Training hurting healthy children

ANNABEL HENNESSY PUSHY parents and coaches have been put on notice to give sporty kids at least two days off training a week and a six-week break from sport each year.

News Corp can reveal the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians is developing new guidelines to protect children from overtraining and being pushed into specialising in the one sport from an early age.

Set to be introduced in 2019, the policy will be informed by US protocols advising coaches to give young players at least 1-2 days off training a week and six weeks off sport annually.

It comes as doctors call for children to be discouraged from playing the same sport all year round to avoid damage to growing bones.

Despite concerns about the obesity crisis among the inactive young, at the other end of the scale hospitals are reporting an increase in children with overtraining injuries.

Sports injuries are the number one reason for youth admissions. In some cases children as 10 are undergoing partial knee replacements because of overuse injuries.

One reason given is the number of winter sports also being played in summer.

In the case of summer soccer, the number of junior players in NSW have jumped 300 per cent in the past five years from 7293 to 20,000.

Professor Gary Browne, of Sydney Children Hospital’s Children’s Institute of Sports Medicine, said he was seeing more “adult-type injuries” in children because they had been overtraining.

“These children are often doing the same training day after day with little variation,” he said.

He believes children should wait until at least 16 before specialising in one sport.

“Children should take a combined three months off per year from a specific sport in one month increments but remain physically active during that time,” Prof Browne said.

Physiotherapist Chris Hickey of Gymea Physiotherapy is treating children as young as eight for overuse injuries.

“Overuse injuries are more common than acute injuries but parents can be less aware of them,” he said.

Dr Adam Castricum, president of the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians, said US guidelines would be considered along with other research in drawing up the new policy.

Overtraining could result in “burn out” and dropping out from sports, he said. While parents shouldn’t let fear of injuries stop their children from competing it was important to have balance when competing.

“With growing levels of childhood obesity it’s important children are staying active and enjoy sport,” he said.

NSW Sports Minister Stuart Ayres said he supported moves to ensure coaches struck the right balance.

Interest rate lift ‘not for profit’

NATIONAL Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Thorburn insists the bank lifted interest-only mortgage rates to meet regulatory requirements, not to make more money.

The consumer watchdog is looking into whether banks are trying to pass on the cost of the Federal Government’s bank levy, but Mr Thorburn told MPs yesterday that NAB rate hikes were mainly a response to the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority’s (APRA) limit on new interest-only lending.

APRA in March told the big banks to limit interest-only lending to 30 per cent of new mortgages in an effort to address increasing risks caused by high household debt.

“If we wanted to maximise profits, we would not have reduced principal and interest rates,” Mr Thorburn told MPs in Canberra.

Chief financial officer Anthony Cahill at one point told the House of Representatives standing committee on economics that NAB’s sole focus in moving rates was to meet APRA’s 30 per cent limit.

He amended this to “a key focus” under questioning by committee chair David Coleman, who accepted Mr Cahill had accidentally misspoke.

NAB’s overall home loan book is 41 per cent interestonly but the APRA limit applies only to new lending.

Mr Thorburn and other banking executives warned in May that the banking levy introduced in the federal Budget was a levy on staff, customers and shareholders.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is monitoring whether the levy is unfairly passed on to customers.

DOWN THE DRAIN

SOUTH Australian households hit by sky-high power bills have also been silently battling surging water and sewerage costs in a doublewhammy on family budgets.

An Advertiser analysis of 10 years of Bureau of Statistics data has found that water and sewerage charges jumped an average 91 per cent since 2007, not far behind electricity’s 116 per cent spike.

Figures show that Adelaide prices have risen at least 77 per cent, compared to 55 per cent in Sydney and Hobart — well above the 27 per cent rate of inflation for the same period.

In Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin, water costs have surged more than 115 per cent.

Industry experts say the price rises reflect extra government spending on desalinisation plants and other water security projects while encouraging water conservation by making higher users pay more.

Separate Bureau of Meteorology Figures show Australia’s median household water and sewerage bill last year was almost $1400.

Heavy users with expensive properties can pay much more.

Water economics specialist, Australian National University professor Quentin Grafton, said the costs to “droughtproof” cities had been passed on to consumers.

“This has been done to deliberately promote the conservation of water,” he said.

Higher water prices have largely been overlooked by consumers as larger household costs dominate debate.

Water Services Association of Australia executive director Adam Lovell said using water was more of a discretionary activity than using power.

“People are still looking for ways to save water — they feel it is something they have control over,” he said. “We have seen a 20-25 per cent drop in water demand since the millennium drought across Australia.”

Mr Lovell said he expected water prices to remain stable “in real terms” over the next few years. Household budgeting specialist David Rankin said water prices were not front of mind for most people.

“As a consequence, water price rises have flown under the radar of many household budgets,” he said. Mr Rankin said that higher water prices created secondary financial pressures for households such as more expensive groceries.

An SA Water spokesman last night said that over the past four years, its customers had received a 6.5 per cent cut to bill costs — the largest reduction in bills in the country.

“We’re listening to our customers and will continue to work hard to reflect their priorities like keeping prices as low and stable as possible,” he said.

Madrid moves to rein in Catalan autonomy

In a move likely to spark further protests, Spain’s Government says it will suspend Catalonia’s autonomy and impose direct rule after the region’s leader threatened to go ahead with a declaration of independence if Madrid refused to hold talks.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was to hold a special cabinet meeting today to trigger the measure needed.

Mr Rajoy plans to invoke Article 155 of the 1978 Constitution, which allows taking control of a region if it breaks the law.

It has never been invoked since Spain returned to democracy in the 1970s at the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

The Socialist opposition said it backed the Government but suggested the measures should be limited in scope and time.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, ignoring a 10am deadline on Thursday to drop his secession campaign, wrote to Mr Rajoy threatening a formal declaration of independence.

The war of words increased uncertainty over a stand-off that has raised fears of social unrest, cut growth prospects for the eurozone’s fourth-biggest economy and rattled the euro.

“If the Government continues to impede dialogue and continues with the repression, the Catalan parliament could proceed, if it is considered opportune, to vote on a formal declaration of independence,” Mr Puigdemont said.

Catalonia, which has a distinctive culture and language, triggered Spain’s biggest political crisis for decades with a secession bid it put to a referendum on October 1. Only 43 per cent of voters took part but those who did voted overwhelmingly to secede, while opponents of secession mostly stayed home.

Spanish courts have ruled the referendum illegal but Mr Puigdemont says the result is binding and must be obeyed.

The European Union declined to mediate, saying the crisis was for Madrid and Barcelona to resolve. “Member states are clear there is no room or space for any kind of mediation,” European Council President Donald Tusk told media at an EU leaders summit in Brussels.

The regional authorities have not made clear how and when a declaration of independence would take place and whether it would be endorsed by the regional assembly. Some proindependence lawmakers have said they want to hold a vote in the Catalan parliament to lend it a more solemn character.

Now EPFO members having UAN to link Aadhaar online

JAMMU and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed various issues, including the recent spurt in violent incidents in the Kashmir Valley, an official said.

During the 30-minute meeting, the Chief Minister briefed the Home Minister about the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the steps taken to maintain peace in the State. Singh assured Mehbooba of all central assistance to her Govt in maintaining peace in the State, a Home Ministry official said.

The spurt of violence in Jammu and Kashmir include attacks on security personnel, killing of a PDP worker and the subsequent attack on his house and throat slitting of a teacher.

Alleged incidents of braid chopping have also triggered panic in some parts of the State. TAKING note of reported death of over 35 farmers along with hundreds of them becoming ill in the districts of Yavatmal, Nagpur, Akola and Amravati Vidarbha region in Maharashtra, where farm workers died due to inhalation of toxic pesticides while spraying it on the fields since July this year, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an NGO has put the blame on India’s abysmal management of pesticides for taking this deadly toll.

Holding the Ministry of Agriculture at the Centre and agricultural departments of the states solely responsible for the unsafe use of pesticides in the country, the Deputy Director General of CSE Chandra Bhushan has said the deaths and illnesses due to pesticides can be avoided if we can urgently fix some of the crucial gaps in our regulations and improve its enforcement.

The death of farmers in Maharashtra due to pesticide poisoning is because of the gross negligence in pesticide management in the country, said Bhushan in New Delhi on Wednesday, adding this negligence has led to pesticide poisoning becoming a chronic problem in the country.

He informed that every year, there are about 10,000 reported cases of pesticide poisoning in India. In 2015, about 7,000 people died because of accidental intake of insecticides/pesticides, he told. Bhushan told that in Maharashtra, pesticides such as Monocrotophos, Oxydemetonmethyl, Acephate and Profenophos are believed to be responsible for the deaths and illness. Pesticides like Monocrotophos and Oxydemeton-methyl are considered class I pesticides by the World Health Organization (WHO), which are further categorised into extremely hazardous (class Ia) and highly hazardous (class Ib), told DG of CSE.

Informing that the classification is based on acute toxicity of pesticide active ingredient and since class I pesticides can be fatal at a very low dose, many of these are banned in several countries, Bhushan told that Monocrotophos is banned in 60 countries, Phorate in 37, Triazophos in 40 and Phosphamidon banned in 49 countries.

Mentioning that India still allows the use of these pesticides, the CSE official told in fact, there are 18 class I pesticides allowed to be used in the country. He told that in 2015-16, out of the 7,717 THE Maharashtra Government has decided to fully fund the phone-an-ambulance service across Maharashtra, a Government resolution (GR) issued on Wednesday said.

It was partially funded by the Centre, and now state government has decided to bear its total expenditure, said the GR.

Under Maharashtra Emergency Medical Service (MEMS), the Maharashtra Government had provided hundreds of ambulances across the state with a common emergency number of 108.

One has to dial it from mobile or landline number and the ambulance service was available free of cost.

The scheme, which launched during the tenure of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, was expanded in the subsequent years by the present BJP Government.

The Government resolution stated that tonnes of pesticides (technical grade) used in the country, 2,254 tonnes were class I pesticides (about 30 per cent of total pesticides). Stating that till we reform our pesticides regulations and regulatory institutions, pesticide poisoning and accidental deaths would continue, Chandra Bhushan i stressed on the need to have a new Pesticide Management Bill to address the issues related to unsafe use of pesticides. As per the International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management, jointly released by FAO and WHO, “pesticides whose handling and application require the use of personal protective equipment that is uncomfortable, expensive or not readily available should be avoided, especially in the case of small-scale users and farm workers in hot climates”.

All class I pesticides require the use of personal protective equipment that is impossible to use by small-scale farmers and farm workers in India. On this basis itself, class I pesticides should have been banned in India long ago, say CSE researchers. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, based on a 2015 review by the Anupam Verma Committee, plans to ban only three out of these 18 pesticides starting 2018. the partially funded Centre’s scheme will now be handed over to the state government and all types of expenses will be borne by the state government.

“It is a routine procedure and it happens with most of the schemes. The Centre helps the state government to launch a particular scheme, funds it and eventually withdraws its funding so that it could take up new projects,” Archana Patil, director of state health department told PTI on Wednesday.

The Maharashtra Government has sanctioned Rs 15.34 crore for the MEMS to be used till March 2018, the GR stated.

The GR has also restricted the health department not to make any fresh purchases of ambulances or equipment. The sanctioned funds have to be used mostly for running the ambulance service such as salaries of the staff, diesel expenses among others. RETIREMENT fund manager Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has launched an online facility for its subscribers to link their 12-digit unique Aadhaar number with their Universal Account Number (UAN) on eve of Diwali.

Meeting the know your customers norms by the EPFO subscribers help them access a host of online services. “On the eve of Deepawali, the EPFO is pleased to introduce a new facility for its esteemed members having UAN and other relevant details to link their respective UAN with Aadhaar online. Thiswould facilitate a better and speedy EPFO services,” the EPFO said in statement.

‘At 2.5m, India topped 2015 pollution deaths’

New Delhi: India has topped the list of countries with the most pollution-related deaths in 2015, with 2.5 million mortalities linked to air, water and other types of pollution, a report by international journal Lancet shows. It also topped the list of deaths linked to polluted air (1.81million) and water (0.64 million).

The figure of number of deaths due to air pollution, compiled by the Lancet study, is, in fact, over 7,00,000 more than what an another international report, State of Global Air (SGA) 2017, had come out with earlier this year. The SGA report had put this figure for India at 10,90,400 deaths as compared to 11,08,100 in China.

The differences in figures of the two reports can be attributed to the different set of data and parameters used by them. The SGA report had taken fine particulate matter ( PM 2.5) as a prime measure. The Lancet report, however, is based on data from the Global Burden of Disease study which analysed multiple parameters over two years to arrive at the figures. Accordingly, the Lancet study noted that foul air was linked to 6.5 million deaths worldwide whereas the SGA report put this figure at 4.2 million.

The Lancet report shows most of these deaths were due to non-communicable diseases caused by pollution, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In fact, pollution is now the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world, accounting for almost three times more of those than from HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria put together.

The Lancet study has also arrived at a financial cost from pollution-related deaths, saying it totalled some $4.6 trillion, which is about 6.2% of the global economy. It says the costs of pollution-related death and disease are highly concentrated in developing regions, equivalent to around 1.3% of the GDP in low-income countries, compared to around 0.5% GDP in high-income countries, and 0.13% GDP globally.

Experts say the huge population of countries like In- dia and China and the fact that these are developing economies should also be kept in mind while analysing these statistics.

To tackle the problem, the health ministry had formed two committees — a steering committee and a multi-sectoral group — to analyse the trend and suggest actions to

Rate of deaths attributable to pollution (pollution deaths per 100,000 population)

reduce pollution and its impact, as well as measures to strengthen the healthcare system to handle the increasing disease burden linked with pollution. “We have already started taking action based on the recommendations made by the two groups. For instance, we have now included respiratory diseases under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. We have also allocated funds to states for the same,” the official said.

Among the authors of the study are former environment minister Jairam Ramesh and IIT-Delhi’s Prof Mukesh Khare.

Tax compliance on top for meal card issuing cos

Mumbai: During sales at shopping malls, it was not uncommon to spot someone using his accumulated meal vouchers to pay for a shirt or a small toy — a habit not in keeping with the spirit of income tax (I-T) laws, which provide an exemption to meal vouchers subject to certain conditions.

The RBI’s requirement that meal vouchers can only be in digital form, come January 2018, will aid better tracking and could nip any misuse. Asignificant number of companies — which provide meal vouchers to their employees — have already made the shift towards digital cards, while others are in the process of doing so. Companies that issue digital meal cards are aiding in such a transition.

Sodexo BRS India launched its digital meal benefit solution in February 2016. With a client base of 11,000-plus corporate clients, Sodexo is working towards completing the migration process by December. Edenred India, which laun-

Prepaid meal cards shall be in electronic form and reloadable

No cash withdrawal or fund transfer should be permitted via such cards ched its digital card-based solutions, currently caters to more than 3,500 corporate clients across its various offerings. As regards meal cards, 85% of its clients have already adopted the digital ‘Ticket Restaurant Meal Cards’ and the remaining 15% will make the shift by December end. Zeta, which provides digital prepaid solutions for the salaried, has over 1,100 corporate clients for its digital meal vouchers, thus catering to nearly 2.5 lakh end users.

In the transition towards digital, some clarifications would be welcomed by India Inc. “It would help if the I-T authorities provided a clari- Should be non-transferable

Should be useable only at eating joints

There is a Rs 50 cap per meal (for it to be a tax-free perk in hands of employee) fication that the term ‘paid vouchers’ in rule 3 (7) (iii) covers ‘electronic meal cards’ so as to avoid any future litigation. Incidentally, the I-T Act during the Fringe Benefit Tax regime (applicable from financial year 2005-06 up to 2009-10) had specific provisions for tax exemption on ‘electronic meal cards’,” points out Sonu Iyer, leader and partner, People Advisory Services at EY India. However, three senior I-T officials with whom TOI spoke expressed the view that paid vouchers would normally cover digital meal cards.

Iyer cautions that companies should ensure that compliance with the conditions prescribed in rule 3. Here, steps taken by digital meal card-issuing companies come in handy.

Suvodeep Das, VP (marketing) at Sodexo BRS India, says, “The Sodexo meal card is PINbased and requires a specific activation process that the card- holder needs to perform — this assures security as well as nontransferability. When accepting payments via our meal cards, the merchant is contractually bound to serve only food and non-alcoholic beverages.”

Adds Johann Vaucanson, MD, Edenred India, “When we talk about tax exemption, the notion of compliance is central. We do so by signing a contract with each and every merchant partner to ensure that our prepaid instruments are used in accordance with the tax rules set out for exemption purposes.”

Bhavin Turakhia, CEO & co-founder, Zeta, says, “The ‘Zeta Super Card’ can be used only at outlets and restaurants that sell or serve food and non-alcoholic beverages. We have curated our merchant list to ensure that all regulatory requirements are always adhered to.”