Alcohol consumers in India face higher health risk, mortality

Alcohol use is responsible for about 4 per cent of global burden of disease. But current drinking has been found to disproportionately raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and injury in people living in low-income countries (LICs) such as India and Zimbabwe and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) such as China and Colombia.

Till date, all epidemiological studies on impact of alcohol consumption on health have been restricted to high- and middle-income countries. For the first time, a study published today (September 17) in the journal The Lancet looked at its impact on people living in countries of all income levels.

“Our study did not look at the association between alcohol and one disease but at the overall effect of alcohol,” said Dr. Rajesh Kumar a co-author of the paper from the Chandigarh-based Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, School of Public Health (PGIMER).

While 38 per cent current drinking was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and injury in lower-income countries (LICs and LMICs combined), it was only 16 per cent in the case of higher-income countries (high-income and upper-middle-income countries combined).

The higher risk in people living in lower-income countries compared with those living in higher-income countries was seen despite the fact that more than three-quarters of participants in higher-income countries consumed alcohol vis-à-vis just one-eighth in lower-income countries.

Despite the lowest prevalence of drinking in lower-income countries, participants from these countries had the highest prevalence of high-intake and heavy episodic drinking. Both high-intake and heavy episodic drinking were associated with increased risk of overall mortality. “Our study confirms that high alcohol consumption is associated with increased risk of mortality, cancer, and injury, and a non-significantly reduced risk of myocardial infarction,” they write.

A reduction in heart attack risk was seen with low or moderate intake but not with high intake of alcohol. If any, there was a heightened risk of mortality with high intake of alcohol.

Another major difference between current drinkers in lower-income and higher-income countries was concerning the type of alcohol that they consumed. For instance, the percentage of people consuming liquor and wine was 89 per cent and 3 per cent respectively in countries like India (lower-income countries) compared with 10 per cent and 61 per cent respectively in higher-income countries.

People who consumed liquor seemed to have “higher hazards of mortality, stroke, cancer, injury, admission to hospital and the composite” compared with wine or beer consumers. “Wine drinkers generally had the lowest hazards for cardiovascular disease, including a significantly reduced risk of myocardial infarction, compared with never drinkers,” they write.

Current drinkers in lower-income countries like India were younger, more likely to be male, less educated and more likely to be current smokers, and have lower body-mass index and higher blood pressure than those in higher-income countries.

“Although current drinking was associated with a 24 per cent reduced risk of heart attack, there was no reduction in risk of mortality or stroke, and current drinking was associated with a 51 per cent increased risk of alcohol-related cancers and a 29 per cent increased risk of injury in current drinkers,” notes a release.

The data came from 12 countries participating in the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study, a prospective cohort study of individuals aged 35-70 years. The median follow-up was 4·3 years and current drinking was reported by 36,030 individuals from all income levels.

Keywords: Alcohol consumers, health hazards, drinking

Source: The Hindu, 18-09-2015

Fix MGNREGS first, ‘smart villages’ can wait

The Cabinet on Wednesday took two decisions that focus on rural India: First, it approved an additional 50 days of work for farmers/workers under the MGNREGS over and above the 100 days in areas where drought or natural calamities have been notified; and, second, it okayed a plan to develop a cluster of ‘smart villages’ to transform rural areas to economically, socially and physically sustainable spaces. The two decisions provide an interesting snapshot of the gap that exists between reality — rural distress is spreading at an alarming pace and hence the need to extend the scheme — and the ambition for a 360-degree transformation.

The MGNREGS decision is a well-meaning one and will enable states to ensure additional wage employment to the poor in drought-affected areas, help tackle rural seasonal unemployment and reduce distress. But this measure could end up being a cosmetic one unless the government fixes the existing problems of the scheme, the key being delayed payments, which have lead to a decline in people claiming employment under the plan. In the last fiscal, households that completed 100 days of wage employment — the minimum guaranteed under the scheme — declined by 50%. It was 2.444 million in 2014-15 against 5.173 million in 2013-14 . The average number of days of employment provided per household nationally in 2012-13 was 46.2, but this fell to 39.99 in 2014-15.

The delay in payments of wages has happened due to budgetary and payment delivery constraints. The budget for the scheme declined from Rs 40,100 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 33,000 crore in 2013-14 during the second term of the UPA. In 2014-15, the allocation by the NDA increased marginally to Rs 34,000 crore; this was further raised to Rs 34,699 crore in the current budget.

Earlier this year, a government review showed that only 28.22% of wages were paid within the stipulated 15 days till December, indicating that 72% of the payments were not handed out in time. These delays continue despite several steps taken including fixing responsibilities on officials creating roadblocks for payments. 

The tardy implementation of the plan forced the government recently to direct states to take steps to improve the implementation and outreach of the programme by running campaigns to popularise the scheme, complete the unfinished projects and ensure payments. While grand and expensive schemes like “smart villages” are attention-grabbers, what will finally make more political and economic sense is to run schemes like the MGNREGS, which has the capacity to transform the lives of the poorest of the poor in a major way, with much more thought and passion.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18.09.2015

The Craving for Identity
Why do we have the craving for identification? Inwardly, we try to identify ourselves with the past, with tradition, with some fanciful romantic image, a symbol much cherished. One takes comfort, security, in any form of illusion. And man apparently needs many illusions.

In the distance, there is the hoot of an owl and a deep-throated reply from the other side of the valley . It's still dawn.The noise of the day has not begun and everything is quiet.There is something strange and holy where the sun arises.

There is a prayer, a chant to the dawn, to that strange quiet light. That early morning, the light was subdued, there was no breeze and all the vegetation, the trees, the bushes, were quiet, still, waiting. Waiting for the sun to rise. Perhaps the sun would not come up for another half hour or so, and the dawn was slowly covering the earth with a strange stillness.

Gradually , slowly , the topmost mountain was getting brighter and the sun was touching it, golden, clear, and the snow was pure, untouched by the light of day . As you climbed, leaving the little village paths down below, the noise of the earth, the crickets, the quails and other birds began their morning song, their chant, their rich worship of the day .

As the sun arose, you were part of that light and had left behind everything that thought had put together. You completely forgot yourself. The psyche was empty of its struggles and its pains. And as you walked, climbed, there was no sense of separateness, no sense of being even a human being.

What if Facebookers Dislike Negativity?





The new dislike button on Facebook contains the seeds of huge disruption

Facebook has presumably factored in the wide range of effects the imminent introduction of a `dislike' option will have on the millions who turn to it daily -or even more frequently -for succour and sustenance. The determined optimism inherent in the absence of an easy negativity mechanism has been a source of much comfort to many . While approval requires just a single easy click of an icon, the actual keying in of an apposite dissenting opinion presents too much of an effort for most users. The result is a recording of only positive thoughts, which encourages many to come forth with opinions or photographs, secure in the knowledge that naysayers will remain unquantified. The addition of a dislike option is tantamount to making every Facebook post a referendum on both the writer and his or her offering. Not many would be able to stomach such daily assessments and may opt out of being voted on.Where and when to use a dislike option may prove confounding too. For instance, would expressing dislike of a person in a new outfit be seen as a criticism of the wearer or the outfit? That confusion could drive irate selfie-posters to turn to another negative option on Facebook: unfriend. Of course, the clincher on that would be for Facebook to test if the debut of a dislike option garners more likes or dislikes.

Source: Economic Times, 18-09-2015

Small Banks Mark Big Step for Inclusion





The RBI must iron out regulatory wrinkles

With the licensing -in principle, as yet -of 10 small banks, in addition to 11 payment banks last month, the RBI is finally beginning to walk the talk on financial inclusion. India can do with many more such banks and the RBI should issue yet more licences without waiting to assess the experience of the entities already licensed. The only prerequisite is proportionate beefing up of the central bank's own regulatory capacity . The immediate focus must be on ironing out regulatory wrinkles that are bound to come up as the new banks get going.The guidelines demand that the new banks meet cash reserve and statutory liquidity ratio norms from the word go. Similarly , all RBI norms on setting interest rates that apply to commercial banks will apply to the small banks. However, given the distributed nature and small ticket size of their loans, the small banks' costs will be higher than commercial banks'. Granted, the ability to raise deposits will lower their cost of funds, as compared to the cost when they were microfinance entities, but the operational costs remain unchanged. Small banks cannot be expected to maintain the same gap between their base rate and their top lending rate as banks do. To demand such things is to make these banks unviable. The present RBI norms on sharing bank ATMs work against new entrants: their customers will use other banks' ATMs far more than those banks' customers will use the new entrants' ATMs, forcing the small banks to make hefty net payments to the big ones, even as the big banks' payout and receipts from one another cancel each other out. A huge expansion of white-labelled ATMs is called for.
Given the desperate need of the global venture fund industry to find profitable deployment, the small banks could, with their near-perfect recovery rates as microfinance entities, attract huge dollops of cheap money . It would be a shame if regulatory restrictions on foreign funding prevents global capital from reaching the country's poor even as it is allowed to subsidise middle-class consumption through assorted investee startups.
Source: Economic Times, 18.09.2015

Stanford World's Most Innovative University





Stanford edged out tech giants such as MIT and Ivy League stalwart Harvard to emerge No. 1 in a Reuters ranking of the world's top 100 innovative universities. Fifty of the 100 institutions are from the US while 27 are European, according to the listing compiled by the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters. Japan is home to nine of the 100, second only to the US. Eight universites each in France and Germany found place in the ranking. While no Indian university made it to the list, China's Tsinghua University, a research varsity located in Beijing, came 72nd. The ranking criteria, based on 10 metrics, focused on academic papers and patent filings. Top-listed Stanford's faculty and alumni have founded some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including HewlettPackard, Yahoo and Google. According to a 2012 study by the university, companies formed by Stanford entrepreneurs generate total global revenue of $2.7 trillion annually, Here's a look...

Source: Economic Times, 18-09-2015

71% in survey say Swachh Bharat a flop in cities

Dipak Dash

New Delhi





In what could be a wake-up call for the Centre to fix weaknesses in the Swachh Bharat initiative, nearly 71% respondents in an online poll conducted by a social media group feel cleanliness in their cities and towns has not improved much in the past one year and want a greater municipal-citizen connect.The online poll on “local circles“, which has over 3 lakh participants, provides a strong feedback that municipalities need a big technology and skill upgrade and must improve actual delivery of sanitation services at the ground level. Involving citi zens in the cleanliness drives as well as in advocacy will also help, the poll indicates.
Swachh Bharat mission was launched by PM Modi on October 2 last year.
The poll has brought to light the gap in capacity of municipal bodies, primarily responsible for collection, transportation and treatment of waste in urban areas. According to the poll, 94% respondents felt civic bodies need major upgrade in skills, processes, equipment system and leadership. Some 96% felt municipal and city leaders should connect with citizens for the success of the mission. An online survey , which found 71% of respondents feel that PM Narendra Modi's ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission has been a flop in urban India, will help in planning the next course of action, a senior government official said on Thursday .
“Efforts are being made to sensitize the municipal authorities and we have been monitoring the progress. It's atime-taking programme. We are providing technical and financial assistance to urban local bodies to implement the scheme,“ the official added.
According to latest government data, 1.42 lakh tonne of solid waste was generated per day in urban areas in July and only 15.33 % of it was processed, indicating how under-equipped municipal bodies are. They also face a problem in terms of lack of a dedicated municipal cadre that can bring economists, public policy graduates, environmentalists and engineers into city administrations.
While one of the key com ponents of the mission in ur ban areas is to create more public toilets, over three fourth of respondents in the online poll said the availabil ity of lavatories hasn't in creased in the one year. More than 70% of the respondents also pointed out how local municipal bodies are not seriously engaged in the scheme and driving the “cleanliness civic sense“ initiatives on the ground.
Considering that cities are competing with each other to get the Smart City tag, 88% of the respondents said that municipal bodies that implement Swachh Bharat mission effectively should be considered as the key parameter for this scheme.
Even an analysis of the cities and towns that have been shortlisted for three major urban development scheme shows how the common underlying concern is ensuring sanitation under all these programmes. Most of the urban areas have poor ranking as far as their Swachh Bharat rankings are concerned.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Source: The Times of India, 18-09-2015