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Awards for tangible work in "Tobacco Control" announced May 18, 2008 : Chandigarh:- Burning Brain Society (BBS), a leading civil society organisation working on public health and civil rights has announced annual awards for people working on tobacco control. The awards shall be given to individuals and organisations contributing their bit to save a million lives lost every year to tobacco in India. Currently tobacco kills nearly 5.4 million people per annum worldwide, out of which every fifth person is an Indian. According to WHO, Tobacco caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century. If current trends continue, there could be up to one billion deaths (Equivalent to current population of India) in the 21st century. Tobacco remains the biggest cause of heart attacks and cancer. What is more unfortunate is that nearly eighty percent of tobacco-related deaths will occur in the developing countries like India within a few decades. The shift of tobacco from developed to developing countries is caused by a global tobacco industry marketing strategy that targets young people and adults in developing countries. BBS chairperson Hemant Goswami informed that the “Annual Tobacco Control Warrior Awards” shall be given in eight categories every year. The recipients would be selected from India by way of selection, invitation and by nomination. The categories in which the annual awards would be given are;
Talking about the necessity to give these awards to persons working on tobacco control, Hemant said, “People don’t realize but the tobacco epidemic which kills nearly ten lakh people every year in India is man-made and entirely preventable. On an average, one death every six seconds is caused due to tobacco use. If we put in a little bit of efforts, tobacco can be de-glamorised and millions of lives can be saved. So the good work of all those who are producing results in tobacco control despite the interference of the tobacco industry and against all the odds must be recognised publicly.” “At least two lakh workers die every year due to exposure to second-hand smoke (smoke from other people’s cigarette/beedi) at work. An estimated seven hundred million children, or almost half of the world's children, breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly at home which causes many serious diseases in children,” informed Devender.
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