Even though the government has banned smoking at public places from last week on 2nd October, a record number of 90,000 deaths continue to occur in India annually due to tobacco chewing and consumption. While these 90,000 deaths take place due to smoking of cigarettes or bidis and chewing of tobacco products like Gutka etc, sadly, another 3,000 passive smokers also die due to tobacco smoking in the country.
"These 90,000 deaths due to tobacco in India is a big number. The tragedy is that those who do not smoke at all but inhale the smoke of other smokers as passive smokers are also falling prey to the death," said Dr. Chander Prakash, Deputy Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Department of Health, J&K government, while delivering a lecture on "Quit Drugs, Save Life – Smoking and Chewing Tabacco, A Threat To Life" organized by the Centre for Adult, Continuing Education and Extension (CACE&E), University of Jammu at Shivalik College of Education, Udhampur, under its field outreach and extension programmes.
Informing that forty percent of the students studying from Class 9th to Class 12th in India are using tobacco in the form of cigarette smoking or chewing, Dr Chander Prakash added that while 56 per cent of men suffer from cancer due to tobacco, 45 per cent of women are also found suffering from tobacco related cancer. "Lung cancer is quite prevalent in India and its main cause is smoking and chewing of tobacco. Besides, 82 per cent of the breathing problems among people in India can be attributed to tobacco," said Dr Chandra Prakash urging the students to come forward and help eradicating this problem from the society. "Lets all contribute toward building a drug-free society," he said.
Earlier, Dr Santosh, District Immunization Officer (DIO), Department of Health, J&K government, Udampur, also delivered a lecture on "Female Foeticide-A Shameful Act". She said even after 60 years of independence, India was not able to get rid of this shameful practice of killing the girl child in mother’s womb. Giving statistics, Dr. Santosh said while the female sex ratio in India was 976 girls per 1000 in the year 1961, it further reduced to 945 in 1991 and was down to 927 in 2001. She said the sex ratio also varied in various parts of Jammu and Kashmir. While in some parts less, in other areas, it was more. In Leh district, it was 805, in Rajouri it was 891, in Jammu it was 831 while in Udhampur, it was 871.
She said the declining sex ration in Northern India was quite alarming and it was the high time that the entire society, especially the youth of the country should help in bringing the change in the mindset of the people regarding saving the girl child. She also added that if the number of girls would continue decreasing, the balance of the society would be hit.
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