India has passed a three-year benchmark with no reported cases of polio. To tackle the disease, which can cause crippling disability or death within hours, officials in India set up a mass- vaccination programme in which nearly 2.3 million volunteers immunize some 170 million children under five, every round. As late as 1981, some 38,000 Indians suffered from polio.
Campaigners have secured a win after cereal manufacturer Kellogg agreed to buy palm oil only from suppliers who can trace the product to environmentally sound plantations. In effect as of 2016, the company’s decision ‘raises the bar for the entire industry and represents a tipping point in developing a responsible palm-oil supply chain’, according to Boston-based activist Lucia von Reusner.
