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Public health groups, doctors urge for hike in tobacco tax

New Delhi, Nov 25 (PTI) Public health groups along with doctors and economists have urged the government to increase excise duty on all tobacco products in the Union Budget 2024-25 to generate additional revenue. In their appeals to the Finance Ministry, they asked for an increase in health taxes on cigarettes, bidis and smokeless tobacco. Health taxes are excise taxes imposed on products such as tobacco that have a clear negative public health impact. According to these experts, among the several public policy tools to regulate the consumption of tobacco, increasing the excise tax is considered to be one of

Option of manual drilling being considered at Silkyara tunnel

Uttarkashi, Nov 25 (PTI) With the auger machine encountering hurdles in the rubble time and again, rescuers are considering switching over to manual drilling at the Silkyara tunnel where 41 labourers have been trapped for the past 13 days, officials said on Saturday. Drilling at the collapsed portion of the tunnel to rescue the trapped men was halted again on Friday night, in yet another setback to the multi-agency effort. Before the brief period of drilling on Friday, 46.8 metres of the 800 mm wide steel pipe had been pushed into the drilled passage -– out of the collapsed stretch

President sks civil servants to address problems of common people

New Delhi, Nov 24 (PTI) President Droupadi Murmu on Friday said it is the duty of civil servants to respond promptly to the grievances of the people besides adopting innovative measures beneficial for citizens. Addressing a group of officer trainees who had called on her at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here, the president said the feedback of the public on various government schemes and projects is now considered very important for an efficient and accountable administration. At a time when people can post their grievances instantly on social media, the need to use updated governance tools and advanced technology for service

Collapsed Indian tunnel had no safety exit, was built through geological fault – panel member

NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (Reuters) – A tunnel which collapsed, trapping 41 workers in the Indian Himalayas this month, did not have an emergency exit and was built through a geological fault, a member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster said on Friday. Rescuers are still struggling to reach the construction workers 12 days after the 4.5-km (3-mile) tunnel caved in. The men, from some of India’s poorest states, have been getting food, water and medicine through a pipe. In the days that followed, the government asked a group of experts to investigate what went wrong, look into

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