Currently browsing tag

india

India steps up fight against cigarette firms over health warnings

By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India's health ministry has ordered government agencies to enforce a new rule for bigger health warnings on cigarette packs, stepping up a fight against the country's $10 billion cigarette industry that has shut down its factories in protest. The health ministry's action highlights a growing conflict between the tobacco industry and the federal government which wants manufacturers to cover 85 percent of a cigarette pack's surface in health warnings, up from 20 percent. India's biggest cigarette maker ITC Ltd, part-owned by British American Tobacco, has not implemented the government order, saying it contradicts a parliamentary committee's recommendation for warnings to cover half a cigarette pack.

Drug resistance adds to India’s tuberculosis menace

After three years of battling tuberculosis, a disease that claimed the lives of his father and younger brother, Sonu Verma, a patient in northern India, hopes a cure for his illness may be within reach. “Only a few more months and my nightmare will end… it will be my rebirth, free from tuberculosis,” the 25-year-old scrap dealer, who has been left visibly lean and weak by the disease, told AFP. As India marks World TB Day on Thursday, it faces an estimated 2.2 million new cases of the disease a year, more than any other country, according to the World Health Organisation.

India’s Cadila gets FDA warning for violating standards at 2 plants

India’s Cadila Healthcare Ltd said it had received a “warning letter” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for violating manufacturing standards at two of its production sites in India, sending its shares down 15 percent on Thursday. The company said its Moraiya and Ahmedabad facilities have been cited in the letter, and it is working on responding to the FDA concerns regarding the sites. None of Cadila’s products being sold in the United States use any raw materials made at the Ahmedabad plant, it added.

Coca-Cola India says may have to shut factories if new sin tax passed

The Indian subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co said on Friday it may have to close some bottling plants if the government pushes through a proposal that would subject fizzy drinks to a 40 percent “sin” tax, as part of a broader fiscal overhaul. The beverage maker, which operates 57 factories and bottling plants across India, said a proposal to group sugary sodas with higher-taxed luxury cars and tobacco would hurt demand for its drinks. “It will lead to a sharp decline in consumer purchase,” Coca-Cola India said in a statement.

Scant aid for low-caste villagers hit by south India floods: charities

By Nita Bhalla and Sandhya Ravishankar CHENNAI/NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hundreds of poor lower-caste families who lost their homes and jobs after devastating floods swept southern India have been neglected by government relief efforts, a survey conducted by two charities has found. About 280 people have died and more than 400,000 have been displaced across Tamil Nadu state since torrential rains began in early November, swelling rivers and reservoirs and inundating the state capital Chennai and neighboring coastal districts. A study of the first days of the floods found that although low-caste or “Dalit” families were the group worst hit by the floods, few had received any help, said National Dalit Watch and Social Awareness Society for Youth – Tamil Nadu.

India backs 2 degree global warming limit – French ministry source

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly backs the goal of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, a source close to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Saturday. Leaders from 195 nations will meet from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Paris to try to nail down an agreement after the last global climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 collapsed. Fabius, who will chair the conference, has embarked on a three-day tour to make sure big emerging nations are on board.

Exclusive: Abbott tangles with regulators over Indian cough syrup complaint

By Aditya Kalra and Paritosh Bansal NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Drugmaker Abbott Healthcare is challenging an Indian state’s accusation that a sample of the company’s cough syrup contained excessive levels of codeine, the second multinational to question India’s regulatory testing regime in recent months. Whether the sample of Abbott’s popular “Phensedyl” was a genuine product or a fake has not been established, but the suspect batch of 80,000 bottles has not been recalled. The state laboratory in West Bengal first raised the alarm last November.

India failing to tackle ‘massive TB crisis’: British Medical Journal

India is failing to tackle a tuberculosis epidemic because of chronic shortages of funds and the government's inability to regulate an “exploitive” private health sector, an article in the British Medical Journal said. The article, published ahead of World Tuberculosis Day on Tuesday, called for a massive investment in public health infrastructure to diagnose and treat what it called India's biggest health crisis. India accounts for an estimated 2.2 million of the 8.6 million new cases of tuberculosis that occur globally each year and harbours more than twice as many cases as any other country, according to the World Health Organization. The article by Zarir F Udwadia, a doctor at one of Mumbai's biggest private hospitals, said the government's TB programme was failing to monitor the country's burgeoning private health sector.

Laws deny leprosy sufferers right to work, travel, marry: study

Leprosy sufferers worldwide face discriminatory laws affecting their right to work, travel and marry, according to an advocacy group which called upon governments to follow U.N. guidelines and abolish such legislation. Around 20 countries, including India, Thailand and Nepal, have or continue to pass laws that discriminate against people with leprosy, the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations (ILEP) said ahead of World Leprosy Day on Sunday.