India, Jan. 30 -- Sometime, I wish I could disappear into the souffle-like insouciance of PG Wodehouse, rather than reading up on the leading causes of cancer mortality in people under 50.

The good news is that a new study by the American Cancer Society has found that overall cancer mortality in people under 50 has plummeted; except for one type of cancer, colorectal, which is now the cancer with the highest death toll in that cohort.

Maybe the toll is linked to the American diet and lifestyle, I told myself. But my uneasy calm vanished when I turned to India's data and discovered that, here too, colorectal cancer incidence is rising rapidly, with 64,863 cases in 2022 and 38,367 deaths. The north-east and cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru...