AHMEDABAD: The recommendations for a cleaner and sustainable environment compiled at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Ahmedabad will be presented at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development called 'Rio +20,' which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in June. The recommendations at CEE have been developed by a team of around 80 children and youth from across the world at an event called 'Asia-Pacific UNEP TUNZA Children and Youth International Conference'.

NGO says there has been a rampant compromise with human life

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a writ petition alleging that illegal clinical trials of untested drugs were being conducted by pharmaceutical companies on adults, children and even mentally ill persons in various States.

Days after a report in the British Medical journal the Lancet indicated malaria mortality almost double than previously estimated by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the international health organisation bounced back claiming that some key findings of the new study do not seem to be based on “strong evidence”.

The WHO has also recommended that there is no need for the malaria endemic countries to make any changes in the ongoing policies applied by them, following the recent Lancet report.

Malaria kills twice as many people every year as formerly believed, taking 1.2 million lives and causing the deaths not only of babies but also older children and adults. The findings from the research, which has reanalysed 30 years of data on the disease using new techniques, will force a rethink of the huge global effort that has been under way to eliminate malaria, the guardian newspaper reported on Friday. That ambition now looks highly unlikely by the UN target date of 2015.

The United Nations said on Friday that the famine that has killed tens of thousands of people in Somalia this past year has ended, thanks to a bumper harvest and a surge in emergency food deliveries.

But conditions are still precarious, United Nations officials warned, with many Somalis dying of hunger and more than two million still needing emergency rations to survive.

“The crisis is not over,” said José Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, who just returned from Somalia.

Health officials in Kyrgyzstan say they have diagnosed 70 new cases of HIV among children during a widespread check following a scandal over transmission of the virus in hospitals.

JAIPUR: Jay Naidoo, chair of the GAIN Board, South Africa said 60 million children in India are malnourished, which is higher than the total population of South Africa.

Naidoo was in the city at the launch of fortified wheat flour and fortified edible oil for sale in open market. He said, "Around 60% of India's total population is living below poverty line. These people are dependant on the government. So, government plays important role in the fight against malnutrition as it passes laws, regulations and policies. These people need high quality food rich in folic acid, iron and Vitamin A."

The number of malaria deaths worldwide in 2010 was 1.24 million, nearly double the number previously estimated by the 2011 World Malaria Report (WMR). This is despite a 31-per-cent reduction in such deaths globally in the last five years.

This was stated in a study published on February 3 in The Lancet.

Civil Society Floods Situation Report on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Response in Sindh 2011 has disclosed that due to the poor intervention by the government and humanitarian agencies in rain and flood affected districts of Sindh increased health risks especially water borne and viral diseases among the affected communities, as 87 percent of water sources are unfit for drinking.

India has the worst air pollution in the entire world, beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, according to a study released during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

Of 132 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the ‘Air (effects on human health)’ ranking. The annual study, the Environmental Performance Index, is conducted and written by environmental research centers at Yale and Columbia universities with assistance from dozens of outside scientists. The study uses satellite data to measure air pollution concentrations.