Category:

Non-Life

Smokers face 40-50 pc higher risk of severe diseases, death from Covid: Vardhan

“We have set an ambitious target of reducing tobacco use by 30 per cent by 2025. Our tobacco control targets have been devised keeping in view the targets for control of non-communicable diseases and are consistent with the targets set under the SDGs. We will be soon releasing the findings of fourth round of Global Youth Tobacco Survey conducted among 13-15 year school going students,” Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said.

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China-backed projects in Africa face fierce backlash from environmentalists

“There is no doubt that Chinese commercial actors … have tried to evade environmental requirements,” said Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre in Washington.

Meanwhile, a senior fellow at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute, said Beijing was not unaware of the potential risks involved with private and state-owned firms operating in belt and road countries.

“Reducing these risks requires more uniformly applied standards and practices on environmental and social issues by China’s outbound actors, which is likely to come only via coherent policy requirements from the top down,” he said.

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India’s Mahindra expects car sales to take two years to rebound after COVID shock

Car sales had started to pick up in the January-March period but a second, more deadly wave of infections forced lockdowns again. This time consumer sentiment has taken a hit and discretionary spending is likely to take longer to recover.

The virus is also spreading to rural India, which was relatively protected during the first wave and had offset the low demand automakers saw in urban centres.

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Carmakers in ‘India’s Detroit’ allowed to operate as workers protest COVID risk

Tamil Nadu government order issued on Saturday said so-called continuous process industries, which include auto factories, would be allowed to function in accordance with measures such as social distancing to stem the virus’s spread.

It also urged vehicle manufacturers to initiate immediate action to vaccinate all their employees within a month.

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Only 30% of firms in US, Europe to embrace full return-to-office model

“By shifting conversations to focus on the working environments that best suit employees’ needs moving forward, organisations can ensure that their employees feel they are being heard and that they have the autonomy and tools to do their jobs effectively,” said Keith Johnston, VP and group research director at Forrester.

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Vaccine inequality, wily variants: Covid’s deadliest phase may be here soon

In countries with widespread vaccination, like the United States and Britain, we can expect that Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to decline or stay low, especially because lab tests and real world experience show that vaccines appear to defend recipients well against the severe effects of both variants.

For much of the rest of the world, though, this even more transmissible new variant could be catastrophic.

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