More than 46,000 people die of Acute Lower Respiratory Infections (ALRI) in Bangladesh each year due to Indoor Air Pollution (IAP), acting country representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Andrew Trevett said Thursday.

His findings and those of others set out at a workshop in Dhaka on 15 June revealed that 70 per cent of IAP victims were children under five.

THE COUNTRY NEEDS A DEDICATED & COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL PROGRAMME TO

A study undertaken by a city doctor has found the children of Lucknow not only underweight but also higher in all the other new parameters issued by World Health Organisation (WHO) for estimating malnutrition among kids.

Lifestyle diseases

The initiative made by the State Government in association with Operation Smile to eradicate cleft lip and cleft palate deformities in children deserves appreciation.

The successful implementation of NREGA and the Right to Information Act indicates that the climate is conducive for a far-reaching, rights-based legislation to eliminate hunger and deprivation.

Climate change is claiming 300,000 lives a year and costing the global economy $125bn annually, with the damage set to escalate rapidly, according to the first study of the immediate effects of global warming.

The global economic downturn has aggravated human rights violations and distracted attention from abuses, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The world faced a grave danger that "rising poverty and desperate economic and social conditions could lead to political instability and mass violence," the rights group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, wrote in its annual report.