prohibition […]
oral health
Gadchiroli: The district where oral cancer takes a toll
The Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra claims a dubious distinction. It is the Indian district with the highest rate of oral cancer. The district is home to more than a million people and reports an estimated 550 cancer cases every year. Oral cancer accounts for 28 percent of these cases, including forty percent of cancers in […]
Why you should be worried about students’ health
The findings of a report researching the health of Indian students have raised a number of concerns about the health of India’s children. The research screened 176,240 schoolchildren aged two to seventeen across twenty Indian cities. Those screened were assessed on numerous health parameters and it was discovered that a significant proportion of India’s students […]
Tamil Nadu rocked by Gutkha scam. What you need to know
The gutkha scam has been making headlines in Tamil Nadu, where senior officials including the health minister have been implicated in a multi-crore corruption scandal involving bribes paid by chewing tobacco companies. Officials stand accused of accepting bribes paid by manufacturers of gutkha, a chewing tobacco mixture which has been banned in Tamil Nadu since […]
Head and neck cancers kill in India: Tobacco to blame?
Most of the world’s head and neck cancer patients are from India, recent data suggests. Experts suggest that high rates of tobacco use, particularly among men, are behind the grim statistic that 57.5 percent of the world’s head and neck cancer patients reside in India. What’s worse, the number of cases in the country are […]
Government launches oral health programme
A government health portal covering issues regarding dental and oral health has been launched at a national level. Oral hygiene has long been thought to be a pressing issue in Indian health, largely through neglect by the general population brought about through a lack of information. Dental health is a useful indicator of a person’s […]