From cigarettes to agri products

April 30 2007

News - From cigarettes to agri products

[ITC is committed to sustaining its position as one of India’s most valuable corporations].

When YC Deveshwar addressed his first annual general meeting of shareholders of ITC Ltd in 1996, his 3000-plus word speech dwelt solely on tobacco and cigarettes. In fact, the word tobacco appears around a 100 times and cigarettes around 50.Over the past six years, the company has forayed into several new areas. And, last year, when he addressed his 11th AGM, cigarettes and tobacco had vanished from his talk. The most frequently used word seemed to be “vision”.Well, ITC still makes cigarettes and exports tobacco, but these no longer play the dominant role of over 85% in revenues or profits as they used to do even a few years ago when segment reporting became mandatory. ITC is now playing out a vision that Deveshwar has developed over the years, implementing it steadily and methodically.

The vision is about empowering the Indian farmer by giving him the tools for a better life and linking him to world markets. Of making Indians proud of having an Indian company making world-class products. And of course, of making ITC’s shareholders proud to be part of a company that does things like growing forests and managing watersheds not to win awards for corporate social responsibility, but to mesh business and life in a socially responsible fabric.

As Deveshwar told FE, “ITC is committed to sustaining its position as one of India’s most valuable corporations through world-class performance and creation of growing value for its stakeholders and the Indian economy.”

Today, as ITC’s vast and deeply rooted network of over 6,500 e-choupals covering nearly 400,000 villages across nine states, begun way back in 2000, generates inward and outward business for ITC, every big company with extra cash is dreaming of food retail, of creating a farm-to-table chain. But as the likes of Reliance open their big stores with fanfare, ITC is not worried. It has been running some unique rural malls quite successfully for a few years now—and is ready to provide the backend supply chain to any new player in retail.

“ITC has facilitated agro extension services on a large scale, and this has led to better crops and better yields. With our experience in agro-procurement and the development of quality agro-products, ITC is open to providing back-end support to other non-competing retail units,” Deveshwar told FE.

Whether it is the main segments like hotels, paper & paperboard and agribusiness, ITC is creating businesses that, if treated as standalone companies, could equal or outrank industry peers.

Deveshwar is clear about this: “ITC’s performance has to be judged in the business segments we are engaged in - and in each, we are leaders either in top-line or in bottomline growth.”

Recently, ITC got talking about cigarettes again after a long gap, in the notes to its results for the quarter to December 31, 2006. (Of course, cigarettes find a mention in the annual report every year.) The trigger this time? The green signal for states to impose value added tax on cigarettes and tobacco products other than bidis, for which the hated foe so far had been excise.

For Deveshwar, the future is clear: “ITC would like to be the most trusted and the largest food company in the country today. In agri business and in each of the branded food segments that we are engaged in, ITC has achieved leadership positions within a very short time since we have launched these businesses.”

online available at- http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=162679

Indian Govt to set up tobacco regulatory body

Spiritindia.com
April 28 2007

News - Indian Govt to set up tobacco regulatory body


[Smokers across the country are expected to face curbs on their habits as the government is planning to set up a regulatory authority for effective implementation of anti-tobacco laws].

Despite a ban on smoking in public places, people are seen puffing away at restaurants, hotels and theatres raising serious health concerns. The Health Ministry is setting up a National Tobacco Regulatory Body under the 11th five year plan to enforce the anti-tobacco Act strictly."It will be an independent body and will coordinate between states and the industry," Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said.He said a stringent enforcement of the Act was necessary because 40 per cent of the country's health problem was due to tobacco.

"We want people to smoke in their homes and only when their spouses allow it," he said at the first-ever Journalist 'Boot Camp' on India's growing thr eat -- Cancer and Tobacco yesterday, organised by the American Cancer Society and the US Centres for Disease Control Foundation."Bhutan is the only nation where no tobacco products are found.

We want to make India tobacco free," Ramadoss said.He said a survey showed in the Bollywood movies of the 1950s, fifty per cent of heroes smoked, which grew to 71 per cent in the 1990s and 86 per cent currently."The heroes are smoking and not the villains," he said.

online available at- http://www.spiritindia.com/health-care-news-articles-8916.html

India's Delhi, Mumbai to become smoke free

Peopl's Daily online

27 April 2007

News - India's Delhi, Mumbai to become smoke free

In an attempt to protect the citizens from second-hand smoke, the Indian government has announced that New Delhi and Mumbai would go smoke free, New Delhi Television (NDTV) reported on Friday.
Both the cities are expected to prohibit smoking in public places by 2009, including workplaces, the report said.
The new measure means Mumbai should be smoke-free by 2009 and Delhi will be smoke free by the time when it's ready to host the Commonwealth Games.
The news channel also reported that every eight seconds, someone in the world dies of a smoking-related disease.
According to the World Health Organization, tobacco causes one in 10 deaths worldwide.
By 2010, it is estimated that the annual global cost of tobacco use will be half a trillion dollars. This is more money than the combined Gross Domestic Product of 174 of the 192 member countries of the United Nations, NDTV reported.

online available at- http://english.people.com.cn/200704/27/eng20070427_370412.html

‘Multiplex Mobile Medical Units’: Responding to diverse HIV healthcare needs

‘Multiplex Mobile Medical Units’: Responding to diverse HIV healthcare needs

Bobby Ramakant from Ahmedabad (Gujarat)


[E.X.C.E.R.P.T.S... Healthcare needs of underserved communities are diverse and manifold. With HIV pandemic ravaging through India, and appalling healthcare systems, the need is compelling to integrate different tenets of healthcare services to make effective comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support a reality. Bobby Ramakant writes on such a model intervention which brings together different healthcare services under one ‘Multiplex Mobile Medical Unit’ moving through Gujarat villages in India] .


Gujarat AIDS Prevention Unit (GAP) collaborated with The Brooklyn Hospital Center, USA and American Indian Association (AIA) to respond to these needs by coming up with a Multiplex Mobile Medical Unit, which is reasonably well-equipped bringing together medical, nursing, psychosocial counselling and pastoral care services for thousands of people from underserved communities in rural Gujarat (many of them living with HIV). The Brooklyn Hospital Center (USA) has sent a team of senior medical experts as well.

HIV gradually subdues the immune system of people living with the virus so that opportunistic infections (OIs) such as candidiasis, meningitis and tuberculosis can then exploit the body’s weakened defences. People living in poorer parts of India often have no access to clean water and sanitation, have bad nutrition and already weak health status, and are constantly challenged by a variety of infectious diseases. These factors place them at greater risk of HIV-associated OIs and are believed to significantly shorten the interval between initial HIV infection and the onset of AIDS-related conditions. As a result, HIV/AIDS is often called the ‘quintessential disease of poverty’.

Stigma associated with HIV prevailing in communities is enormous and has impeded the AIDS response of India considerably, said Dr Radium Bhattacharya, President of Indian Network of NGOs on HIV/AIDS (INN) and Chairperson of Gujarat AIDS Prevention Unit (GAP).

People with high-risk lifestyles or those living with HIV have to confront huge levels of stigma at every step – even within the healthcare settings. This makes it all the more difficult for them to have access to existing health services including HIV testing, detection of sexually transmitted infections (STI), STI treatment, regular screenings for opportunistic infections (OIs) and treatments (especially TB which continues to be the largest killer of people living with HIV despite of the fact that TB treatment is available free of cost and TB is curable!), nutritional counseling and food security, and not-to-forget other specialized medical care including antenatal care, paediatric care, and general medicine as well.

Quality counseling of people (with or without HIV) is very important. Most of the people with high risk behaviours in their lives have been craving for compassion and deprived of access to information and services as well. It is vital for counselors to establish a rapport with individuals before trying to redress their problems. Nothing is more therapeutic than compassionate shoulder, says Dr Radium.

Multiplex mobile medical unit is a response to the needs of the community in rural areas. The challenge was to provide high-quality medical care, which is free of cost (affordable), within the reach of people in their own communities (mobile clinics are accessible) and provide for an array of services from counseling, testing, medical care and provision of medicines as well. All the staff working in these mobile clinics demonstrated high sensitivity to issues around HIV, and people living with HIV have themselves taken leadership in putting up the camp as well.

India at least has more than 5 million people living with HIV. The incidence of HIV in rural India is rising. With gravely inadequate healthcare system to fall back upon, it is critically important to bolster our public education and health literacy programmes in rural India, said Dr Radium Bhattacharya, who also volunteers for AIDS CARE WATCH global campaign (www.aidscarewatch.org).

With inadequate treatment programmes especially those of anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy, the number of people requiring 2nd line drugs is alarming. GAP is providing 2nd line ARV therapy to 5 patients who had developed resistance against 1st line ARV therapy earlier.

Jogender Upadhyay, a force behind community mobilization at GAP, said that Multiplex Mobile Medical Unit is a resultant of a survey on the needs of medical services carried out in the last 3 years in 20 villages of Prantij Taluka in Sabarkantha district (Gujarat). Total population of these three villages is around 60,000. These mobile medical units are providing family health counseling, reproductive and sexual health counseling, free condom demonstration and distribution, pre-test voluntary counseling, check up for opportunistic infections, sexually transmitted infections and reproductive tract infections and appropriate treatment, nutritional support, TB counseling, drug adherence counseling and treatment literacy, gender and foeticide awareness by multiple ways including poster exhibitions, street plays, games and inter-personal communication with the expert counselors.

There are some simple approaches to keep people with HIV alive. Many of them are already readily available, affordable and effective:

- Voluntary counselling and testing for HIV as the entry point for access to all health care services and self management
- Prevention and treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in people living with HIV
- Drugs to treat/prevent other opportunistic infections (e.g., cotrimoxazole, fluconazole etc)
- Home- and community-based care approaches
- Tackling HIV-related stigma, especially in health care settings, which often keeps people away from health services
- Pharmacotherapy (e.g., methadone) for recovering injection drug users
- Traditional healing and treatment approaches
- Promoting food security and micronutrient provision.

People living with HIV often become entry points to communities in the provision of integrated AIDS-related services. This initiative is also effective in community education and delivery of a broad range of AIDS care services at the doorstep of the people in rural India. Community members are glad that quality healthcare services have been brought home for them.
‘HIV is not a death sentence’ said a person living with HIV who came to this mobile medical unit. He firmly believes that AIDS-related conditions can be prevented and treated with established forms of care, support and treatment.

Such initiatives bring hope to people living with HIV. With 70% of Indian population in rural areas, the massive challenge is to make such interventions sustainable and replicable across the country.

Bobby Ramakant

(The author is a health and development journalist writing for newspapers in Asia, Middle East and Africa. He is a Key Correspondent to HDN (www.TheCorrespondent.org). He can be contacted at: bobbyramakant@yahoo.com)