Infosys soln to help access remote healthcare

Infosys Technologies on Wednesday announced that it has deployed a patient management tool for a health information technology initiative to improve healthcare access for rural and underserved patients.

The company collaborated with the University of New Mexico (UNM) to improve patient outcomes by designing and implementing a web application that facilitates real-time flow and access of interoperable clinical data among participating health providers, as part of Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes).

The project’s web-based patient management tool has an intuitive web interface that efficiently and securely integrates patient data in real-time from all participating health providers, leveraging Infosys’ healthcare integration and collaboration solution.

Besides managing patients based on a more accurate exchange of data, this tool is expected to enhance case-based educational experiences by facilitating more informed care-management decision making and continuous training of rural physicians.

The clinician-centric tool also delivers a platform for physicians to stay connected with patients throughout the treatment, ensuring better prognosis and improved patient compliance.

“Project ECHO has proven that technology can help overcome traditional barriers to adequate healthcare treatment, such as distance, income and lack of specialised medical professionals for underserved communities with no access to treatment,” UNM Health Sciences Centre’s Department of Medicine Project Director and Executive Vice Chairman Sanjeev Arora said.

The web-enabled software will allow Project ECHO to expand to multiple chronic diseases and health conditions such as HIV, cardiac conditions, mental health disorders, diabetes, autism and substance-abuse disorders.

In addition, since the system is delivered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, it reduces potential technology barriers that previously existed in rural health clinics. It enables retrieval, sharing and use of data captured across disparate healthcare IT systems.

Cuddling Premature Babies may Help Ease Their Pain

A new research shows that cuddling up against their mother's bare skin can help babies born as early as 28 weeks recover more quickly from painful medical procedures.


According to the Canadian study, very premature babies benefit from skin to skin contact with their parents.

Writing in the journal BMC Pediatrics, the McGill University team said it might aid the recovery process.

This study is the first to look at extremely premature babies, born between 28 and 31 weeks.

It was previously thought by some experts that such young babies were not developed enough to benefit from human touch.

A common test used in neonatal units is the "heel prick" blood test, which produces a sample, which can be used to check blood sugar levels.

This is inevitably painful for the baby, and in some cases, it can take minutes for this distress to recede - which could be a problem for a baby whose health is in the balance.

In the study, researchers carried out the test on some babies who were being actively cuddled, skin-to-skin, measuring facial expressions, heart rate and blood oxygen levels to assess the amount of pain suffered.

Pain scores after 90 seconds for the cuddled babies were much lower than for those who were not cuddled. Half the cuddled babies did not show any facial expression of pain when undergoing a heel prick test.
Lead researcher Celeste Johnston said that the shorter recovery time could help maintain the baby's health.


"The pain response in very preterm neonates appears to be reduced by skin-to-skin maternal contact," BBC quoted her, as saying.

Professor Linda Franck, from the Institute of Child Health in London, said that parents were often not encouraged to have skin-to-skin contact with their premature babies in UK neonatal units, despite growing evidence that it could help.

She said: "Neonatal units can be very intimidating places, and parents often do not know the best way to get involved. Parents want to do the right thing, but the message is difficult to get out there. This study suggests that, even for the very youngest premature babies, skin to skin contact can reduce the stress response."

Source-ANI
THK/L

Rs 18.45 Cr action plan for Pamba river

The Pamba river in Kerala will be made pollution free by setting up sewage treatment plant, waste collection and disposal system system and improving sanitation facilities around it. The Ministry of Environment and Forests in India has sanctioned a Rs 18.45 crore Pamba River Action Plan for the purpose.

The amount has been sanctioned under the National River Conservation Plan on 70:30 cost sharing bases between the central government and the Kerala Government, where the centre’s share will be Rs 12.92 crore and the state’s will be Rs 5.53 crore.

Under the project, 12 components of works have been approved, which has been intertwined with the Sabrimala Master Plan.

Accordingly, three million litres per day (MLD) sewage treatment plant at Sabrimala and one sewage treatment plant of 1.5 MLD capacity at Pamba will be established at a cost of Rs 360 lakh.

The third component includes sewage collection tank pumping system and sewer lines in Sabrimala and Pamba at the cost of Rs 194.3 lakh, the Ministry said.

There is also a proposal to construct 300 latrines at Pamba and 400 latrines along with 100 bathrooms at Sabrimala at the cost of Rs 230 lakh.

The state government would also establish solid waste collection and disposal arrangements in Sabrimala and Pamba at a cost of Rs 250 lakh.

The important segment to abate pollution, segregation of existing drains and construction of new drains, will be carried out at both the places at the cost of Rs 126.95 lakh. In another segment, mobile latrines will be constructed at Sabrimala and Pamba, the Ministry informed.

Besides building interception barriers of sewage across Kakka thodu and Urakkuzhi Theertham in Pamba at a cost of Rs 25 lakh, the state government will construct storage weirs and allied works for flushing the pollutants one each in Pamba and Kakki rivers and storage shed for generator near weir at a cost Rs 86.25 lakh.

In order to prevent pollution of Njunajar river entering the bathing ghat at Pamba, the state government will construct weir downstream of bathing ghat at Arattukadavu at a cost of Rs 18 lakh.

Furthermore, apart from spending Rs 20 lakh to create public awareness, new bathing ghats will be erected at the cost of Rs 35 lakh, the Ministry said.

The Pamba river in Kerala will be made pollution free by setting up sewage treatment plant, waste collection and disposal system system and improving

New Internet users or mobile devices will not be able to access the Internet as Internet address shortage was ticking and if current trends continue, addresses will run out by 2011.

Nearly 85 per cent of all available Internet addresses are already in use by May 2008, a new report by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said.

The report suggested that governments and business must work together more effectively and urgently to meet the growing demand for Internet addresses and secure the future of the Internet economy.

It also suggested to implement the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which will provide an almost unlimited number of addresses and help drive the rollout of broadband, Internet-connected mobile phones and sensor networks and new Internet services.

The report said that governments and business should raise awareness of the need to start preparing now for the move to from today’s Internet Protocol version 4 to IPv6.

They should also explain to Internet service providers and information and technology (IT) professionals that the move is a commercial and social opportunity, not a financial burden.

The report revealed that service providers have to date been reluctant to invest because customer demand for IPv6 is low.

Governments could play a role as a large user of Internet services by stimulating demand for IPv6 through their own procurement policies and through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in IPv6 research and development, the report added.

The OECD report also considered the alternative to a widespread adoption of IPv6 whereby some regions adopt it and others merely adapt IPv4 as a short-term solution.

This, it warns, would impact the economic opportunities offered by the Internet with severe consequences in terms of stifled creativity and deployment of new services.

“Some countries have taken a lead in deploying IPv6 networks,” the report said, adding that the Japanese telecommunications firm NTT, for example, uses IPv6 to connect thousands of earthquake sensors via a computer system that sends automatic alerts to television programmes and turns traffic lights red.

The report further stated that the US government has set June 2008 as the deadline by which the Internet network of every government agency must be compatible with IPv6, while the European Commission is also funding research projects and looking at ways to speed up deployment.

Korea has committed to converting Internet equipment in public institutions to IPv6 by 2010 and to installing IPv6 equipment in every newly built communications network, the report added.

The OECD report said the Chinese government has begun rolling out an IPv6 network, called China Next Generation Internet, and will use the 2008 Olympics in Beijing to test mobile devices and intelligent transport and security systems running on IPv6.

India to invest Rs 2 lakh Cr in Railways

The Government of India has decided to invest Rs 2 lakh crore for the modernisation, capacity increase and completion of new projects of Indian Railways during the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

Stating this at a meeting with students and faculty members of International Business School, INSEAD in Singapore, India’s Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said that Indian Railways have decided to invite public private partnership (PPP) in the non-core sector for setting up of logistic parks, wagon investment schemes and wagon leasing schemes.

Besides inviting PPP in setting up of more than 7,000 agricultural outlets throughout the country, the Minister said that Indian Railways would encourage the introduction of PPP model for setting up of new factories for production of wagons, coaches and locomotives.

Yadav said that Indian Railways was going to upgrade 26 major railways stations across the country as world class stations including railways stations in four metropolitan cities.

“There will be separate departure and arrival facilities for passenger to decongest existing crowds at station complex besides other modernised passenger amenities like world class waiting and rest-rooms, multi-level parking and malls,” he added.

The Minister further said that Indian Railways has earned a surplus of Rs 25,000 crore during the year 2007-08.

He said that after taking new initiatives in the freight sector, Indian Railways have carried 238 million tonnes of additional freight and earned more than Rs 14,000 crore additional freight revenue.

In view of the increasing demand for freight and to reduce the congestion on existing railway lines, the Indian Railways have decided to construct Dedicated Freight Corridors, the Minister informed.

“In the first phase, the western corridor from Delhi to Mumbai and eastern corridor from Ludhiana to Kolkata will be constructed and in the second phase, Dedicated Freight Corridor will be constructed to link other parts of the country,” he added.

India ranks 29th in world competitiveness

The large emerging economies are performing well with China at 17th position followed by India at 29th, Brazil at 43rd and Russia at 47th position, says IMD’s World Competitiveness Year Book 2008.

Larger markets like China, India and Russia have come into the picture and they are providing new dimensions to world competitiveness.

These countries are growing very quickly, for example the growth rate is 11 per cent in China and eight per cent in India and Russia, respectively. And this has a pull effect on smaller economy.

India at 29th position is still struggling with problems of infrastructure. Russia at 47th position has big revenues from oil and gas but has problems related to economic diversification and transparency of business legislation and Brazil at 43rd position is clicking for the first time.

China has moved from 15th position to 17th despite showing a growth of above 11 per cent.

“It is due to extreme growth leading to overheating of economy reflected in terms of inflation as cost of raw materials, cost of consumer goods and increasing cost of food in the country,” IMD’s World Competitiveness Centre Director Stéphane Garelli said.

Secondly, he said that China is consolidating its performance as it has introduced last year a number of legislations like legislation on taxation and legislation of financing the pension fund.

“This consolidation has a cost and is very important for the country’s future. But somehow this is a bumpy road to growth,” Garelli added.

He further said that smaller nations like Hong Kong, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Denmark have benefited a lot due to globalisation of economy.

The 20th anniversary issue of the Year Book lists the US at number one position followed by Singapore. Singapore is closing the gap (score of 99.3) with the US and it is predicted that the US would fall from its leadership position as it is in a similar position to that of Japan in 90s.

“The past crisis in Japan bears some resemblance with the present turmoil in the US and it is undergoing all sorts of crisis—stock exchange, real estate and credit crunch,” Garelli said.

When the competitiveness started 20 years ago, Japan was at number one position whereas US was at number three but the scenario has changed and the US is still at number one position whereas Japan is at number 22.

The competitiveness index does not only look at economic growth but also looking at managing the path to prosperity. And prosperity is economic growth plus other things, including quality of life and quality of environment.

The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook is a comprehensive report on the competitiveness of nations and is calculated by combining four factors—economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure through 330 criteria.

Uttarakhand SWAN swings NIC way

Reversal of policy from Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has pushed Uttarakhand to the fringe in implementation of state wide area network (SWAN) project.

According to the latest Status Report released by the Department of Information Technology (DIT) in India, Uttarakhand has slide down from middle of the inverted pyramid to the bottom owing to the decision of the state government for a reversal of policy.

The decision to shift from PPP mode to NIC is said to be an outcome of the delays in granting approval to the bidding done last year by the concerned agency.

Speaking to iGovernment, the state IT Development Agency Director Arindam Tomar said, “We had done bidding in May 2007 and had sent for approval to the state government. There was a delay in getting the approval and in the mean time the validity of the bid expired in September 2007. So, now we have finalised the NIC model for Uttarakhand SWAN.”

With this decision Uttarakhand has joined Lakshadweep and Andhra Pradesh where, the SWAN policy is under proposal-review stage.

With only 10 months left for the project to be operational, uncertainty looms large over completion of the project in Uttarakhand by March 2009, the deadline set for it.

Before this shift, the Uttarakhand government was in the process of evaluating the financial bid for PPP model and the expected deadline for completion was scheduled in January 2009.

Speaking about SWAN project, the Uttarakhand SIO DR Shukla said, “The completion of the project will depend on the implementation scope of SWAN—horizontal, vertical and others. Once the scope is finalised and the order placed, the complete process will take one year for completion.”

J&K police stations to be paperless

Stage now looks set for turning the police stations across Jammu and Kahmir paperless. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Jammu and Kashmir has formalised the process with a five-day training programme for police officials of the state recently.

The programme is a part of rolling out Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) in the state, which seeks significant reduction in manual records and register maintenance at police stations.

With the implementation of CIPA in police stations, duplicate and inconsistent record keeping would be eliminated, maintenance of details of criminals could be facilitated and can also keep track of the status of cases.

Inaugurating the training programme, the Director of the state police academy Naveen Aggarwal said it was a challenge to make police stations paperless and to make the data available on a click of the mouse.

The objective of the application is to introduce element of transparency in the working of police, faster response to public, generate various reports and to roll out open source software tools at police stations.

IAEA helps reduce X-ray usage

In an effort to reduce the usage of X-rays in developing countries due to repeated exposures to radiation for clear image quality, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has come up with a quality assurance programmes at hospitals and clinics.

According to a survey conducted by IAEA Division of Radiation, Waste and Transport Safety, patients in developing countries often need to have X-ray examinations repeated so that doctors have the image quality they need for useful medical diagnosis.

IAEA Radiation Safety Specialist Madan Rehani emphasised that poor image quality constitutes a major source of unnecessary radiation to patients in developing countries and usage of X-rays is increasing in these nations.

However, he added that vital information about both the quality of X-ray images and patient doses is grossly lacking at many hospitals where the IAEA has helped launch quality assurance programmes.

The survey was done in phases from August 2005 to December 2006 at hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Madagascar, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.

Project counterparts in these countries worked through IAEA-supported regional technical cooperation projects that aim to help countries implement quality assurance programmes for radiographic examinations, in line with international radiation safety standards.

The survey found that more than half (53 per cent) of all X-ray images evaluated through the project were of poor quality affecting diagnostic information.

Rehani said that one consequence is that patients then are given repeat examinations, which means exposing them to X-rays again, as well as entailing extra costs.

According to a paper just published in the June edition of the American Journal of Roentgenology, Rehani and colleagues reported that considerable benefits were seen regionally after introduction of QA programmes.

The quality of X-ray images improved up to 16 per cent in Africa, 13 per cent in Asia and 22 per cent in Eastern Europe. At the same time, patient dose reductions ranging from 1.4 per cent to 85 per cent were achieved overall.

The IAEA-supported projects could help change the picture at more hospitals in developing countries by changing the approach to quality assurance in radiography.

“We’re documenting that the evaluation of image quality and patient dose goes hand in hand with safe and effective medical radiography,” Rehani said.

The project on strengthening radiological protection of patients is designed to help countries apply the international basic safety standards for the protection against ionizing radiation and for the safety of radiation sources (BSS), developed by the IAEA, World Health Organisation and other partners.

Despite the finding that repeat X-ray examinations were often needed, patient doses in the 12 countries surveyed were in line with international diagnostic reference levels and similar to doses recorded in developed countries.

Altogether 34 countries agreed to participate in the IAEA survey. The findings come from a survey involving thousands of patients in 45 hospitals and 12 countries of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

India plans 4 more ultra mega power projects

The Ministry of Power in India has decided to set up four more additional ultra mega power projects one each in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

Disclosing this at the Interactive Session on Power Scenario by 2012 organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries (Assocham), the Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said that the Ministry would receive quantities for additional allocation of gas for power plants that have become idle for want of gas.

Shinde, however, further disclosed that in totality, the government has approved nearly nine ultra mega power projects of which three are under execution and only a few days ago, it received a new request from Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for ultra mega power projects to meet the power shortages.

“So in totality, there would be 13 ultra mega power projects that will come during the 11th plan period as against 9 already approved,” the Minister said.

He added the approval process for ultra mega power projects would be effected shortly to ensure that the shortage of nearly 30,000 MW of power being experienced currently at different places is addressed.

“In view of shortages of power equipment, the Union Power Ministry recently placed orders to various equipment manufacturers for putting up power projects of capacities totalling 73,000 MW,” Shinde said.

In addition to the target of 78,750 MW for 11th five year plan for capacity addition, nearly 11,000 MW of capacities would be added through captive power plants by the end of the plan, the Minister said.

Himachal to set up new police academy

The Government of Himachal Pradesh has decided to set up the Himachal Pradesh Institute of Police Studies (HPIPS) at Sakoh in Dharamshala to enhance the professional skills of the state police personnel.

Revealing this, the state Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal that this new police academy would be equipped with necessary infrastructure to cater to the needs of modern police training facilities.

In addition to this, the existing Police Training College at Daroh near Palampur in district Kangra would continue to impart all round training to the state police personnel, private security agencies and organisations engaged in similar services.

The Minister said that the new institution would be developed on the analogy of Himachal Pradesh Institute of Public Administration and linked with Daroh and Jangalberi police campuses.

The police training college at Daroh was known all over the country as best training centre for police personnel while the HPIPS would focus its training programme based upon the sophisticated and modern police training requirements.

Dhumal said that 121 posts of different categories would be created to manage the new training institute which included six senior officers and 115 posts of junior officers which would look after the training requirements of the institute.

The state government will make efforts to upgrade the training skills of the state police personnel besides training them in computer operations, motor driving, traffic management and internal security and acquaint them with the distress and disaster management skills.

The Chief Minister said that the police force would be trained to meet emergencies due to natural calamities so that best effort made to deliver relief and rehabilitation in the affected areas.

Besides equipping all the police stations with best communication network, the modern office equipments were also being provided to bring efficiency in the functioning.

World No Tobacco Day - 2008

World No Tobacco Day - 2008
(31st May 2008)

May 31, 2008

‘Ban marketing and advertisements of tobacco products for a tobacco-free-youth’

‘Tobacco-free-youth’ is a befitting theme for the anti-tobacco initiatives of World No Tobacco Day as thefirst puff of tobacco taken during youth, most often continues till the last breath, The Day, seeks to continuethe fight against tobacco products, by attacking the root of the problem – To STOP advertisements and publicity of tobacco products and to focus on youth as the starting point of the fight against tobacco.

Tobacco industries cough up billions of dollars on marketing and advertising of tobacco products. There is conclusive evidence of the grave impact of advertising on young impressionable minds, which leads them to try out the vice. Once they are hooked, it is an addiction capable of consuming their lives.

The objectives for this year seek to benefit an estimated 1.8 billion young people worldwide, between the 10-24 years age bracket. The bulk of tobacco users, according to research, are initiated into the habit in their teenage years. Translating it into numbers, it is an estimated 5500 youths roped into the vortex every single day.

Discerning youth of today, who are not information- challenged, must also read between the lines of beautifully- crafted marketing strategies, advertisements and promotional campaigns of tobacco products.

Poison in a Puff

• Welcome to the world of nicotine, known for its addictive tendencies; chances of addiction are greater in the young.

• Giving the heady feeling are 4000 potentially toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke, that get sucked into the system with a single puff.

• Tobacco lowers immunity by disabling neutrophils, white blood cells. This increases the chances of falling prey to a host of infections.

• The function of heart and lungs are on a downslide following tobacco use.

• Prepare to face the fourteen- fold risk of dying due to cancer and a double risk of a heart attack. Smoking accounts for 90% of lung cancer cases.

In a nutshell, it is an invitation to a ‘sickening’ world

Beedis make Baddies

India produces the largest amount of tobacco in the world, at a staggering 700 million Kilograms annually.

A new report has also suggested that nearly 100 million people from the poor and illiterate class smoke hand rolled cigarettes, called ‘beedis’. More than 200,000 tuberculosis deaths are caused due to beedi smoking.

According to Health Secretary Naresh Dayal, nearly 85% of the beedi in the world is produced in India with 290,000 beedi making units. “Beedi is the most widely used form of tobacco. Beedi smokers with tuberculosis are at three times higher risk of death compared to TB patients who are non-smokers,” Dayal said.

The people working in beedi factories also suffer serious health issues.

Beedis and chewed tobacco form a sizable portion of the tobacco use in India, with cigarettes taking 20% of the market. Beedis are known to promote smoking among children between 8-10 years, especially from the tribal areas.

Nearly 24 lakh people are battling cancer in India attributed to the effect of tobacco, according a WHO estimate.

Impact of Advertising on Youth

A study conducted in India by researchers from The University of Texas School of Public Health has blamed advertising and marketing of tobacco products for the increase in the consumption of tobacco among children, even as early as 11 yrs.

Cheryl Perry, Ph.D., professor and regional dean of The University of Texas School of Public Health and Team leader of the study said, “As India becomes more westernized, more teens will use tobacco.”

Seconding this opinion, Melissa Stigler, Ph.D., assistant professor at the UT School of Public Health and study co-author, said, “The current study is the first in India to demonstrate a strong, dose-response relationship between exposure and receptivity to tobacco advertising and promotions and tobacco use among Indian youth. These associations clearly suggest a need to strengthen policy and program-based interventions to reduce tobacco use among youth in India.”

According to Stigler, following a ban on tobacco advertising in India in 2004, tobacco companies found new ways to publicize. Sponsorship of events by tobacco product companies began. Not only that, lifestyle malls began to house mobile smoking lounges, providing cool comfort to the smokers, thus abetting an unhealthy trend. Youth were also seen sporting ‘T’ shirts with logo of tobacco companies.

Clear the Air

A new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine has warned the loss of one million people by 2010 due to smoking. To buck this looming threat, it is imperative to give out the right message to impressionable minds.

We need to discourage publicity and advertisement of tobacco products. Education and awareness of risks is key to keeping out tobacco; awareness campaigns in schools and colleges will help clear the air.

With the powerful influence of media and films, actors have a powerful role to play with their larger- than- life image. Usage of tobacco products, especially cigarette smoking, is associated with style, which children and youth find captivating. Such impressions wreck havoc, for it is said that 52 per cent of children take to smoking, in an effort to ape celebrities.

Today, many bollywood film actors have become brand ambassadors for anti-smoking initiatives.

Governments and policy makers must enforce a ban on advertisements for tobacco products. Surrogate advertising must be shunned with vehemence. Taxes on tobacco must be increased, all of which can give the right environment for the citizens of tomorrow.

Source-Medindia
SAVITHA/L

WHO for total ban on tobbaco

The World Health Organisation on Friday urged governments to protect the world’s 1.8 billion young people by imposing a ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

The WHO’s call to action comes on the eve of ‘World No Tobacco Day’, May 31.

This year’s campaign will focus on the multi-billion dollar efforts of tobacco companies to attract young people to its addictive products through sophisticated marketing.

Recent studies proved that the more young people are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely they are to start smoking. Despite this, only five per cent of the world’s population is covered by comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Tobacco companies, meanwhile, continue targeting young people by falsely associating use of tobacco products with qualities such as glamour, energy and sex appeal.

“In order to survive, tobacco companies create a complex ‘tobacco marketing net’ that ensnares millions of young people worldwide, with potentially devastating health consequences,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said.

The Director-General added a ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship was a powerful tool we can use to protect the world’s youth.

Tobacco companies market their products wherever youth can be easily accessed—in the movies, on the Internet, in fashion magazines and at music and sports venues, the WHO said in a statement.

In a WHO study of 13 to 15-year-olds in schools worldwide, more than 55 per cent of students reported seeing advertisements for cigarettes on billboards in the previous month, while 20 per cent owned an item with logo of a cigarette brand on it.

The tobacco companies most aggressively target the developing world, home to more than 80 per cent of the world’s youth, WHO said.

“Comprehensive advertising bans do work, reducing tobacco consumption by up to 16 per cent in countries that have already taken this legislative step,” WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative Director Douglas Bettcher said.

Stating that when one form of advertising is banned, the tobacco industry simply shifts its vast resources to another channel, Bettcher urge governments to impose a complete ban to break the tobacco marketing net.

India to get first fishing harbour

India’s diversified infrastructure development company ‘MARG’, laid the foundation stone for the country’s first fishing harbour at Rajakamangalam Thurai in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu.

The project, to be built on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model at Rajakamangalam Thurai at a cost of Rs 45 crore in 40 acres of land, would benefit over 40,000 people who reside in and around Kanyakumari.

Speaking on the occasion, MARG Chairman and Managing Director GRK Reddy said that this project will act as an agent of change which will help in addressing various issues like food scarcity, employment generation and overall strengthening of the social standards of the people through PPPs.

The fishing harbour, expected to be fully operational by October 2010, will generate direct employment for about 8,000 people.

Besides having state-of-the-art facilities of international standard for bringing multi fold advantages to the people in Rajakamangalam Thurai village, its landing wharf will have mooring facility for 300 boats.

The advanced facilities offered in the harbour include water front facilities for safe landing, berthing to various category of fishing craft, boat building and repair yards, ice plant and cold storage facilities for processing and preservation of fish.

These facilities are aimed towards engaging the best practices to harvest the unexploited fishery potential to the level of maximum sustainable yield.

Addressing the ceremony, the state Fisheries Department Minister KPP Samy said that this project is aimed towards bringing in inclusive growth to Rajakamangalam Thurai village and surrounding areas.

Manual scavenging to end soon: Sonia

The century old manual scavenging system would soon be abolished in the country, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) President Sonia Gandhi announced on Thursday.

sonia-gandhi_sulabh-meeting.jpgWhile talking to a group of liberated women scavengers from Alwar (Rajasthan) the UPA Chairperson, said that she will discuss the issue with the Prime Minister to end the inhuman practice.

The UPA President expressed great satisfaction over the efforts of the liberated scavengers who not only left the traditional practice of manual scavenging, but also started social initiative to motivate their colleagues.

She also appreciated the contribution of Sulabh and its founder Bindeshwar Pathak for sanitation movement in the country.

The 28 liberated women scavengers, who called on Sonia Gandhi will catwalk the ramp with top models of the world at United Nations in July this year.

It may be noted here that with an aim to showcase the path breaking contributions of liberated scavengers in the context of social reform, Sulabh International has planned to take them to walk the ramp at one of the United Nations General Assembly Halls on July 2, this year before dignitaries from 150 countries.

A book containing success story of the liberated women titled “Princes of Alwar” would also be released.

ADB project to expand rural India telephony

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is financing a project in India that will help expand mobile phone coverage, predominantly in rural areas, by installing 17,100 additional telecommunications towers.

Under the project, ADB will provide a loan of up to US $150 million to GTL Infrastructure, which is currently implementing Phase I of its rollout plan to set up 6,600 towers throughout the country. The ADB-funded project is Phase II of GTL’s tower rollout plan.

The additional towers will be leased to various mobile operators on a shared basis. Installation is expected to be predominantly in rural and semi-rural areas and the project is expected to be completed by March 2011.

“We believe that the project will enable mobile operators to accelerate coverage into remote and sparsely populated areas, leading to rural development and pro-poor economic growth,” ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department Investment Specialist Shantanu Chakraborty said.

Despite the recent growth in the Indian telecommunication sector, the country continues to suffer from a critical lack of communication infrastructure in its rural areas.

Of around six lakh villages in the country, about seven per cent do not even have landline phone connections. The coverage in rural India remains very poor with only about half the towns and one sixth of the villages covered so far, the ADB stated.

ADB informed that the Government of India has established a goal of 500 million telephone subscribers by December 2010.

ESIC dispensary in Okhla industrial area soon

Over 80,000 residents of the Okhla Industrial Area and nearby residential colonies will soon get an Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Dispensary.

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment (Independent Charge) Oscar Fernandes laid the foundation stone of the new building. It will cost Rs 4.86 crore and will have four floors with a covered area of around 1,600 sq m.

Speaking on the occasion, Fernandes said that ESIC was in the process of equipping itself with all the modern facilities and was committed to provide the best of medical services available in the country.

The Minister said that ESIC is also working on an ambitious plan to prepare its own medico and para-medico personnel with the help of existing ESIC hospitals.

“To cater the long felt need of the workers and their families residing in this industrial belt, this dispensary would go a long way in fulfilling the health care related needs of the people,” Labour and Employment Secretary Sudha Pillai said.

The ESI Scheme implemented in Delhi in 1952, has now over 7.7 lakh insured workers covered under ESIC and the number of beneficiaries including insured persons in Delhi is 24.35 lakh, the Ministry said.

HP offers soln to check hackers’ attack

HP has announced major updates to its application security software as well as a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to help businesses minimise the risk of security breaches due to hacker attacks and safeguard against theft of client’s information.

The new release of HP Application Security Centre helps organisations discover, fix and prevent security vulnerabilities in their web applications, besides helping bridge the gaps that exist among development, quality assurance, operations and security teams within an IT organisation.

This lifecycle approach helps companies comply with government and industry regulations and the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications.

“The HP Application Security Centre provides a comprehensive capability for testing, remediation and prevention throughout our development lifecycle,” Fair Isaac Corporation Chief Information Officer and VP Christopher Rence said.

According to the Web Application Security Consortium, an international group of application security experts and industry practitioners, more than 40 per cent of web hacking incidents are aimed at stealing personal information.

Such personal records are easily traded on the Internet, which makes them the easiest virtual commodity to exchange for money, HP said in a statement.

« Noreen Naqvi is DD’s adhoc DG Himachal mulls new industrial policy » NHRC notice to Gujarat, MP on silicosis deaths

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked Chief Secretaries of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh to submit their comments within four weeks on reported death of the labourers employed in quartz units in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh from silicosis disease.

Taking suo-motu cognizance of a report published in an English daily about labourers succumbing to deadly silicosis disease in the two states, the NHRC issued the notice.

According to the press report, the family members (wife, elder brother and two sisters) of one Kailash a resident of a village in Kukshi block of Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh had died of silicosis.

The report further alleged that hundreds of other Bhil tribals of Jhabua and Dhar districts of MP had been suffering from the disease and awaiting their death.

According to a survey conducted in 2007 by a group of doctors in 21 villages of Jhabua, 158 people died of silicosis while 266 others were suffering from the disease.

The report also alleged that the tribals were taken to work at quartz crushing units of Gujarat as unregistered daily wagers, where they got infected with the fatal disease.

Saarc knowledge centre takes off in India

The ambitious proposal of setting up a common university for eight Saarc countries has taken off with the dedication of land for the institute by India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee here on Monday.

Speaking at the dedication ceremony in Maidan Garhi, Mukherjee announced that the South Asian University (SAU) would hold its first academic session in 2010.

The main campus in New Delhi will be hosting nearly 5,000 students and an international faculty. It will also have campuses in all other seven South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries—Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

“The university will help realise the dream of thousands of young men and women who will gather here, not only for high quality education, but also in a spirit of fraternity and friendship,” Mukherjee said.

It may be recalled that the proposal for setting up such a university was mooted by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 13th Saarc Summit in Dhaka in December 2005.

The External Affairs Minister stressed that Saarc has moved towards it relatively quickly as an inter-governmental agreement on it was signed only at the 14th Saarc summit held in New Delhi last year.

Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Member PK Chaddha has been entrusted with the responsibility to oversee the university’s construction, land acquisition and drawing up its charter, byelaws, business plan, governance structure and course curricula.

Chadha will hold the post of CEO of the Saarc university for two years until the university becomes functional in 2010 when a Vice-Chancellor would be appointed.

The project is being executed by the ministry of external affairs in consultation with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Department of Education of the Human Resource Development Ministry.

The Government of India has offered to bear the entire cost of setting up the university which is expected to be a non-profit Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Once fully operational, the SAU would witness free flow of students as well as faculty from Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives. The university will offer both undergraduate as well as post graduate courses.

Metallised Plastic Pouches in Delhi Must Be Banned, Says Panel

Multi-layered and metallised pouches used for packing namkeen, shampoo, biscuits, gutkha and pan masala in Delhi must be banned, a Government panel has revealed.


Officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCB) and retired judge R C Chopra have submitted a report to the Delhi High Court which is hearing a case related to the plastic menace in the city.

The panel has acknowledged that "multi-layered and metalized pouches used for gutkha and pan masala are not recyclable due to their composition and as such they remain as solid waste, causing serious damage to the environment."

It has also suggested a complete ban on coloured bags containing metallic additives, as they are injurious to health as well as the environment.

Referring to the Plastic Manufacture, Sale and Usage Rules, 1999 as amended in 2003, the panel said, "It (Act) prohibits the use of recycled plastic bags for storing, carrying, dispensing and packaging foodstuff. Coloured recycled bags contain some metallic additives which have harmful affects as they leach and contaminate soil as well as sub-soil water."

"Encouraging usage of virgin plastic/biodegradable bags may also help," it added.

Apparently suggesting that plastic bags cannot be done away with, CPCB chairperson J M Mauskar, DPCC chairman J K Dadoo and Justice RC Chopra has also listed limitations of implementing its suggestions which are "not only expensive but harmful to environment as well."
For instance, heavy and wet articles cannot be carried in a paper bag. So complete dependence on this alternative is not viable.


"Paper production also involves greenhouse gas emissions and consumes abundant water as well as energy in the manufacturing process," the panel observed.

Using paper bags will need more production of paper, resulting in cutting more trees for manufacturing paper, thereby disturbing the ecological balance, the panel said.

The ban will ensure a curb on the non-degradable multi-layered plastics that has caused choking of sewers resulting in overflowing of sewage on the roads.

Source-ANI
RAS/L

Lakshadweep plans U-SWAN

The Lakshadweep Administration is planning to launch U-SWAN (universal state wide area network), connecting all the 200 government offices located across 10 inhabitated islands in the union territory.

lksatelite.jpgAll the nine islands—Agatti, Bitra, Chetlat, Amini, Kadmat, Kiltan, Andrott, Kalpeni and Minicoy—will be connected to Kavaratti through 2Mbps VSAT link. Kavaratti, the capital of union territory will be connected seperately with the mainland Kochi through 8 Mbps link.

In order to complete the project in time, the Lakshadweep government has opted for time bound bandwidth availability from BSNL to make U-SWAN operational before March 2009.

The Union Territory has opted for NIC model for network design, network implementation, installation and commissioning for the project.

Once the U-SWAN is implemented, the operational requirements will be taken care by Lakshadweep IT society for five years under the guidance of NIC.

The union territory is also planning a state data centre in Kavaratti with 2 TB storage capacities.

In terms of applications, the union territory is planning for e-learning, extension of e-permits to all islands, extension of e-personnel and e-payroll to all departments, online management of recruitment system, e-certificate and enhancement of performance level of existing applications.

Rajasthan to ‘smartly’ empower the poor

The Government of Rajasthan has given a Rs 150 crore contract to Bartronics India for implementing the Bhamashah Financial Empowerment Scheme.

biometricsimg.jpgUnder the scheme, the government would provide Rs 1,500 per month each to about 50 lakh below poverty line (BPL) families through biometrically identifiable smart cards, thereby providing them with relief through a financial inclusion process.

Biometric cards will be used in similar projects like Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

Speaking to iGovernment, Bartronics Managing Director Sudhir Rao said, “We have also participated for similar projects in Orissa, West Bengal and southern states and we have a good chance of winning these projects.”

Rao said that the company will either provide the card or implement the project. He added that the biometric card will help in making the disbursals reach the target BPL member, which was not the case earlier.

“The biometric card used in these applications is either 4K or 8K and captures biometric information and personal data,” Bartronics MD said.

The project is one in a series of financial inclusion initiatives announced by the Finance Ministry.

Kalam for hi-tech border management

Former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam has called for developing an Integrated Border Management System (IBMS) to provide situational awareness and facilitate real-time action by security forces deployed on the country’s borders.

Speaking at the Rustamji Memorial Lecture organised by the Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday, Kalam said that this is achieved by combining deployment of a variety of networked sensors along the border.

He further added that the sensors can be based on motion detection, vibration; infrared-based camera and satellite based sensors - all positioned at various strategic points along the border.

“Motion detection sensors are essentially of the Radar variety operating through Doppler Effect. Buried vibration sensors operate through detecting seismic signals. Infrared as well as daylight cameras come with certain degree of smartness to detect and thereafter flag only changes, thereby saving huge memory space if these images are to be stored,” the Former President said.

He said that BSF can enhance their operational preparedness based on national core competence by utilising the recently launched CARTOSAT-2A satellite, which provides scene-specific spot imageries, with high spatial resolution of better than one meter.

Kalam said that this satellite can also revisit place of interest once every four days, providing information on changes in movement of suspected vehicles and groups of people, unusual construction activities and intrusions.

“Such high-tech and intelligent systems will help BSF to plan and execute in time, difficult and complex missions with precision and low casualty rate,” he said, adding that the final element of IBMS is the ability to transmit intelligence to field commanders on real-time for taking appropriate action.

The Former President said that another element of IBMS is the process capability achieved through computing assets, powerful application software with large data base.

This coupled with high-bandwidth connectivity to the sensor; provide the needed platform for near real time processing of information received from the sensor, he added.

Kalam said that software such as link analysis tools help provide linkages of current events picked up by the sensor with historical events stored in the computer to generate actionable intelligence.

In order to enhance effectiveness of border security, he further suggested the modernisation of BSF with sensors, weapons and platforms with the capability to neutralise the target identified by IBMS and also the creation of a quick reaction mobile force that could be deployed instantly in the area of conflict with necessary sensors and weaponry.

The Former President said that NCET will facilitate working together of the intelligence and security machinery both at the state and the central level to achieve the desired objectives.

He further said that it will be an alert and dynamic movement which would prevent hotels and homes being used as a shelter by terrorists and extremists.

Moreover, Kalam also called for the introduction of National ID Cards and implement the National e-Governance GRID for all government to government, government to citizens, business to business and business to citizen transactions in a time bound manner.

Shark Survivors Asked to Pay for Rescue

Two tourists who drifted in shark-infested waters off Australia for 19 hours when a diving trip went wrong have been asked to help pay for their rescue after selling their story, reports said Monday.


Briton Richard Neely, 38, and his American partner Allyson Dalton, 40, were diving on the Great Barrier Reef last Friday when they became separated from their charter boat.

They were rescued the following morning after a plane taking part in an intensive air-sea search operation spotted them floating several miles (kilometres) from where they were last seen.

Australian media reported that the couple sold their survival story to Britain's Sunday Mirror, with one newspaper saying they had been paid about a million dollars.

The reports prompted suggestions that they should pay for their rescue, which involved seven helicopters, three other aircraft and six boats.

Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh, whose territory includes the Great Barrier Reef, backed the idea.

"If they are going to profit from their story I don't think a contribution back would go astray," Bligh told reporters. "It would be a very welcome gesture."

Celebrity agent Max Markson, who has taken on the couple as clients, said their insurance would cover the cost of the rescue but they would also be prepared to make a donation.

"They are covered by insurance so it will cover the cost of the rescue and they will be happy to make any donation necessary," Markson told the Sydney Morning Herald website.

The experienced divers said they had surfaced too far from the boat for those aboard to see them above the waves or hear their cries for help.



Source-Eurekalert
SPH

India launches e-Gazette

The Ministry of Urban Development in India has developed an e-Gazette to maintain Gazette notifications date-wise, month-wise, part-wise and subject-wise belonging to the central government and the Government of NCT of Delhi.

The effort operationalise-gazetting intends to reduce the time lag as well as to facilitate easy accessibility for the bona fide users all over the country without having to undergo tedious travel.

It will also help many users for various other purposes like research, court cases and settlement of legal documents. The Ministry added that the printed version will continue to remain in vogue while e-Gazette will have its own usefulness.

As part of the modern state of art e-Governance concept, uploading of Gazette notification in the especially created e-gazette website, has become an imperative to facilitate bona fide users to obtain them immediately on its uploading on payment of the prescribed price of that notification.

The Ministry said that the revenue earnings of the government through sale of gazette notifications are around Rs 5 crore per annum and added that the e-Gazette is expected to bring in some more dividends.

Method to Decompose Plastic in Just Three Months

Decomposition of plastic or rather the time taken for it is a major environmental headache. However the process has been accomplished in just under three months by a 16-year-old Waterloo Collegiate Institute student.


Daniel Burd, as part of a science fair project, figured out bacteria that break down the polymers in plastic bags - compounds that can last for over 1,000 years - in about three months.

For his revolutionary discovery, Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew.

He found that the plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature, reports Wired News.

After experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.

Burd says that the process of polyethylene degradation developed in this project can be used on an industrial scale for biodegradation of plastic bags.

According to him, all that's needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat.

Source-ANI
RAS/L

Web Users Growing More 'Ruthless and Selfish': Study

A new research studying web habits has revealed that web users turn more ruthless and selfish when they go online.


According to the annual report into web habits, by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, people are becoming much less patient when they go online.

Rather than dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.

Moreover, many people ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

Nielsen said that success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75 percent.

In 1999, this figure stood at 60 percent. He said there were two reasons for the increase.

"The designs have become better but also users have become accustomed to that interactive environment," BBC quoted Nielsen, as saying.

Nielsen said that now, when people go online they know what they want and how to do it, which makes them very resistant to highlighted promotions or other editorial choices that try to distract them.

"Web users have always been ruthless and now are even more so. People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience," he said.

"I do not think sites appreciate that yet. They still feel that their site is interesting and special and people will be happy about what they are throwing at them," he added.

Source-ANI
THK/L

UK Plans New Rules to Curb Smoking Among Youth

British Health Secretary Alan Johnson has revealed new plans in the UK, designed to curb smoking among young people.


He said that cigarettes will be banned from public display in shops, and vending machines scrapped under the new scheme.

He revealed that the proposals also seek to outlaw packets of 10 cigarettes, and that they are to be published by him later this week.

Johnson said that a consultation paper included plans to force cigarettes to be kept "under the counter" out of public view.

He also praised the Scottish government for banning cigarettes on display north of the border.

"I think they're right to do that and we're considering that as well," the Independent quoted him as saying.

Johnson also hinted that the Government was contemplating further needful actions to curb the consumption of tobacco products, after the ban on smoking in public places that was introduced last summer.

"Younger people are more influence by advertising. Two hundred thousand kids under 16 start smoking every year and their chances of a premature death from smoking are three times higher than if they had started smoking in their twenties," he said.

Johnson appreciated the fact that other European countries had enjoyed "startling results" by banning vending machines, where there was no control over the age of the purchaser.

As regards the 10-pack being in the firing line, he said: "I started smoking very young and you could get 10 Woodbines and you could get threepenny singles. Well they have taken threepenny singles away but whether you should still be able to buy 10 cigarettes or whether you should insist you can only buy 20 is an issue we need to look very closely at."

Pro-smoking groups accused the Government of forcing people to act "in a government-approved way", while retailers attacked the plans saying they would cost them thousands of pounds.

Anti-smoking groups, however, welcomed the move.

Source-ANI
THK/L

Dogs Pick Up Smell of Death in China Quake Rubble

Rifka bounded into the rubble of the Hanwang Town People's Hospital panting and barking. She had picked up the scent of death.


Rifka, a Belgian shepherd, was one of four dogs from Netherlands-based Signi Search Dogs hunting for the body of Qing Hong, an X-ray technician.

More than 23,000 people are still missing after the massive earthquake in southwestern China's Sihuan province two weeks ago.

After being guided by local residents in this devastated town, Saad Attia and his two colleagues from Signi believed Qing Hong was one of them.

There was nothing left of Hanwang's hospital except a dangerous mound of orange-brown bricks, twisted metal, broken wood and soggy medical texts. Some of the debris was more than three metres (10 feet) high.

With her bark, Rifka had signalled that a body might lie underneath but the searchers wanted confirmation.

"We're going to check it again with another dog," said Attia.

The job went to Finder, a three-year-old on her first overseas mission.

A nail punctured her lower left leg earlier in the quake zone but after several stitches and a dose of painkillers, Finder was still on the job, with a bandage above her paw.

The dog slid down what might have been a slab of wall, then climbed back over the debris.

She gave the tell-tale bark and got her reward, a green tennis ball.

"I think the person is there," said handler Esther van Neerbus, 37, moving closer to the ragged edge of what was a stairwell.
"Our job here is finished," Attia said.


But another awaited them in the drizzle at the foot of misty mountains.

"I think we have a lot of work to do today," said Attia, 44, a moustachioed man who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq 27 years ago. "It will be only dead bodies, I think. There are no survivors."

In six days of searching, they had not found anyone alive.

Van Neerbus said the team may have identified about 50 corpses but did not know for certain since they were usually not present for the long process of digging.

The veterinarian said she founded Signi 17 years ago because she wanted to do something to help people using the animals she loves.

The dogs, trained to find both the living and the dead, have worked in disasters around the world.

The team explained that dogs' noses are far more sensitive than those of humans.

Attia took time off his job in a metal factory to travel to the quake zone in Sichuan province to work with Signi. "This is my holiday," he quipped.

But Attia's light touch accompanied a recognition that this is serious work, partly because it helps ease the families' uncertainty.

"Then you know for sure that he is gone," Attia said. "And second, I think most important is to prevent disease. It's already a disaster but if you leave it... you've got a serious problem for the public health."

Attia recalled the tears of a woman whose husband the dogs located a day earlier. Discoveries like that validate their mission, he said, but the job takes an emotional toll.

"I can cry just like a child. And I don't care," he said.

A backhoe slowly rattled past on its way to the spot where Qing, the hospital worker, was believed buried.

"They are going to dig," Attia said before the searchers walked to their next assignment, the dogs straining at their leashes.

They approached a six-storey apartment building that had collapsed, leaving a tangled landscape of mattresses, clothes, broken household appliances, bricks, scraps of door frames, and structural beams.

Liu Daibin, 43, told the searchers that seven or eight of his relatives could be somewhere in this mess.

The dogs took turns poking their heads into the rubble. Their frequent barking signalled several locations which the handlers marked using torn pieces of red cloth.

"It could be five bodies. It could be 10. It could be more," Attia said.

Source-AFP
SPH

Earth Watch: Burying CO2 to Fight Global Warming

The method to capture carbon dioxide and bury it under the ground to prevent global warming is gaining momentum and may soon be put into practice.


According to a report in Discovery News, the process, known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), has already been given the green signal by the US Department of Energy (DOE), with a funding of 126 million dollars for two large-scale carbon storage projects in California and the Midwest.

The DOE had previously announced 253.7 million dollars in funding for four others.

"The announcement of these two projects, making a total of six, each with a minimum of a million tons of CO2 injected underground, is a massive step forward," said Julio Friedmann of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

Companies have been injecting CO2 into the ground already, including in efforts to help force the last bits of oil out of oilfields, but the scale does not match what is needed to store CO2 from coal-fired plants.

"The next tier of questions include ones that really require a large, sustained injection," said Friedmann.

"These projects will help researchers understand how the Earth's crust deforms as large volumes of CO2 are pumped underground, and which sites are the best for storing CO2," he added.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is drafting regulations to address how sites for CO2 burial should be selected, managed and monitored and to address questions of who pays if something goes wrong.

"Having the regulations established is going to be helpful in moving the technology forward," said Sarah Forbes of the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C.

To Friedmann and Forbes, advancing the use of CCS is critical for addressing climate change.

"You have a new coal plant in China and India being built every single day," said Forbes. "The climate change problem is so big, and you can't address it without addressing coal," he added.

Source-ANI
RAS/L

"Life After People" Says Mother Nature Will Act Quickly Once Mankind is Wiped Out

A new TV documentary 'Life After People' has said that Mother Nature will quickly rehabilitate Earth once the human race is destroyed.


Most experts agree that humans will one day become extinct.

If Earth's life so far of four and a half billion years were represented by 24 hours, man's time on the planet would take up just 30 seconds, the experts say.

"It's no great stretch to imagine humans disappearing from the earth. Every generation has its tales of re the first generation whose deliberate actions may cause its own doom," The Sun quoted astrophysicist David Brin, as saying.

Now experts have come together to predict a future without humans - and the result is the sobering documentary.

Within just 48 hours, most power plants would automatically shut down without humans to keep feeding them fuel, and even wind turbines would seize up eventually with nobody to maintain them.

Food would rot on supermarket shelves, while pets, which couldn't escape from their homes, would slowly starve to death.

Ray Coppinger, a biologist from Hampshire College in Massachusetts, says: "The instant the humans have gone, there won't be any food for the dogs to live off. They can't open cans, they can't open the refrigerator.

"Very few of the 400million dogs in the world are suited to surviving life without humans."

Triggered by lightning strikes, wildfires would spread unchecked. Charred timbers would then release nutrients into the soil, providing the next wave of plant life with the nitrogen it needs to grow and thrive.
Cosmetic use is being looked at during the review, she said.


"Provincial legislation would ultimately be the preferred course of action, because if you ban the use of the products in municipalities that's only one piece of the puzzle," Boychuk said. "You need provincial jurisdiction to ban the sale of them at retail locations. If you've got a ban in place but people are still allowed to walk into a (store) to buy them, then it's not really that effective."

Ontario has introduced legislation banning the use and sale of cosmetic pesticides, and Quebec has enacted similar laws, she said. There are efforts in B.C. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia to get similar legislation in place, she said, writes Hanneke Brooymans, The Edmonton Journal.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L

Canadian Cancer Society for Ban on Cosmetic Pesticides

The Canadian Cancer Society has joined the call for ban on cosmetic pesticides in view of their possible links with cancer.


Cosmetic pesticides are those used to control dandelions and other weeds in lawns and on sports fields.

In a survey in the Alberta region, it was found that 87 per cent of the 790 polled say they would support community bylaws restricting the use of cosmetic pesticides, said Lorie Boychuk, the society's public issues analyst.

Edmonton Councillor Don Iveson, whose portfolio covers environment issues, said he was hearing from many people who would like to see such a ban. "I think we need some kind of strategy to reduce their use, and I know the city's done quite a bit on that front." He said he didn't know whether a ban was feasible, but felt education about the issue was important.

Boychuk said the science linking pesticides with cancer kept getting stronger. "The evidence is definitely suggestive and growing. It's not 100-per-cent conclusive, but we feel there's enough existing at this point in time to invoke the precautionary principle."

Alberta Environment says it is Health Canada's role to determine which pesticides are safe, after which the province manages their use.

The department is conducting a mandatory review of provincial pesticide regulations, which began two years ago and should be finished this summer, said Alberta Environment spokeswoman Cara Van Marck. The regulations govern sales, handling, use, disposal and storage of all pesticides used for agricultural and cosmetic purposes.
Cosmetic use is being looked at during the review, she said.


"Provincial legislation would ultimately be the preferred course of action, because if you ban the use of the products in municipalities that's only one piece of the puzzle," Boychuk said. "You need provincial jurisdiction to ban the sale of them at retail locations. If you've got a ban in place but people are still allowed to walk into a (store) to buy them, then it's not really that effective."

Ontario has introduced legislation banning the use and sale of cosmetic pesticides, and Quebec has enacted similar laws, she said. There are efforts in B.C. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia to get similar legislation in place, she said, writes Hanneke Brooymans, The Edmonton Journal.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L

Indian Hospital Chain Introduces Online Testing of Nursing Skills

The Wockhardt Hospitals Group, a leading Indian chain, has introduced an online testing of nursing skills.


The Wockhardt Nursing Skill Test (NST), launched in association with Careersindia, would seek to measure the basic domain knowledge of prospective nurses seeking employment with the group.

Under the NST, any nurse seeking employment at Wockhardt Hospitals across the country can go to the nearest designated Web Centre log on to http://www.careersindia.com/nursing and answer 70 multiple choice questions in 47 minutes on topics like Basic Nursing Skills, Medical Surgical Nursing, Child Health Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Midwifery and spoken language evaluation.

On completion of the test, candidates are provided immediate access to their 'Individual Assessment Report'. This report is designed to provide candidates with module-wise percentile scores. The percentile scores reflect the candidate's basic knowledge and performance in the test with respect to the required areas. Based on the scores, candidates will either enter the next round of the interview process or be dropped. A photograph of every candidate taking the test is taken by the web centre and attached to the report which ensures the security and authority of the process.

"With our rapid expansion across the country, we are currently recruiting more than 200 nurses each month out of the 2,000 candidates that are screened by our HR team. The NST process will ensure that nurses do not have to travel across geographical locations to go through the interview process which will now start only after the NST clears the candidates for the next round," said Vishal Bali, CEO & MD, Wockhardt Hospitals Group.


Developed in association with Careersindia, a company which has made a mark in the area of online workforce assessments in industry, the NST has been compiled by experts in nursing, doctors and language professionals and validated by practitioners from the Wockhardt Hospitals Group. Across the country, Wockhardt Hospitals have tied up with more than 3,000 web centers where the test can be taken by the candidates.


"The NST test score will now be the foundation of our nurse recruitment process. Currently, our team spends 40 minutes with each candidate to assess their basic skills through a physical interview process and many candidates are dropped for lack of basic knowledge. Through this process we will not only be able to screen the number of candidates across the country, but it also helps candidates save their time and expense of traveling to states, where we have our hospitals" said Kumar Krishnaswamy, Group Head - HR, Wockhardt Hospitals Group.

Careersindia has taken the lead in the past to successfully design, develop and deploy online assessments for individual's abilities and behavioural competence for various verticals such as ITES, financial services, insurance, retail and manufacturing sectors, reports Express Healthcare.

“We believe that NST, which has been developed after several months of research, will mark the beginning of a new era in talent assessment and evaluation for healthcare industry. Having successfully assessed thousands of candidates in various industry segments, we are confident that our expertise in online testing, which is integrated into NST will provide immense benefits to the hiring process of the nurses in the country. We have no doubt that the Wockhardt NST will become an industry benchmark for recruitment of nurses in other hospitals across the country," said R Kannan, Managing Director, Careersindia.

More than 30,000 nurses graduate from various nursing colleges and schools across India each year and seek employment at hospitals all over the country.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L

UK Hospitals Flooded With Cocaine Overdose Cases

The number of drug users in Britain being admitted to hospital with cocaine overdoses is four times higher than what it was eight years ago, new figures reveal.


Official Government data showed that an average of more than two people a day are admitted to accident and emergency units for 'cocaine-induced health emergencies.'

Compared to 740 users who needed treatment in 2007, just 161 people were admitted to hospital in England for cocaine-related emergencies in 1999.

Most of patients in 2007 were men with an average age of 29 years, according to the magazine Druglink.

In comparison, heroin overdoses and cannabis poisonings both fell in the same period.

The figures reveal the scale and impact of cocaine's growing popularity and come after a series of high-profile cases involving the drug.

Recent drugs crime surveys have also reported growing use of cocaine among the urban middle classes.

A study showed that one in three young men attending A and E at a London hospital with suspected heart attacks were cocaine users.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN's drug control and crime prevention office, has described Amy Winehouse, the pop singer, as 'the poster girl for drug abuse'.

He added that 'one song, one picture, one quote that makes cocaine look cool can undo millions of pounds worth of anti-drug education and prevention'.

The UN's International Narcotics Control Board report linked 'celebrity endorsement of drug related lifestyles' to the boom in European cocaine consumption and the emergence of the devastation it is now causing in Africa as new drug-smuggling routes open up.
According to Home Office figures, the use of the drug has more than doubled among 16 to 24-year-olds since the start of the decade, and Britain remains one of the countries with the highest level of cocaine abuse, along with Spain and Italy.


The UN report also partly accused the police and courts of making matters worse by not treating celebrities strictly and failing to make an example of them.

Supermodel Kate Moss escaped prosecution following the publication of photographs of her allegedly snorting cocaine.

Source-ANI
SPH

Netherlands to enable online marriage

Dutch citizens will no longer be required to report to the city hall in person for marriages, births, deaths and registered partnerships. The Government of Netherlands is planning to launch an electronic registry to enable them report these details online.

It would be done by combining information already electronically available such as the personal and address registries and digitalising paper processes—most civil registries, report ePractice.

With the online registry, expected to be up and running before 2010, the citizens need not have to produce documents that are real print-outs of the information to civil servants, as they will have ready access to these details online.

Meanwhile, the government has launched a website to enable citizens interact with local and international politicians.

An initiative of the Dutch ‘New Voting’, the new website aims to make politics more transparent, reports ePractice.

The Dutch Ministry for Internal Affairs said that the foundation hopes to build a collective political memory by keeping a record of the transactions that take place on the website.

Users can track down political representatives on municipal, provincial or national level by typing in questions and zip codes.

The website even gives access to the email addresses of members of European Parliament, which gives an easy access to the citizens for sending email directly to the politician they wish to speak with.

Slovakia to implement e-Parliament

The Government of Slovakia has introduced ‘Electronic Parliament’, which will provide the facility to submit all bills electronically and reduce use of paper in the National Council.

The new initiative, which is the brainchild of the Slovak National Council Chairman Pavol Paška, will be in place by the September session of the National Council, reports ePractice.

After the implementation of the new system, the National Council will be provided with materials in electronic form, with only 10 to 15 paper printouts produced.

The government is expecting savings up to 90 per cent with the new system coming into force and further informed that the agenda for sittings of the council will also be sent out electronically.

The new system will save the present process of delivering a bill to the Parliament in 250 printouts and would also save the numbers of paper printed for joint reports and amendments to the bills.

Chronic diseases in India on rise

Changing lifestyles and stressed workplace environment has given rise to many chronic diseases in India. It will cost the country US $237 billion by 2015, says a joint report by World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Economic Forum.

The report revealed that countries like Brazil, China, Russia and India currently lose more than 20 million productive life-years annually to chronic disease, and that number is expected to grow by 65 per cent by 2030.

According to the report, which was released at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Monday, chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and respiratory disease, are responsible for more than 60 per cent of global deaths and is projected to account for 47 million deaths annually in the next 25 years.

The report on workplace wellness, ‘Preventing Non-communicable Diseases in the Workplace through Diet and Physical Activity’, highlighted the need to tackle the causes of chronic diseases in the workplace.

Calling for workplace health programmes to be promoted and implemented globally, the report said that the economic consequences—driven by productivity reductions and increases in costs caused by these non-communicable diseases among workforces—are dramatic.

These programmes are not only cost effective, but they also reduce healthcare costs, improve productivity, retain human capital and build a sustainable business.

Not restricted to developed nations or older populations, the problem is growing fastest in low- and middle-income countries, and almost half of those who die from chronic diseases are in their productive years, the report said.

UN award for Nagaland

Nagaland has won the prestigious United Nations’ Public Service Award for bolstering community participation in basic services like school, hospitals, water supply and tourism.

The idea was conceptualised and implemented by the then Chief Secretary of the Nagaland RS Pandey during 2002-04. The introduction of the programme led to a marked enhancement in the delivery system in the rural zones.

Instead of privatising the basic services in the state, the Chief Secretary opted for communitising them in view of the high community spirits of the Naga people.

Pandey who is currently the secretary in the Steel Ministry will receive the award at a function on June 23 in New York. Nagaland happens to be the only winner in the Asia Pacific zone.

This particular UN award is among the 12 awards chosen internationally in varied sphere of public services.

Nokia’s GSM soln for Railways

Nokia Siemens Networks has implemented India’s first GSM Railways (GSM-R) communications solution under the Mobile Train Radio Communication (MTRC) project for North Central Railways to replace the present signalling process.

Under this project, the company supplied an end-to-end GSM-R radio solution, including switching, base stations and controllers, cab radios and hand held devices.

The single streamlined digital radio system carries direct signalling and operational information between a moving train driver, guard and train controller on ground enabling higher speeds, and greater traffic density with improved safety, security and reliability.

The Railway@Vantage Intelligent Network (IN) software allows the train controller and the driver and guard to contact each other even without knowing mobile numbers or location of the locomotive.

In order to ensure network efficiency and stability, the company will also provide a broad range of services including network design, installation and commissioning, project management, training, operations and maintenance, network integration and as well as management of the network for one year.

“GSM-R is the basis on which the future signalling and communication needs of Indian Railways will be built,” Nokia Siemens Networks’ Sub-region India Head Michael Kuehner said.

The solution has currently been deployed on a 270 km stretch between Mathura and Jhansi under North central railways.

“Indian Railways has chalked out a well-planned strategy to remove bottlenecks and augment capacity to match the requirement,” Railway Board Chairman KC Jena said

He further appreciated that effort of Nokia Siemens Networks to speedily ramp up software and hardware requirements suggested by the Railways.

In India, the company is currently implementing GRM-R solution for the Northern Railway, North Frontier Railway and East Central Railway.

India mum on German offer to dig black money

India’s black money has shifted its chest. From all favourite Swiss banks it has now been getting stored in the banks in Liechtenstein, a small country near Germany.

Interestingly, despite Germany’s offer in February this year to provide free of cost information on all such accounts, India has so far not shown any interest in procuring the details of the accounts of its people with the bank.

It is said that the German intelligence agency, BND, has details of more than 700 clients of the LTG Bank and German prosecutors are using this information to target hundreds of suspected tax evaders.

Expressing concern over the Government of India’s attitude in seeking the information, Transparency International (TI) India said that it was suspected that this money belonged to the rich and powerful politicians, industrialists and stock brokers.

Liechtenstein, like many other countries including Switzerland, St Kitts, Antigua and Bahamas, is considered a heaven for moneyed people to hide their ill gotten wealth.

According to reports, the Indian Ministry of Finance and PMO have, however, not shown much interest in finding out about those who have their lockers in the secret banks of Liechtenstein which prides itself of their banking system, TI India said.

Reacting sharply to the report by one of the newspapers, TI India Chairman Admiral (retd.) R H Tahiliani said, “There should be complete transparency and accountability about this money and it is for the government to find this out and inform people.”

Urging the Government of India to take all necessary steps to seek the data that the German Government had offered,the Indian chapter of TI warned that such secretive and non transparent tax havens can pose problems of terrorism since no one knows how these would be used.

“It’s a global threat and can be used any which way to harm the peace and harmony globally,” it added.

Meanwhile reports sugest that USA, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Italy, UK, Ireland and other nations have already expressed their interest in procuring the details of the accounts of its people with the bank.

Now, cell phones to transmit medical images

: People living in remote places away from the modern medical centres across the world can soon avail sophisticated radiological diagnoses and treatment. A Hebrew University researcher has made it possible by developing a new process to transmit medical images via cellular phones.

Jointly patented and owned by the Hebrew University’s technology transfer company Yissum and by the University of California at Berkeley, the system provides an independent Data Acquisition Device (DAD) at a remote patient site where users have no image display capabilities.

The device is then connected via cellular phone technology to a hardware control multi-server unit at a central site with an advanced image reconstruction capabilities, with the processed data then returned to the DAD site.

The DAD can be made with off-the-shelf parts that somebody with basic technical training can operate.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), around three-quarters of the world’s population has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images and other medical imaging technology used for a wide range of applications.

Stressing on the key economic benefits of this new method, the researchers further said that by simplifying the apparatus at the patient site, they have been able to reduces the cost of medical imaging devices in general. Besides, it also removes the need for advanced imaging training of the personnel at the patient site.

The researchers of the university chose electrical impedance tomography (EIT) to demonstrate the feasibility of using cell phones in medical imaging.

EIT is based upon the principle that diseased tissue transmits electrical currents differently from healthy tissue. The difference in resistance from electrical currents is translated into an image, which can be transmitted via cell phone technology.

Utilising commercially available parts, the research team built a simple data acquisition device for the experiment. The device had 32 stainless steel electrodes—half to inject the electrical current and the other half to measure the voltage—connected to a gel-filled container that simulated breast tissue with a tumor.

A total of 225 voltage measurements were taken and uploaded to a cell phone, which was hooked up to the device with a USB cable.

The cell phone was then used to dial into a powerful central computer that contained software to process the packet of raw data that was transmitted. An image was then reconstructed and sent back to the cell phone for viewing.

The researchers verified that the simulated tumor was clearly visible in the image, demonstrating the proof-of-principle that this system is feasible.

“Imaging is considered one of the most important achievements in modern medicine. Diagnosis and treatment of an estimated 20 per cent of diseases would benefit from medical imaging, yet this advancement has been out of reach for millions of people in the world because the equipment is too costly to maintain,” said Prof Boris Rubinsky, one of the inventors of the new technology.

Rubinsky is head of the Research Center for Research in Bioengineering in the Service of Humanity and Society at the Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is also a professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

The present day conventional medical imaging systems, including data acquisition hardware with software processing hardware and imaging display, are not only expensive they also require sensitive handling and maintenance and extensive user training.

“Even when such equipment does exist in developing countries, it is often not in use because it is too sophisticated or in disrepair or because the health personnel are not trained to use it,” he said.

Google Health on, medicare up tone

People can now put their health information in one central place and will have an easy access to them online. Google has launched ‘Google Health’ for this purpose and is absolutely free.

To use the new facility, the user will need a Google username and password. It will keep the doctor up-to-date and will help in stopping a person to fill out the same paperwork every time he sees a new doctor.

“Google Health will help in avoiding the same lab tests done over and over again because your doctor cannot get copies of your latest results,” the company stated.

With the new facility, one can manage his health information—not his health insurance plan or employer. Besides, information can be accessed from anywhere, at any time.

Moreover, Google claims that the new system is safe and secure, as it will store the information securely and privately and never sell the data of the user.

“You can enter your health conditions, medications, allergies, and lab results into your Google Health profile and you can name the profile anything you want,” Google said.

The new facility will also offer the user to even create multiple profiles for family members or others and help them in importing medical records from hospitals and pharmacies.

“Choose from a list of Google Health partners to see if your hospital or pharmacy can send copies of your medical records or prescriptions to your Google Health profile,” the search engine said.

It will guide users to find helpful resources and learn about health issues, besides helping in search for doctors and hospitals and connect to online health services.

Romania to expand e-Gov portal

The Government of Romania is planning to expand its e-Government portal by the end of 2009 to give access to all European citizens to information on services in the country.

Quoting Romanian Secretary of State Zoltán Somodi, ePractice has reported that the country is soon looking at establishing a ‘unique electronic contact point’ that would be managed by its Agency for Information Society Services.

This unique contact point will ensure that government procedures and other formalities can be carried out remotely and electronically, Somodi said.

Being aligned with the European guidelines stated in the Services Directive, the new service is also expected to ease the administrative burden on EU citizens and enterprises, and will positively impact the national and European services market.

The site, being developed by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, would also seve as an an access point to all services and information on central and local administration institutions.

Besides, it will promote transparency and cost-effectiveness, check red-tapism, ensure wider access to all public services and information, and fight e-fraud, the report stated.

100mn broadband connections by 2012: Raja

India wants to leapfrog from the present four million broadband connections to 100 million broadband connections by 2012.

“My digital vision for India, by 2012, would be to see about 500 million of its population connected to Internet and more than l00 million broadband connections, and 100 million broadband enabled devices,” the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology A Raja said while participating in a seminar in Malaysia recently.

The information infrastructure should also be made affordable as India’s PC penetration is less than 25 per 1,000 against global average of 165 per 1,000, he said.

In terms of household PC penetration, leading nations have household PC penetration of more than 80 per 1,000 and India should focus on achieving at least 20-25 per 1,000 in the next few years.

Speaking about increasing broadband penetration Raja said, “The best way to achieve broadband will be through wireless and by 2010 mobile broadband is likely to overtake fixed broadband.”

In India, mobile is fast becoming the preferred tool or default device for Internet access. Presently, the number of Internet users accessing through mobile is four times that of Internet users accessing through fixed line.

According to industry statistics half of the mobile handsets sold in India every month are Internet enabled, with Internet enabled handset available for as low as US $50.

Focus is also on multi-lingual content and multi-lingual software and there is a need for the government to drive a focused set of initiatives with the private sector to enable content development and proliferation.

Plans are also to provide free content and bandwidth to schools and educational institutions at subsidized rates.

India Post takes franking online

India Post on Wednesday introduced a new generation of digitally operated franking system that would enable users to remotely transfer and authenticate fund at the click of the button.

According to sources at the Department of Post (DoP), the system involves setting up of remote resetting centres by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for electronically receiving fund deposit instructions from the State Bank of India (SBI).

The franking machine users will deposit funds through cash, cheque, draft or Internet banking in any branch of the SBI across the country, which would then pass on the details to the India Post server. The India Post servr would then authenticate the transactions and pass the necessary instructions to the OEM’s remote servers.

The users will have to simply connect their machines to the OEM’s server through a telephone line and download the required funds from their accounts maintained at the remote servers. The complete transaction will take between 60-90 seconds, the DoP spokesperson said.

Announcing the launch of the service, DoP Secretary IMG Khan informed that the department has presently given a go ahead to two models of remotely managed franking systems (RMFS)—digi frank plus—one each from Neopost and Piney Bowse.

Unlike the older machines fitted with impact printing of franks, these new franking machines use digitally controlled inkjet printing technology and print a clear, clean and dynamically bar-coded secure frank that may even be used to offer track and trace by the India Post, Khan said.

He further said that RMFS would bring in lot of ease in use as the franking machines based on this system would not be required to be physically carried to the post office for crediting.

“The network that India Post is setting up with the help of the franking machine manufacturers will enable the new technology franking machine user to remotely credit his machine through dial up or any other network while sitting in his office,” Khan added.

July 9-11, Asia Pacific Corporate Social Responsibility Conference

July 9-11, Asia Pacific Corporate Social Responsibility Conference

Asia Pacific Corporate Social Responsibility Conference

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a bigger priority to organizations in Asia Pacific. While CSR is not a new concept or practice, it's initiatives in the region is still comparatively young. However, it's now recognized as one of the best ways to enhance a company's position and value and many companies are now increasing their CSR initiatives.

Today's CSR priorities are determined through ethical reasoning rather than governmental or legal requirements. CSR can also be used as a strong risk management tool against shareholder and consumer dissatisfaction. It's now clearly entwined in many multinational organizations' strategic planning process. In fact, 54% of today's business school requires a course in CSR which is a significant jump against 2001's 34%.

Salvo's Asia Pacific Corporate Social Responsibility is specifically designed to meet CSR professional demands to better their initiatives, strengthen their commitments and balance their investments. This event will address project selection, resource allocations, and impact measurements. We have gathered the best CSR practitioners and experts to help you adopt world class CSR initiatives.

Featuring expert opinions and case studies presentations from world class organizations:
. University of Technology Sydney, Australia
. Boeing International, UAE
. Coca-Cola, India
. Malaysian Airlines, Malaysia
. New Britain Plantation Services, Singapore
. ST Microelectronics, Singapore
. Standard Chartered, Singapore
. Timberland, Singapore
. Toyota, Australia
. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Hear cutting edge presentations on:

.Promoting innovation via CSR endorsements and initiatives
.Understanding how companies can contribute to CSR through their core competencies
.Tackling stakeholder engagement - What will differentiate voluntary and regulatory initiatives?
.What is multi-stakeholder initiatives and how can companies get involved in it?
.Are CSR awards becoming the main driver for CSR initiatives?
.Supply Chain Management and CSR - How far exactly does the ripple effect go?
.Adopting socially responsible investments practices for bigger impact sustainable developments
.What can companies do to ensure sustainability?
.Identifying future trends and challenges of CSR initiatives within the region
and more....

Date: 9-11 July 2008

Location: Hilton Singapore Hotel

Interested to participate
Request the brochure: www.apac-csr.salvoglobal.com//enquiry.php
For priority booking, please quote priority code VHK429

Official Endorsers:
Japan For Sustainability - www.japanfs.org/
Australian Green Development Forum - www.agdf.org.au/
CSR Middle East Org - www.csrmiddleeast.org/

Official Media Partners:
AccountAbility - www.accountability21.net/
China Newswire - www.chinanewswire.com/
China CSR - www.chinacsr.com/
China Dialogue - www.chinadialogue.net/
CSR China - www.csrchina.net/
CSR News - www.csr-news.net/
Ethics World - www.ethicsworld.org/
Karmayog - www.karmayog.org

Best regards,
Vivian Ho
Salvo Global
Tel: +65 6297 8545
DID: +65 6305 1363
Fax: +65 6336 1716
Email: vivian@salvoglobal.com
www.salvoglobal.com

Researched & Organised By Salvo Global, Corporate Communications Series