Road accidents are the biggest killers of teenagers in the world: WHO

May 16, 2017

Geneva, May 16: Road injuries are the biggest killer of teenagers globally, according to a latest WHO report which found that over 3,000 adolescents die every day, totalling 1.2 million deaths a year, from largely preventable causes.

roadaccIn 2015, more than two-thirds of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and South-East Asia. Road traffic injuries, lower respiratory infections, and suicide are the biggest causes of death among adolescents.

Road injuries were the leading cause of adolescent death among 10–19-year-olds, resulting in about 115,000 adolescent deaths, the report by World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

Older adolescent boys aged 15–19 years experienced the greatest burden. Most young people killed in road crashes are vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

"Adolescents have been entirely absent from national health plans for decades," said Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director-General, WHO.

"Relatively small investments focused on adolescents now will not only result in healthy and empowered adults who thrive and contribute positively to their communities, but it will also result in healthier future generations, yielding enormous returns," said Bustreo.

The top five causes of death for all adolescents aged 10–19 years in 2015 were: Road traffic injury with 115,302 deaths, lower respiratory infections (72,655 deaths), self-harm (67,149), diarrhoeal diseases (63,575) and drowning (57,125).

The report reveals stark differences in causes of death when separating the adolescent group by age (younger adolescents aged 10–14 years and older ones aged 15–19 years) and by sex.

Looking only at low- and middle-income countries in Africa, communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, lower respiratory infections, meningitis, and diarrhoeal diseases are bigger causes of death among adolescents than road injuries, WHO said.

The leading cause of death for younger adolescent girls aged 10–14 years are lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia — often a result of indoor air pollution from cooking with dirty fuels.

According to the report, pregnancy complications, such as haemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labour, and complications from unsafe abortions, are the top cause of death among 15–19-year-old girls.

Suicide and accidental death from self-harm were the third cause of adolescent mortality in 2015, the report said.

Self-harm largely occurs among older adolescents, and globally it is the second leading cause of death for older adolescent girls. It is the leading or second cause of adolescent death in Europe and South-East Asia.

"Improving the way health systems serve adolescents is just one part of improving their health," said Anthony Costello, Director of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health at WHO.

"Parents, families, and communities are extremely important, as they have the greatest potential to positively influence adolescent behaviour and health," Costello added.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Mumbai, Jan 27: The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Monday said it has increased prices of select models by up to Rs 10,000 with immediate effect to offset the impact of rising input costs.

The price change varies across models and ranges up to 4.7 per cent (ex-showroom Delhi) and are effective from January, 27 2020, MSI said in a statement.

The price of entry level model Alto range has gone up in the range of Rs 9,000-6,000, S-Presso between Rs 1,500 to 8,000, WagonR between Rs 1,500 and Rs 4,000.

The company has also increased the price of its multi purpose vehicle Ertiga between Rs 4,000-10,000, Baleno by Rs 3,000 to 8,000 and XL6 by up to Rs 5,000 (all prices ex-showroom Delhi).

Currently, the company sells a range of vehicles starting from entry-level small car Alto to premium multi purpose vehicle XL6 with price ranging from Rs 2.89 lakh to Rs 11.47 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has blocked Bharti Airtel's Platinum and Vodafone Idea's RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to customers as both the plans were violating net neutrality norms.

The telecom watchdog has asked Bharti Airtel to explain within seven days how such a similar plan being launched does not violate the rules of net neutrality.

Vodafone Idea's RedX plan has been in the market since November 2019. They made some modifications in May 2020 and the Bharti Airtel was soon going to launch a similar plan.

According to TRAI, the higher speed for premium customers discriminate against others and violates net neutrality.

Responding to TRAI's move, Airtel spokesperson said: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults and have been consistently recognised by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience."

"At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end," the spokesperson said.

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Agencies
February 6,2020

Washington D.C., Feb 6: An international team of astronomers has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.

The team of astronomers was led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside.

Dubbed XMM-2599, the galaxy formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear.

"Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultra massive galaxy," said Benjamin Forrest, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Riverside Department of Physics and Astronomy and the study's lead author.

"More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1.8 billion years old," Forrest added.

The team used spectroscopic observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory's powerful Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration or MOSFIRE, to make detailed measurements of XMM-2599 and precisely quantify its distance.

The study results appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

"In this epoch, very few galaxies have stopped forming stars, and none are as massive as XMM-2599," said Gillian Wilson, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCR in whose lab Forrest works.

"The mere existence of ultramassive galaxies like XMM-2599 proves quite a challenge to numerical models. Even though such massive galaxies are incredibly rare at this epoch, the models do predict them."

"The predicted galaxies, however, are expected to be actively forming stars. What makes XMM-2599 so interesting, unusual, and surprising is that it is no longer forming stars, perhaps because it stopped getting fuel or its black hole began to turn on. Our results call for changes in how models turn off star formation in early galaxies," the professor stated.

The research team found XMM-2599 formed more than 1,000 solar masses a year in stars at its peak of activity -- an extremely high rate of star formation. In contrast, the Milky Way forms about one new star a year.

"XMM-2599 may be a descendant of a population of highly star-forming dusty galaxies in the very early universe that new infrared telescopes have recently discovered," said Danilo Marchesini, an associate professor of astronomy at Tufts University and a co-author on the study.

"We have caught XMM-2599 in its inactive phase," Wilson said, who led the W. M. Keck Observatory data acquisition
Co-author Michael Cooper, a professor of astronomy at UC Irvine, said this outcome is a strong possibility.

"Perhaps during the following 11.7 billion years of cosmic history, XMM-2599 will become the central member of one of the brightest and most massive clusters of galaxies in the local universe," he said.

"Alternatively, it could continue to exist in isolation. Or we could have a scenario that lies between these two outcomes," he stated.

The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA.

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