Research published at the end of last year spotlighted the leading cause of premature mortality among young men in India: road traffic accidents. In 2017, 2.2 lakh Indians lost their lives due to injuries sustained on the country’s roads. Males accounted for the overwhelming majority of such fatalities, with 77 percent of road traffic accident […]
Jharkhand
Lymphatic filariasis: Can India eliminate it?
At the beginning of October, the island nation of Kiribati announced that it had eliminated lymphatic filariasis. By 2021, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has pledged that India will do the same. What is lymphatic filariasis? Lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis, is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) that attacks the lymphatic system. It is caused […]
India’s best states for child welfare
Kerala is the best-performing state in India when it comes to child welfare, whilst Madhya Pradesh is the worst. This is according to the Child Well-being Index, a joint report by World Vision India and IFMR LEAD, unveiled yesterday Kerala secured the top spot with an overall score of 0.76, followed by Tamil Nadu and […]
Encephalitis is not just an issue in Bihar
When it comes to encephalitis, the eyes of India have largely focused on Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district where more than 140 children are believed to have lost their lives to the condition. However, over the course of recent weeks, reports of potential outbreaks have poured in from other parts of Bihar – and from other states. […]
World Environment Day highlights a health crisis
World Environment Day is observed annually on June 5th to commemorate the importance of conserving our environment from the many threats it faces. For India, World Environment Day offers a valuable opportunity to recognise one of the major issues confronting the nation: its poor environmental health, ranked as the worst in the world in the […]
Crackdown on e-cigarettes and similar devices
Authorities in Rajasthan are moving against e-cigarettes in the state following the decision of the state government to ban the devices. Coinciding with last week’s observance of World No Tobacco Day, it was announced that e-cigarettes, or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), would be prohibited in the northern state. The rules prohibit the devices from […]
Health matters to Jharkhand’s voters. Is the state government failing them?
When it comes to the electorate’s priorities, there are three clear things which stand out for voters in Jharkhand. They want better hospitals, better law and order and better employment opportunities. Yet a survey suggests the state government’s performance on these indicators is less than satisfactory. While the Lok Sabha elections will conclude next month, […]
India’s water woes are bigger than you think
It is not even summer season and great swathes of India’s land are suffering from drought, recently published data reveals. This is according to an IndiaSpend analysis of figures from the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), which contains dire implications for an enormous number of Indians and a sizeable proportion of the country’s land. At […]
India’s vaping controversy continues
The fraught relationship between policymakers and India’s vaping community will not become any less contentious for the foreseeable future. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court stayed a Union Health Ministry directive to state governments issued last year, encouraging them to ban electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) – commonly known as e-cigarettes or ‘vapes’. The Centre […]
Inequality between states harms health in India
‘Nations Within a Nation’ A groundbreaking new study published today in The Lancet spotlights a major concern about healthcare in India: the vast disparities between its states. ‘Nations Within a Nation’, touted as ‘the first comprehensive analysis of health in India’, shows that the ‘substantial gains in healthcare’ made by India in recent years have […]