HC stays G.Os on new health insurance scheme for transport staff

Madras High Court today stayed operation of three Tamil Nadu Government Orders (GOs) pertaining to new health insurance scheme for employees of state transport corporations in the state. Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar granted the stay on a petition filed by Tamilnadu State Transport Employees Federation seeking to restrain the government from altering, annulling or modifying the existing Special Medical Assistance Scheme in any manner and from implementing the new Health Insurance Scheme announced and introduced by the government by GO Ms No 430, GO Rt No 65 and GO No 174. The petitioner submitted that the transport corporations had introduced the Special Medical Assistance Scheme for the employees based on a settlement reached under Section 12 (3) of the Industrial Dispute Act on September 28, 1995.

As per Clause 79 of the minutes of the settlement, every workman had to contribute Rs five every month towards the scheme and the corporations have to make an equal contribution.

The petitioner contended that the Special Medical Assistance was a better scheme than the new scheme introduced by the state government. The government has no power to do away with the existing scheme framed under the settlement, the petitioner added.

The state government had recently introduced the new health insurance scheme for government employees in collaboration with a private insurance company.

IBM deploys supercomp to boost cancer research

The new system will aid in the search for more effective cancer treatments and facilitates analysis of millions of images of proteins.

IBM has announced the deployment of Canada's fastest research supercomputer at the Ontario Cancer Institute in the University Health Network.

The new system will aid in the search for more effective cancer treatments and facilitates analysis of millions of images of proteins.

Through automation, high resolution imaging and sophisticated computer-based image classification, researchers are attempting to more quickly identify the structure of disease-related proteins, and thus improve our ability to design new treatments for cancer.

The new IBM System Cluster 1350 supercomputer incorporates its recently announced DCS9550 disk storage system, as well as deep computing visualisation to create high-resolution images required for the research analysis.

The system includes 1,344 processor cores in the Linux cluster running at 12.5 teraflops (trillion calculations per second) with 150 TB of storage, making it one of the fastest research clusters in Canada.

“We need to better understand the specific function and interactions of proteins that cause cancer,” Igor Jurisica of Ontario Cancer Institute said, adding that this research will enable to diagnose cancer earlier, before symptoms appear, to have the best chance of treating disease.

The supercomputer was made possible by grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and an in-kind donation by IBM for the hardware, software and services.

The computing complex also houses a custom-built data centre, which has been adapted to fit into Toronto's historic MaRS research building.

In November 2007, Jurisica's research was added to the World Community Grid as a Help Conquer Cancer project. The grid works on a network of approximately one million PCs and laptops using donated processing time.

The Ontario Cancer Institute's new supercomputer will allow data to get on the Grid for complex analysis, and enable faster and more detailed analysis of results from the Grid computation.

In simple terms, this supercomputer can do more calculations in one second than every Canadian doing one calculation per second for four days without stopping.

West Bengal to introduce insurance for bus passengers

The state government has taken this initiative to make long-distance bus travel much more safer in the state.

In an effort to make long-distance bus travel much more safer in West Bengal, the state government is planning to introduce insurance benefits for the passengers of long-distance state transport buses.

“We have decided to take Rs 5 from the passengers travelling within 300 km and Rs 10 for those travelling more than 300 km by the state transport buses,” the state Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty said.

He added that the surplus would be charged on the tickets of the passengers who would avail long-distance government buses.

The Minister said the money will be used to provide them with insurance benefits worth Rs 50,000 in case they meet with fatal accidents during travel. The amount would be handed over to their nearest relatives.

Chakraborty said that if anyone is killed in a road accident by government buses, the nearest relative of the deceased will get the same insurance benefit.

“The amount collected from every long-distance passenger would be deposited to a state government-owned corporation,” he said, adding the facility would come into effect from September.

Initially, the state government is implementing this facility only for the long-distance buses, and later plans to introduce the scheme in all government-run buses in the state, he said.

Following the fuel price rise, fares of buses, mini-buses and taxis in the state have also been hiked, reports IANS.

The minimum bus and mini-bus fare has been increased by 50 paisa and the taxi fare by Rs 2. The new fare structure is likely to come into effect from July 11.

AIDS bomb ticking in Asia - India accounts for roughly half the HIV-infected population of Asia

About 10 million Asians are expected to be infected with HIV by 2020, an independent commission on AIDS in Asia warned on Monday.

The commission comprising nine of Asia's leading development economists, scientists and policymakers working on AIDS, urged Asian countries to chart a new response to AIDS. India accounts for roughly half the HIV-infected population of Asia. About 2.5 million Indians were estimated to be living with HIV in 2006.

Its 236-page report on ‘Redefining AIDS in Asia, crafting an effective response' was released by India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here today, reports IANS.

“Many Asian countries are lagging behind in their response to AIDS. At current levels of response, 10 million Asians are expected to be infected with HIV by 2020. By then, AIDS is also expected to claim an estimated five lakh lives annually if governments do not change policies,” the report sponsored by UNAIDS, Unicef and UNDP said.

India accounts for roughly half the HIV-infected population of Asia. About 2.5 million Indians were estimated to be living with HIV in 2006.

Twenty-six countries have been covered by the report.

Almost five million Asians are currently infected with HIV, some 4.4 lakh people got infected with HIV and three lakh people died of AIDS-related diseases in 2007.

Regionally, AIDS is estimated to be the single largest cause of death and morbidity due to disease for adults aged 15-44 years.

“AIDS has emerged as the single-largest cause of disease-related deaths and work days lost among 15-44-year-old adults in Asia,” the report said.

Expressing concern over the alarming situation, the Commission Chairman and PM's Economic Advisory Council Chirman said that these numbers indicate the seriousness of the problem the region faces.

The report noted that India has managed to slow down the epidemic in some states like Tamil Nadu, which provides an effective and focused HIV response.

“Asian leaders in places such as Thailand, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Tamil Nadu in India has the foresight to recognise the threat of AIDS early on; they provided leadership that proves vital for reversing their epidemics,” it said.

Noting that Asia's response approach neither matched nor kept pace with the unfolding realities of the HIV epidemic, it recommends that policies must prioritise on focused and scaled-up interventions towards unprotected commercial sex, unprotected sex between men and the sharing of contaminated needles and syringes.

With an estimated 10 male clients for every sex worker in Asia, the commission noted that men who go for unprotected commercial sex are probably the single most important determinant of the size of HIV epidemics in most of Asia.

By pragmatically focusing prevention programmes to the sex trade and on drug use, it suggested that governments would make considerable progress in halting and reversing the epidemic.

Experts found that existing resources are not only inadequate but are also currently not being spent on priority interventions that produce an impact.

Rangarajan emphasised that countries which are at the early stages of the epidemic needed to spend an average of 50 cents per capita to reverse the epidemic.

Every US $1 spent on early prevention would save US $8 in treatment costs later. Yet, the money spent on HIV programmes from national budgets decreased over the past decade in countries surveyed by the Commission, the only exceptions being India and China.

The commission has estimated the resource need of the region to halt and reverse the epidemic at US $3.1 billion per annum. For a long-lasting and comprehensive response, however, the resource need would be US $6.4 billion a year.

Noting that stigma against HIV patients remains a major issue in Asia's health care systems, including in India, the commission has recommended a more meaningful role for civil society and community-based initiatives.

It emphasises the need for strong political will across Asia. If leaders implement a largely scaled-up priority response right away they could save more than two lakh lives each year and succeed in reversing the epidemic.

What is the Community wise Compositionof Top 500 Rankers in Tamil Nadu

Counseling for Admission to MBBS / BDS in Tamil Nadu starts from 04.07.2008 and Director of Medical Education, 162, Periyar Road, Chennai has releasted the counselling schedule The Community of the Top 500 Rankers can be seen from that

Of the Top 500 Rankers in Tamil Nadu

• Forward Community - FC - 55 Students - 11 %
  
• Backward Community - BC - 293 Students - 58.6 %
  
• Christians - BCC - 29 Students - 5.8 %
  
• Muslims - BCM - 20 Students - 4 %
  
• Most Backward Community - MBC - 70 Students - 14 %
  
• Scheduled Castes - SC - 32 Students - 6.4 %
  
• Scheduled Tribes - ST - 1 Student - 0.2 %
  

Opinion Welcome :) :)

Cuba intros performance-based salary

The Government of Cuba has introduced performance-based salary for its employees, ending the system of equal pay for its workers.

The country’s President Raul Castro has given all state enterprises a deadline of August 1, 2008 to comply with the new system, reports IANS.

“The correct implementation of the new policy would enable Cuba to conform to the socialist principle of distribution, wherein each person receives according to his or her contribution,” Deputy Labour Minister Carlos Mateu Pereira said.

Raul Castro, who became Cuba’s President in February after holding the job on a provisional basis since older brother Fidel fell ill in July 2006, says performance-linked pay will boost efficiency and productivity.

“The overhaul of the compensation package for the employees is part of the improvement model that Raul as the then Armed Forces Minister had established in the military and defence-related activities 20 years ago,” Pereira said.

Earlier the President, while relaxing restrictions on Cuban citizens on buying consumer goods like computers and mobile phone, acknowledged the need to increase the average pay of the workers who earned the equivalent of US $17 a month.

Reach govt officials via online: Austria

The Government of Austria has added ‘Help’ feature in its e-Government site, which is a directory of the names, addresses and phone numbers of officials throughout the federal administration.

The new directory covers the Presidential Chancery, the Federal Chancellor’s Office and four federal ministries, reports ePractice.

Users would be able to search people of the federal government by entering any of the search criteria which include providing surname, organisation or telephone number in the ‘search by person’ function.

Furthermore, in order to narrow down the search, more criteria can be entered in one single go.

In the new feature, for each official, an e-mail address is given, together with clickable links to the institution concerned and the department or sub-department within that institution. In most cases, a phone number is also shown.

It also comes with ‘extended search by person’ option, which will produce further details, notably about their functions, but there is a greater range of possible identifiers.

The third search function is ‘organisational units’, which can be used to find out which unit of which ministry is responsible for a particular issue.

Industrial growth slows down in India

The sluggish expansion in the manufacturing sector has led to the slower growth of industrial production at seven per cent in April 2008 as against 11.3 per cent in the same month of last fiscal.

The growth in manufacturing was just 7.5 per cent in April, as compared to 12.4 per cent in the corresponding month of 2007, as per data on Index of Industrial Production (IIP) released at the Planning Commission here.

For the year as a whole, industrial production was 8.3 per cent higher for fiscal 2007-08, as against 11.6 per cent in the previous fiscal.

The worrisome news came against the backdrop of India’s central bank hiking its short-term interest rates to eight per cent on Wednesday in a bid to tame inflation—a move that experts feel could, in turn, trigger interest rate hikes by commercial banks.

“Monetary policy has to respond proactively to immediate concerns,” the Reserve Bank of India said.

The central bank was forced to take the monetary measure as India’s annual rate of inflation jumped to a 45-month high of 8.24 per cent for the week ended May 24, against 8.1 per cent for the previous week.

Rating agencies like Moody’s predict that India’s central bank may hike interest rates further to keep a check on spiralling prices, while predicting an economic slowdown.

“Amid tight monetary policy conditions which weigh on household consumption and business investment, the Indian economy looks set to slow this year,” Moody’s Economy said in a report.

The biggest challenge facing central banks across Asia is to cool inflation without hurting economic growth; the RBI is no exception, the agency’s report said.

Chinese President goes online

Now citizens of China can directly interact with their President without taking the pain to meet him. The Chinese President Hu Jintao has become online to chat with citizens through a major news portal of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The ‘Qiangguo Forum’, launched by the mouthpiece of the CPC, has been a big hit since the news of the President going online surfaced.

The news has led thousands of people post their queries and write-ins on the forum.

“The Internet is a major channel for public opinion,” Hu said during the chat, and added that he has squeezed his time to go online, though he would not be able to surf the net daily due his busy schedule.

The President logs on to the website to view domestic and foreign news, to learn what interests people on the Internet and to solicit their advice and opinions about the work of our government.

The Qiangguo Forum, meaning ‘powering the nation’, has more than 23,000 daily postings and the highest simultaneous web page visits exceeding 1.4 million.

ICT: DNA for modern warfare

India needs to develop appropriate communications technology and anti-technology to ensure faster response time and information dominance over its adversaries in the future.

Calling the information and communication technology (ICT) the DNA of modern day warfare, the country’s Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju said that the armed forces need to collaborate with the domain experts to tackle the challenges of the modern day battlefield.

“It’s imperative to modernise the armed forces through synchronised efforts by domain experts from the defence forces alongside the industry and academia and to ensure guaranteed information assurance in the present day battlefield which is becoming more and more digitised,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor said that a paradigm shift in warfare called for even shorter response time for which the critical communication networks needed constant upgrading.

“This also makes these networks increasingly vulnerable,” he said stressing on the need for a dialogue amongst all stakeholders in the segment.

According to Indian Army’s Signals Officer-in-Chief Lt Gen SP Sree Kumar, the armed forces were looking forward to finding ways to merge the industry’s capabilities with the army’s requirements to move ahead.

Talking about the role of the private sector in modernising the Indian armed forces, Infosys Technologies CEO and MD S Gopalakrishan said that Army-industry collaboration was on the threshold of a new era.

“The industry is seeing many positive signals from the Ministry of Defence,” he added.

This is the seventh year in the running when DEFCOM India has brought, industry, academia and the Defence on a common platform.

Four hundred delegates, including representatives from a 100 companies, are attending the two-day deliberations that have been divided into six technical sessions that focused on the challenges of technology and anti-technology.

100% e-ticketing for airlines

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has launched a new era in air travel as it bids farewell to the paper ticket with the industry’s conversion to 100 per cent electronic ticketing.

“Today we say goodbye to an industry icon. The paper ticket has served us well, but its time is over,” IATA’s Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said.

The achievement was due to four years of hard work by airlines around the world, which marks the beginning of a new, more convenient and more efficient era for air travel.

Over four years, IATA deployed a global team of 150 people to work with airlines and system providers around the world to facilitate implementation.

“We made 100 per cent e-ticketing a reality everywhere—from our largest hubs to small remote island airports with no electricity. It is an incredible industry achievement,” Bisignani said.

It may be recalled that the first e-ticket was issued in 1994. By 1997 IATA had adopted global standards for e-ticketing. But the evolution was slow and by May 2004, only 19 per cent of global tickets were electronic.

A paper ticket costs an average of US $10 to process versus US $1 for an electronic ticket. With over 400 million tickets issued through IATA’s settlement systems annually, the industry will save over US $3 billion each year, Bisignani claimed.

ETs can easily be changed and reissued without necessitating a trip to a travel agency or airline ticket office, besides 100 per cent ET eliminates lost tickets and enables a wide array of self-service options such as online and mobile check in.

“We are moving ahead with a further revolution—Fast Travel that will provide convenient self-service options from check-in to baggage tracing and re-booking,” the AITA CEO said.

While IATA will no longer issue paper ticket stock, IATA neutral paper tickets issued by travel agents before June 1 remain valid for travel under the conditions they were purchased.

Paper tickets may still be provided by an airline from its own offices or from a travel agent in the USA, although it is anticipated the volumes will be very low.

To complete the conversion, IATA has contacted 60,000 travel agents in more than 200 countries to collect the remaining unused paper tickets in the system—some 32 million worldwide. These will be securely reclaimed, destroyed and recycled, IATA stated.

Shortage of doctors hits India’s health mission

The ambitious National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) launched by the Government of India to provide medicare facilities in villages has failed to yield results due to shortage of doctors and paramedics.

“The multi-billion-dollar NRHM was launched three years ago, but India’s 6.5 lakh villages continue to face a shortage of doctors and paramedics,” the Planning Commission said.

An assessment report of the commission revealed that there was still a yawning gap between the requirement and availability of human resources in the rural health units at various levels.

The report said against the requirement for 21,490, there were only 5,910 specialist doctors were available at community health centres across the country.

The plan panel will shortly review the flagship rural health scheme, which was launched April 12, 2005 to provide effective healthcare facilities to the rural population.

The union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, the nodal agency for NRHM, has earmarked over Rs 120 billion for the mission in the current fiscal.

The country’s primary health centres (PHCs) are also understaffed. The plan panel said there were 31,381 doctors at these centres by the end of December 2007 as against 20,308 doctors engaged there before the flagship scheme was launched.

“There is a need to accelerate the process of appointment of doctors and nurses at a greater pace. Against the requirement of 66,059 nurses and midwives for the health centres, only 41,313 appointments have been made as against 29,139 such nurses already on the rolls,” the commission said.

As per details with the plan panel, 159,181 auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) have been appointed under the mission for sub-centres in rural areas against the need of 197,488. There were 133,194 ANMs when the NRHM was launched.

The health mission puts special emphasis on 18 states with weak public health indicators and infrastructure. Some of them are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.

However, health and family welfare ministry officials are satisfied with the progress made under the NRHM so far.

Some of the key goals of the mission are reducing infant mortality rate to 30 per 1,000 live births and maternal mortality rate to 100 per one lakh against 450 per one lakh live births by 2012 through promoting institutional delivery in the countryside.

An official estimate says half of India’s women still deliver babies at home and accounts for the world’s 20 per cent child mortality.

The mission has several projects—Janani Suraksha Yojana (save the mother project) and accredited social health activists (ASHAs)—to promote safe delivery and newborn safety.

India’s medical tourism to earn Rs 8,000 Cr

Easy access to visa facilities permitted by India to overseas patients coupled with the best emerging medical infrastructure in large and tertiary towns will fatten the country’s forex earning to an estimated Rs 8,000 crore by 2012, a new study has said.

Releasing the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) estimates, its President Venugopal N Dhoot pointed out that, currently, the earnings accrued through medical tourism annually are estimated at Rs 3,500 crore.

“The primary reasons as to why medical tourism would flourish in India include much more lower medical costs for various ailments such as bone narrow transparent, bye-pass surgery, knee surgery and liver transplant as compared to western countries,” Dhoot said.

As a result of higher and very expensive medical costs in the western countries, patients from economies of scale including Africa, Gulf and various Asian countries have started exploring medical treatment in hospitals located in various places in India.

Dhoot said that this is due to the country’s gearing up of its medical infrastructure to provide them non-subsidised medical treatment at much more lower costs which are many times considered reasonable.

The other reasons for excellent medical treatment are India’s strength of highly qualified medical professionals and even equally higher qualities of availability of nurses.

A comparison of treatment costs between India and other countries such as the US, the UK and Thailand:

Dhoot said that cost advantage is one of the reasons which works in favour of India, resulting movement of patients from various developing and developed countries.

The shift in the flow is due to its hospital infrastructure, which is not only confined to large metros but equally getting better in tertiary towns.

“Still other reasons for medical tourism getting widespread in India is because of its strength of traditional treatment in homeopathy, naturopathy, ayurvedic and unani, which are becoming popular because of their non-side effects,” the Assocham Chief said.

The prospects of medical tourism in India will also get a boost with the increase in health GDP ratio, which would amount to proliferation of new health facilities as well as their centres for patients to accommodate overseas patients as with increasing health facilities.

Don't force Tamil students to take up exams in English: Karunanidhi

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200806271860.htm

Tamil Nadu on Friday asked the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai not to force Tamil medium students to take up their exams in English, promising "full support" to the Corporation to hold exams in Tamil.

In a letter to his Maharashtra counterpart Vilasrao Deshmukh, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said that the Corporation, which was imparting primary education in Mumbai in eight regional languages, had asked the students of Tamil medium in Class VIII to take their exams in English, due to "certain administrative reasons."

"While Gujarathi and Kannada students can continue to write the exams in their respective mother tongue, it is discriminatory to ask the students of Tamil medium to write exams in English," Karunanidhi said in the letter.

"You may well appreciate the extent of difficulty and stress it could lay on the children to suddenly take their examinations in English after being taught in Tamil for seven years," he said adding Tamil Nadu was ready to offer whatever support the Corporation could ask for.

"In case the Corporation requires any assistance in the form of supply of text books/notes in Tamil language or Tamil teachers, the Government of Tamil Nadu is willing to extend it full support for the students of Class VIII," he said.

Imparting free education in the mother tongue was a "noble effort" and the Greater Mumbai Corporation should continue with the same, he said.

He also expressed his gratitude to the Corporation for its initiative, as it was "benefitting 15,000 Tamil students in 48 schools.

Inflation touches 7-year high of 8.75%

In what is more bad news for the hard-hit ordinary citizen, industry and policy makers alike, India’s annual inflation rate shot up to a seven-year high of 8.75 per cent for the week ended May 31, against 8.24 per cent for the week before.

The rate—which has been inching closer towards the double digit figure—was last higher at 8.77 per cent for the week ended Feb 10, 2001, reports IANS.

The current sharp rise in inflation rate was due to higher prices of both food articles such as vegetables, lentils, fruits, eggs and meat, as well as manufactured goods like edible oils, official data on wholesale price index showed on Friday.

Alarmingly, the data pertained to the week before the government allowed a steep hike in prices of petroleum products and its impact was yet to reflect on the index. Experts feel the fuel price hike would push the inflation rate by another 80 basis points.

Equally worrisome was the final data for week ended April 5, which said the annual inflation rate was actually 7.71 per cent and not 7.14 per cent as reported earlier, based on provisional data.

“The higher inflation rate was expected. It will certainly cross the nine-percent mark next week due to the hike in fuel prices,” Credit Rating Information and Services Chief Economist DK Joshi said.

Joshi said that the inflation will remain in this uncomfortable range for the next few months and added that it will shoot up further if oil prices continue to rise as the way it has over the past year.

The wholesale price data comes against the backdrop of India’s central bank hiking its short-term lending rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday to tighten money supply and curb inflationary expectations.

The spurt of almost 50 basis points in the inflation rate now could trigger a further tightening of the monetary policy, as indicated in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) statement after the rate hike.

“Monetary policy has to respond pro-actively to immediate concerns,” the RBI said.

“At the same time, it is critical at this juncture to demonstrate, on continuing basis, a determination to act decisively, effectively and swiftly to curb any signs of adverse developments in regard to inflation expectations,” RBI stated.

The unrelenting rise in prices and the steep hike in prices of petroleum fuels also prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to write to all ministers last week, urging austerity, besides asking state governments to help by lowering taxes on fuel.

Myanmar sets up disease surveillance system

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners have set up a system for early detection and reporting of potential disease outbreaks in Myanmar’s cyclone affected areas.

The Early Warning Reporting System (EWARS) has been established to support the country’s Health Ministry in providing quick and accurate information on diseases.

It collects information from health sector partners, verifying rumours of outbreaks as well as through formal reporting methods, WHO said.

The new system is now fully functional with more than 15 health NGOs providing daily reports, and the first bulletin is expected on June 10.

The warning system is particularly significant, as water-borne and vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue could pose a health challenge during the monsoons, WHO said.

“Displaced populations without the support of normal health services are more susceptible to such diseases,” the health agency stated.

The world health agency said that verifying information at an early stage allows prompt containment of diseases and prevents outbreaks.

WHO will provide technical support which includes briefing international and national medical teams that work in the cyclone-affected areas.

The organisation is also involved in developing a training curriculum, training of trainers, and provision of educational materials to various NGOs in the disaster affected areas, thereby assisting the new system.

The training focuses on prevention of common diseases such as malaria, dengue and diarrhea; water and sanitation; personal hygiene; and surveillance and reporting of key events at village levels.

Medical, Legal, Medicolegal Information for Doctors and Lawyers: Educational Institutions Cannot Hold Back Certificates : Madras High Court

Medical, Legal, Medicolegal Information for Doctors and Lawyers: Educational Institutions Cannot Hold Back Certificates : Madras High Court

Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association Helpline: Doctors plan two-hour strike to protest against attacks

Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association Helpline: Doctors plan two-hour strike to protest against attacks

Karnataka plans IT network in rural areas

The Government of Karnataka will soon come out with a policy to take the benefits of information technology (IT) to the people living in rural areas.

“We want IT firms to go beyond Bangalore and tier two cities to towns and villages for replicating their success story in India’s IT hub in rural areas,” the state IT and Science and Technology Minister K Subramanya Naidu said on Friday.

When investment and technology go to rural areas, development and growth will create local jobs, check migration and improve living standards of rural folks, he added.

As part of its uniform growth strategy, the government plans to set up computer training institutes in all village clusters across the state in partnership with the IT industry.

He said that the proposed rural IT policy will have a special package of incentives and concessions for the IT industry to set up business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in rural areas.

Computer training and skill development will be imparted to the rural youth under public-private initiative with the IT industry and academia, the IT Minister said.

“We are planning to take up projects such as rural tele-healthcare in primary health centres and school health in primary schools with the support of the IT industry for extensive use of computers, telecom network and broadband connectivity,” Naidu said at the fourth Indian Innovation summit 2008, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

In a bid to decongest a choked Bangalore and develop tertiary cities on a hub-and-spoke model, the state-run Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (Keonics) will build IT parks and electronic hubs in tier-two cities such as Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Shimoga, Hassan and Davangere.

Keonics will also provide support facilities to IT firms in software and hardware sectors and auxiliary units, while other state departments will build infrastructure such as roads, power, water and connectivity in the IT parks and electronic hubs, spread over 300 acres each.

These cities will be the new investment regions in the state to facilitate expansion of existing IT firms in Bangalore and attract new firms/investors for ensuring uniform development across the state in partnership with the central government.

Naidu extolled the IT industry, especially software giants such as Infosys and Wipro, for putting Bangalore on the world map and creating a global brand; as India’s tech capital, the city had become a innovation hub with over 100 research and development (R&D) institutes in every technology field.

“Sectors of the new economy such as IT and BT (biotechnology) have capitalised on the knowledge skills of the tech city. Innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT), space, aerospace, bio-sciences and nanotechnology have benefited the country,” he added.

Another slur on Haryana cops: SHO booked for rape

In yet another blow to the image of Haryana Police, a Station House Officer (SHO) was arrested on Thursday on charges of raping a woman who had come to him for protection.

Inspector Jai Singh, SHO of a police station in Karnal, was also suspended and an inquiry marked against him.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Karnal, A S Chawla, said it was this morning that Pooja from Bibi Jatanpur village of Indri accused the SHO of raping her in his quarters near the police station.

Pooja had a runaway marriage with Mewa Singh of Asandh. Fearing opposition from their families, the two had moved a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for protection.

Pooja used to meet her parents at the Nissing police station where Inspector Jai Singh was the SHO. She alleged that today when she went to the police station, he lured her into his quarters and raped her.

Tempers ran high as a large number of villagers gheraoed the police station and raised slogans against the SHO.

The situation was brought under control only when SSP A S Chawla and SDM Rajiv Mehta reached the spot and ordered medical examination of the girl. Later, the SHO was arrested on charges of rape. DSP, Karnal, Sudhir Bhoria, has been entrusted with the case.

Incidentally, this is the second case in the last few weeks when Haryana policemen have been accused of rape. Earlier, two policemen of Rohtak were arrested in mid-May, more than a month after allegedly raping Sarita, who later committed suicide.

'Msg Txting' Improves Kids' Literacy: Study

A new research that suggests text messages can improve literacy among children will probably cheer concerned parents who are worried to see their kid engrossed in texting messages.


Professor David Crystal believes that sending frequent texts helps children's reading and writing because of the imaginative abbreviations needed.

The finding is in stark contrast to fears that texting's free forms and truncated words herald the abandonment of traditional grammar.

"People have always used abbreviations. They do not actually use that many in texts but when they do they are using them in new, playful and imaginative ways that benefit literacy," Times Online quoted Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor, as saying.

Crystal's views will appear in his new book, 'Txtng: The Gr8 Db8'.

In one study due to appear in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, researchers asked 88 10 to 12-year-olds to compose text messages for various social scenarios.

Beverly Plester, a senior lecturer in psychology at Coventry University, and her colleagues found that using "textisms" -abbreviations such as "2nite" for "tonight" - was "positively associated with word reading, vocabulary and phonological awareness".

Source-ANI
THK/L

Naxal-prone Bihar police stations to be fortified

The Government of Bihar has decided to fortify all the 50 police stations falling under naxal- infected districts of Aurangabad and Gaya in central Bihar region,to help police counter naxal attack.

Officials said the government was forced to chalk out this plan in the light of reports from security agencies that the police stations in the naxal-prone district may face more attacks by the Maoists in near future.

The Maoists said to be running their “parallel government” in these districts have killed 22 policemen last year,an official report said.

All those police stations to be fitted with halogen lamps would now have barracks,watch towers,floating bridges and helipads,apart from linking them with the pucca roads,a state Home department official said.

There are 24 police stations in Gaya district and 26 in Aurangabad district. It was from Aurangabad district that the Maoists formally put the signature of their presence in Bihar by killing as many as 54 upper caste villagers in 1984.

Officials said a large number of hardcore ultras, including Pramod Mishra who was considered think tank of the organisation, have been arrested in a massive crackdown launched by the police in Bihar and Jhrakhand. It has annoyed the Maoists.

According to reports, at least four police stations under the Aurangabad districts will have helipad facility which will be used by the security forces in the time of crisis whereas eight bridges will be constructed in Gaya districts.

Deo, Madanpur, Rafiganj and Nabinagar under Aurangabad district and Barachatti, Mohanpur, Tekari,Fatehpur and Tankuppa police stations under Gaya district are considered the most naxal affected police stations of Bihar.

Protein That Halts Dementia in Alzheimer's Identified

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have discovered that a protein called cyclin-dependent kinase5 (Cdk5) is responsible for halting dementia characterized by Alzheimer's disease (AD). This protein curbs cell division in brain cells.


The researchers also found that when the "brakes" fail, dementia results.

The discovery by Rutgers researcher Karl Herrup and colleagues may pave the way for new ways of treating Alzheimer's disease, which affects up to half the population over the age of 85. Finding out Cdk's previously unexplained role in AD may offer new insights in to the basis of AD.

"It changes the logic from a search for a trigger that kicks off the dementia to the failure of a safety that has suppressed it," said Herrup, chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Herrup, who has long been seeking to unravel the mystery behind unrestrained cell cycling, is now looking at AD through the lens of cancer, and said that rampant cell division is linked with cancer mirrored in AD-related dementia.

In cancer, the seemingly uncontrollable cell division enables the disease to engulf normal body cells. Adult neurons, or nerve cells, don't normally divide. (Cancerous brain tumors do not grow from neurons but from glial cells.) Instead of producing new neurons in the brain, the cycling leads to cell death, which causes progressive dementia.

"Every cell wants to divide, and that basic urge never leaves the cell. Homeostasis in the brain has worked out a way to successfully suppress cell cycling, but with age even that highly successful program sometimes fails, resulting in a catastrophic loss of neurons," said Herrup.
Herrup's team experimented the protein family cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdk). These enzymes power the cell cycle, driving it forward through its various phases.


The scientists focused on one particular kinase - Cdk5 - termed "an atypical kinase" because they could find no involvement in propelling the cell cycle. They found that while it appears to be inert as a cell cycle promoter, Cdk5 in the nervous system actually functions to hold the cell cycle in check.

"Its mere presence helps protect the brain," Herrup said. "What we discovered is that Cdk5 acts as a brake, not a driver."

In their laboratory research, they examined the workings of Cdk5 in human AD tissues and in a mouse model. Normally, the protein resides in the nerve cell nucleus, but in the presence of AD - both in the mouse model and in the human tissue - the disease process drives the protein out into the cell's cytoplasm. This disrupts the status quo, overrides the brake and unleashes a chain of events that ultimately leads to the death of the cells and the resulting dementia.

"The ejection of Cdk5 out of the nucleus is probably related to the changed chemistry of the Alzheimer's brain and chronic inflammation that accompanies AD," said Herrup.

The researchers reported their findings in the in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Source-ANI
RAS/S

Umbilical Cord Blood Cell Transplants may Hold Cure for Lou Gehrig's

Lou Gehrig's disease is a progressive, usually fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons. It is the disorder that causes muscle weakness, atrophy throughout the body and respiratory failure three to five years after diagnosis.

During the study, researchers transplanted human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) cells into mouse models with ALS.

Cells were transplanted at three different dose strength levels -- low, moderate and high -- to determine the degree to which dose levels of transplanted cells might delay disease symptom progression and increase lifespan.

They found that the moderate-strength dose of HUCB cells was most effective in increasing lifespan and reducing disease progression.

"Our results demonstrate that treatment for ALS with an appropriate dose of mononuclear HUBC cells may provide a neuroprotective effect for motor neurons through active involvement of these cells in modulating the host immune inflammatory system response," said Svitlana Garbuzova-Davis, the study's lead author from the Centre of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at USF.

The research team said that modulating immune and inflammatory effectors with HUCB cells could have a protective effect on dying motor neurons.

However, the researchers said that the mechanism underlying the beneficial effect of hUBC cells for repairing diseased motor neurons in ALS still needs more clarification.

Researchers from University of South Florida have revealed that umbilical cord blood cells transplants may offer a treatment for patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"Future studies should look at multiple injections of smaller doses over time, in order to help translate this research to clinical trials," said co-author Paul R. Sanberg, PhD, DSc, director of the Centre.


The results are published online at PloS ONE (Public Library of Science).

Source-ANI
SRM

Vitamin D may Offer Relief in Chronic Back Pain

A new study has suggested that vitamin D may offer relief from chronic back pain.


According to Stewart B. Leavitt, MA, PhD, editor of Pain Treatment Topics and author of the report, "our examination of the research, which included 22 clinical investigations of patients with pain, found that those with chronic back pain almost always had inadequate levels of vitamin D. When sufficient vitamin D supplementation was provided, their pain either vanished or was at least helped to a significant extent."

Vitamin D is an important component for calcium absorption and bone health.

Inadequate vitamin D intake can result in a softening of bone surfaces, or osteomalacia, that causes pain. The lower back seems to be particularly vulnerable to this effect.

In a study of 360 patients with back pain, the researchers found that all the patients had inadequate levels of vitamin D.

However, after taking vitamin D supplements for 3 months, 95 pct patients showed improvement in back pain symptoms.

The currently recommended adequate intake of vitamin D - up to 600 IU per day - is outdated and too low. According to the research, most children and adults need at least 1000 IU per day, and persons with chronic back pain would benefit from 2000 IU or more per day of supplemental vitamin D3.

Vitamin D supplements interact with very few drugs or other agents, and are usually not harmful unless extremely high doses are taken. An extra dose of the vitamin D may provide relief from pain.
Leavitt said that vitamin D should not be viewed as a cure for all back pain and in all patients. It also is not necessarily a replacement for other pain treatments.


"While further research would be helpful. Current best evidence indicates that recommending supplemental vitamin D for patients with chronic back pain would do no harm and could do much good at little cost," he said.

Source-ANI
RAS/S

Inflation touches 11%, hits 13-year high

India’s worst fear has finally come true—its annual inflation rate crossed the double digit mark to touch the 13-year high of 11.05 per cent for the week ended June 7, up from 8.5 per cent the previous week.

Releasing the latest provisional inflation data, here, the country’s Commerce and Industry Ministry on Friday said that the jump was driven by steep rise in fuel, power, lubricants and aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices.

The country’s annual inflation touched the record high in the same week during which the central government had announced large hikes in prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas.

The wholesale price index (WPI) for the fuel, power, light and lubricants group showed a 7.8 per cent rise and accounted in a big way for the high inflation rate, though the WPI for food articles actually declined 1.1 per cent during the week.

The week ended June 7 also saw the WPI for light diesel oil rise 21 per cent, while liquified petroleum gas (LPG) jumped 20 per cent.

The week also saw ATF prices jump 14 per cent, while that of petrol, high speed diesel and bitumen went up by 11 per cent, 10 per cent and seven per cent, respectively.

The WPI for non-food items went up by 1.4 per cent, largely due higher prices of niger seed (13 per cent), raw cotton and mustard seed (four per cent), and raw jute and ginglee seed (two per cent).

The Ministry adjusted the provisional inflation figure of 7.33 per cent for the week ended April 12 to arrive at the final figure of 7.95 per cent.

The RBI made a surprise interest rate rise last week, its first in more than a year, after a government decision to increase state-set fuel prices and economists said more monetary tightening was likely in a bid to calm inflationary expectations.

The country’s apex bank—Reserve Bank of India—also raised interest rate rise last week, its first in more than a year, after a government decision to increase state-set fuel prices and economists said more monetary tightening was likely in a bid to calm inflationary expectations.

It may be noted that Prime Minister’s Economic Council Chairman C Rangarajan had warned of a possible double-digit inflation rate on Thursday.

Hot Summers Could Affect Wine-making in Parts of UK by 2080

Increasing summer temperatures could result in parts of southern England becoming too hot for wine-making by 2080, predicts a new book.


According to Emeritus Professor Richard Selley from Imperial College London, the book's author, if average summer temperatures in the UK continue to rise as predicted, the Thames Valley, parts of Hampshire and the Severn valley, which currently contain many vineyards, will be too hot to support wine production within the next 75 years.

"Instead, this land could be suitable for growing raisins, currents and sultanas, currently only cultivated in hot climates such as North Africa and the Middle East," said Professor Selley.

In addition, Professor determined that if the climate changes in line with predictions by the Met Office's Hadley Centre, by 2080, vast areas of the UK including Yorkshire and Lancashire will be able to grow vines for wines like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, which are currently only cultivated in warmer climates like the south of France and Chile.

Combining temperature predictions from the IPCC and the Met Office's Hadley Centre with his own research on UK vineyards throughout history, Professor Selley has predicted that the cool and intermediate grape varieties will be confined to the far north of England, Scotland and Wales by 2080, with 'warm' and 'hot' varieties seen throughout the midlands and south of England.

Explaining the significance of his new study, Professor Selley said, "My previous research has shown how the northernmost limit of UK wine-production has advanced and retreated up and down the country in direct relation to climatic changes since Roman times."
"Now, with models suggesting the average annual summer temperature in the south of England could increase by up to five degrees centigrade by 2080, I have been able to map how British viticulture could change beyond recognition in the coming years," he said.


Grapes that currently thrive in the south east of England could become limited to the cooler slopes of Snowdonia and the Peak District, according to Selley.

According to Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, "This research shows how the environment in the UK could be affected by climate change in a relatively short period of time."

"Increases in temperature over the course of this century could have a dramatic effect on what can be grown here, including vines," he added.

Source-ANI
THK/L

Wireless sensor EcoNet to monitor environment

A wireless sensor network (WSN) under development will not only collect data from remote environmental locations but also help monitor them anywhere in the world.

A University of Alberta research team recently launched EcoNet, a functional model of a wireless sensor network (WSN) for environmental monitoring in the display house at the University’s Agriculture and Forestry Centre.

Using a WSN, sensors can continuously monitor factors like temperature and luminosity and store and transmit data co-operatively and wirelessly with other sensors to generate data that can then be collected and made available to users virtually anywhere on the globe.

The overall framework of WSN can also be extended for use in other closely related scenarios such as monitoring potentially dangerous situations like hazardous waste disposal, or hard-to-witness phenomena such as ice cap movements in the Arctic.

The project is a collaboration between Olsonet Communications Corporation in Ottawa and University of Alberta.

Work on Jaipur-Gujarat petroline begins

The work on a 600-km pipeline to transport crude oil and gas from Barmer district in Rajasthan to the coastal district of Jamnagar in Gujarat has been started by Cairn India.

“The 600-km pipeline is the first heated and insulated pipeline in the country,” Cairn India’s Corporate Communications Unit Director David Nisbet said.

Speaking at an event to commence the construction work at Bevta in Banaskantha district near the Gujarat-Rajasthan border, Nisbet said that the pipeline will transport crude oil from the country’s biggest onshore oil field to refineries across India.

At their peak, Cairn India’s three major oil fields—Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya—in Barmer would produce 1.75 lakh barrels of oil a day and push up India’s domestic crude production by approximately 20 per cent, reports IANS.

In April, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry in India had shifted the delivery point for crude produced in Rajasthan from Barmer to Salaya at the Gujarat coast.

According to Nisbet, the oil field development work in Rajasthan is proceeding on schedule. The integrated upstream and the pipeline development are on course to produce oil from Mangala in the second half of 2009.

“The pipeline is designed to access an extensive existing pipeline infrastructure and refinery network, with a final coastal delivery point providing access to the majority of India’s refining capacity,” the Director said.

He further said apart from the crude oil, natural gas from the Raageshwari gas field will also run through this pipeline.

At least 32 intermediate power feeding and heating stations will be built along the length of the pipeline to help maintain the required temperature inside.

Official’s murder exposes governance in Bihar

Governance in Bihar suffered a serious setback after a senior administration official was murdered at his residence by some unidentified assailants on Sunday.

The victim Arvind Kumar Mishra was posted as Block Development Officer at Ariari block in crime-infested Sheikhpura district.

The killed official was busy preparing a report with regard to alleged large-scale irregularities in the appointment of teachers and other corruption cases informed sources said.

Although the investigating police are still to get any clue in the murder, informed sources said the killed officer was under tension for quite some time.

Sources said the BDO had to file an affidavit with regard to the alleged irregularities in the appointment of panchayat teachers in the Patna High Court on Monday but was killed before that.

Many suspect the corrupt-criminal nexus might have eliminated the BDO to prevent him expose the truth.

“We have taken the matter very seriously and ordered for a detailed probe to go into the bottom of the murder story,” the acting Home Secretary Aamir Subhani said.

The Bihar Administrative Service Association (BASA) has strongly condemned the murder of their colleague and sought a foolproof security for the officials posted in blocks.

“How can the government expect us to enforce the rules when we don’t have security”, BASA President Arun Chandra Mishra said. He demanded constitution of a special task force for the arrest of the culprits.

“The victim had expressed threats to his life from the corrupts, criminals and mafiosi and hence all those who are guilty of not providing him security despite his repeated pleas must also be punished,” the BASA Chief said.

This is the second incident in Bihar that BDO at the same Ariari block has been killed. Earlier on November 27, 2004, the then Ariari BDO Ashok Rajvats was killed by some criminals over a contracts dispute.

Malaria hits Assam, alert sounded

The North Eastern Indian state of Assam may be in the grip of a malaria outbreak. Following the death of 27 people due to the disease, the government has issued an alert to the health authorities in various parts of the state.

“Most of the deaths have taken place in the southern Karbi Anglong district, but the situation is well under control,” Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, while taking note of the whole situation.

Assam and the rest of the northeast are recognised as malaria zone with state and federal health authorities regularly keeping a close watch on the situation, reports IANS.

In 2007, a total of 141 people died of malaria in Assam and up to 60 of these deaths were reported by end May, the health minister said.

“We have distributed around three lakh medicated mosquito nets to the poor to keep mosquitoes away and more such nets are being made available for free,” Sarma said, adding that the centre had provided 1.5 lakh of these nets and the rest by the state government.

On Monday, Sarma ordered health authorities to sound an alert in parts of the central Kamrup district, one of the most malaria prone areas in the state.

He further said that special medical teams have been set up to monitor the situation round the clock.

Civilians aside, paramilitary troopers guarding the borders with Bhutan and Bangladesh, spread over thick jungles, have become victims of malaria. At least 50 security personnel have died of the disease in the past couple of years.

Petrol, diesel, LPG to cost more in India

Despite political opposition, the government on Wednesday allowed a 9.5-11 per cent increase in prices of cooking and transport fuels, but cut customs and excise duties on crude and petroleum products to ease the financial burden on state-run oil firms, reeling under high global oil prices.

This has been the highest hike allowed so far in fuel prices in the country—a move that has invited disapproval from both the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left parties that prop the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition.

The decision, taken at a marathon meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would result in petrol becoming dearer by Rs 5 per litre, diesel by Rs 3 and cooking gas by Rs 50 per cylinder.

The hikes take effect midnight Wednesday.

“There were no other options before the government. We were helpless. So the decision was taken to revise the prices,” Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told reporters here after the two-hour meeting at the prime minister’s official residence.

Deora also requested state governments to chip in to reduce the burden on the average citizen by lowering the sales tax on petroleum products, which is as high as 30 percent in some states.

Normal unleaded petrol is now expected to cost Rs 50.52 a litre in the national capital and Rs 55.51 in Mumbai, while diesel is expected to retail at Rs 34.76 and Rs 39.08, respectively, in the two metros.

The cabinet meeting also decided to bring down customs duties on crude oil to nil from five percent earlier, and on diesel and petrol to 2.5 percent from 7.5 percent. Excise duty has also been cut by Re 1 per litre on the two products.

The reduction in various levies will cost the exchequer Rs 226 billion during the remaining 10 months of the current fiscal, a Finance Ministry official said.

Three state-run oil retailing firms—Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum—would receive Rs 946 billion (US $22 billion) as bonds to ease the fiscal burden for selling petroleum products below cost.

Prices of petrol and diesel were last raised in India in February after close to 20 months. At that time crude oil prices were ruling at US $67 per barrel, against US $125 now. India imports a little over 70 percent of its crude oil needs.

Wednesday’s meeting was attended by Deora, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister A K Antony, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad and Transport Minister T R Baalu, among others.

Soon after the cabinet’s decisions was communicated to the nation, political parties deplored the price hike and said it would be suicidal for the ruling coalition that has entered an election year.

“This isn’t a marginal hike. It’s a substantial hike. It will have a deleterious effect. It will fuel inflation. So the Left parties will have a week-long protest from Thursday,” Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Prakash Karat said.

India’s annual rate of inflation has topped the worrisome eight-percent mark and stood at 8.1 percent for the week ended May 17.

“This is an economic terror unleashed on the country. The prime minister has put another burden on the people. This will cause an upheaval in the nation. It is a black day for the country,” BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said.

Also on expected lines was the reaction from the average citizen who felt that the hike would result in prices of other commodities going up as well, mainly essential items of daily consumption.

“I have to now juggle my entire monthly budget. The hike is too much to handle, especially for a middle-class housewife. I have to cut down on purchases,” said Minu Agarwal, a housewife in the national capital.

Ever since prices of global crude oil prices started going up—and even topped US $135 per barrel at one point—the government has been contemplating how to ease the burden on state-run fuel retailers, who are not permitted to revise prices unless permitted by the cabinet.

A series of meetings followed both within the government and outside since the ruling coalition was wary of the political fallout of hiking fuel prices, having entered an election year. The electoral setbacks to the Congress party in some states like Karnataka and ballotting due in some others in coming months made the task even more difficult.

YS Malik is now Haryana IT Secretary

Yudhvir Singh Malik, Forests and Environment Commissioner and Secretary in the Haryana government, will look after PK Chaudhery’s portfolio of Commissioner and Secretary of Information Technology.

Malik is also heading Department of Electronics, Industries and Commerce, Mines and Geology Departments.

A 1983 batch officer, Malik worked as Joint Secretary of Company Affairs in the Government of India from 2004-2008.

Delhi launches anti-dengue campaign

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has launched a massive anti-dengue campaign across the city following surface of the first case of the disease early this week.

“We started checking potential mosquito breeding grounds around the city. In all 3,200 workers have fanned out across the city,” MCD’s Health Officer NK Yadav said.

The MCD launched awareness campaigns across the city early this month and have roped in schoolchildren and teachers to spread the message. In addition the civic agency is also organising public meetings and exhibitions in all the 272 wards of the city, reports IANS.

“Public awareness campaigns are going on throughout the city. We are using mediums like television, radio and newspapers to build up an awareness campaign,” MCD Press and Information Director Deep Mathur said.

Last year a total of 548 dengue cases were reported.

“Most people don’t understand the problem. They don’t keep a check and don’t control rainwater stagnating in the open near their establishments. It is only when dengue strikes that they understand the problem. We need help from the public to control it as the problem starts from their respective houses,” Yadav explained.

“The present climate is conducive to breeding of the Aedes mosquito,” All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Community Medicine Professor Bir Singh said.

Thirty-four hospitals in the city have been identified for diagnosis and treatment of dengue and chikungunya cases.

Temephos, an insecticide that can help prevent breeding of the Aedes mosquito, is being distributed free of cost by MCD.

Saarc forestry centre opened in Bhutan

The Saarc Forestry Centre has been established at Taba in Thimphu on Wednesday. It will serve as a centre of excellence for forestry within the Saarc region and act as a nodal point for research, information and policy development.

Governing body comprising members from South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries will manage the centre. It is the first Saarc Regional Centre to be established in Bhutan.

The regional centre will help in providing information to improve the fragile mountain ecology through involvement of local communities and adopting sustainable forest management practices.

The centre’s main roles would be to provide a platform for regional networking and sharing of experiences in forestry among the Saarc member countries.

The centre will prepare a database on forestry research and training institutes of the member states, and would develop and host a Saarc forestry website. For this year, the centre will get a budget of about US $3.6 lakh.

Sangay Wangchuk, a Nature Conservation Specialist in the Forestry Department of the Bhutanese government has been appointed as the centre’s first director.

India tourism website bags best design award

The website of the Ministry of Tourism in India has been adjudged as the winner of the PC World Web Award 2008 in the tourism category for best design.

The Web award instituted by PC World aims at establishing a much-needed benchmark for the dotcom domain, thereby bringing to the fore a wide range of websites offering useful services that readers can use.

Out of the 100.1 million website operating in the World Wide Web as on March 2008, the Ministry of Tourism website was ranked 25,000 in April 2008 which is a significant achievement.

The Ministry has been utilising the Internet media to promote the “Incredible India” campaign both in India and abroad.

The website helps to build awareness about the richness of India and position India as a favoured tourist destination for foreign and domestic tourists.

To give a 360 degree approach to the publicity efforts the campaign theme on the Internet has revolved around capturing the theme “Colours of India”.

The Ministry is constantly innovating tools on the site, which was initially commissioned in English and later translated into Hindi, French and Japanese.

There has been significant increase in the traffic to the website, with an average traffic of around 10 lakh visitors a day.

For the award, the websites were evaluated using parameters like content, structure and technology to arrive at the winners.

The list was filtered on basis of preliminary evaluation of the sites to arrive at the final set of websites that were given to the 14 members jury comprising domain experts in the field of design, UL, security and technology.

Jaundice grips Orissa village

Jaundice has gripped Mayurbhanj district in costal Indian state of Orissa, with nearly 60 people falling prey to the diseases after consuming contaminated water.

The residents of Damsahi village near the district headquarter of Baripada, about 270 km from here, started falling ill Thursday, reports IANS quoting official sources.

Most patients are being treated at the local government hospital while some are at a temporary camp that had been set up.

Local councillor Santosh Chandra Gop alleged that the water being supplied to the village was contaminated.

“A team of doctors arrived here from the district headquarter Tuesday. The patients include people of all age groups. Members of 15 families have been affected,” said Nilanjan Rout, one of the doctors at the camp.

World population to hit 7 bn mark in 2012

While the world population will hit the seven billion mark in 2012, India will become the most populous nation by 2050; the country is expected to touch 1.5 billion in 2025, to come at par with China.

About 300 million will be added in the next four years to the current world population of 6.7 billion people, putting a huge strain on natural resources, reports IANS quoting US Census Bureau estimates.

According to the estimates, while the global population is growing at an annual rate of about 1.2 per cent, India shows a higher growth rate of 1.6 per cent.

India with present population of 1.15 billion ranks second worldwide and is followed by the US with 304 million people.

China, the most populous country with 1.33 billion people, on the other hand, has been able to restrict its population growth to 0.6 per cent.

The report further said that it took the world about 13 years to add the seventh billion.

By comparison, the number of people didn’t even reach one billion until 1800, Carl Haub, a demographer at the US Population Reference Bureau, said in the report released Thursday.

The population didn’t reach two billion until 130 years later. While the third billion took about 30 years to add, reaching the figure in 1959, the next three billion were added at a fast trot, taking about 40 years.

“You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,” Haub said.

The demographer ascribes the population explosion following World War II to medical and nutritional advances in developing countries.

Cultural changes, like more women in developing countries going to school and joining the work force, were slowing the growth rate, though it remained high in many countries.

The US Census Bureau projects the global growth rate will decline to 0.5 per cent by 2050. It updates projections each year on a variety of global demographic trends, including fertility and mortality rates and life expectancy.

The new census report comes at a time when the world is grappling with food shortages and record high oil prices, fuelled in part by growing demand from expanding economies in China and India.

However, expert demographers offer no consensus on how many people the Earth can sustain.

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, was recently quoted as saying that it depends on how well people manage the earth’s resources.

India’s water scene alarming: Study

Optimistic projections made by the Planning Commission of India in 2007 regarding availability of water in the country are incorrect, a study says.

Professor at the University of California TN Narasimhan in his study says the Indian government has “seriously overestimated” available and utilisable water resources.

Narasimhan’s study is in the June issue of the Journal of Earth Systems Science published by the Indian Academy of Sciences here.

He said these estimates were based on data provided by the Water Resources Ministry of India in 1999.

“It significantly underestimated evapotranspiration (ET)—a term used to describe the amount of water lost due to evaporation of surface water and transpiration by plants and trees,” the study said.

According to the study, the use of more realistic value for ET would reduce the amount of water available for human use by at least 37 per cent. This is the second time in 12 months that scientists have raised an alarm over water availability in India.

Last year NK Garg of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) called for urgent action before water scarcity becomes unmanageable.

He said the government has overestimated utilisable water by as much as 68 per cent and that India is unlikely to meet the annual demand of 897 billion cubic metres (BCM) projected for 2050, even after full development of utilisable water resources.

The source of water for all uses in India is the 3,838 BCM of rainfall it receives annually. Part of it enters rivers and streams, another part recharges the groundwater, and the third part is lost due to ET.

According to the Planning Commission’s calculations, the surface flow and recharge components add up to 60 per cent—or 2,301 BCM—of the total rainfall and this is available for human use. This implies that the remaining 40 per cent is lost due to ET.

Narasimhan, however, argues that this figure of 40 per cent is significantly lower than published estimates of ET for a number of regions in the world.

For instance, the ET is 90 per cent for Australia, 82.1 per cent for the Amazon basin, 82.8 per cent for France and between 60.5 and 66.4 per cent for the world’s total land area.

Narasimhan says an independent study—using a higher ET of 69 per cent—has estimated the available water in India to be 1,460 BCM or almost 37 per cent less than the government projection.

“Due to engineering and environmental constraints, only about half of the available water—or 712 BCM—is actually utilisable,” Narasimhan said.

“If we compare this 712 BCM of utilisable water with the current use of 634 BCM, it is clear that India is already at the threshold of over-development of water resources,” Narasimhan warned.

The study carried out by IIT-D’s Garg concluded that India has to be seriously concerned about shortage of water right now rather than a few decades from now.

According to Garg’s analysis published last year, almost all the basins in India would become water-deficit, thereby raising a big question about the availability of water for inter-basin transfer.

A IIT-Roorkee Hydrologist Muthaia Perumal said the study by Narasimhan should serve as a warning and that a credible estimate of ET for India is urgently needed to revise the estimates of utilisable water.

“Impounding more and more water for power production means that ET will further increase, thereby accelerating water scarcity,” Perumal maintained.

Isro to offer ‘Google Earth’ like service

Now Google will get a stiffer competitor in satellite imaging. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is planning to launch its own Google Earth like satellite images services within six months.

Giving details about the new service, Isro Chairman G Madhavan Nair, said that its Google Earth like services would exclude high risk locations that have been prohibited by the law from being imaged.

Nair further said its remote sensing satellites (RSS) provide imagery of the earth in a variety of spectral bands and with a resolution better than one meter. These data are received at about 20 different stations across various parts of the world, he added.

“The space organisation is ready to offer its capacities on a commercial basis and ring in its cash registers, after meeting the domestic requirement that calls for four to five launches a year,” the Chairman said.

He further said that Isro’s launch vehicles are efficient, reliable and cost-effective, and requires nearly 25 per cent less cost than what international agencies demand.

New IBM service to help cos identify ‘green’ IT

IBM has announced a new service—the IT Carbon Strategy Study—to help clients starting on their green transformation identify the most rapid areas of reduction in IT carbon emission across the infrastructure.

As a part of IBM’s Project Big Green initiative, the service enables clients to develop the guiding principles for becoming a greener enterprise and provides recommendations for the actions they can take to achieve those goals.

The service assesses the entire IT enterprise, not just the data centre, IBM said in a statement.

“Significant reduction in carbon footprint can be achieved in often-overlooked areas like desktop systems, networking components, server rooms and printers that can contribute more than 50 per cent of the total energy consumption for IT,” IBM’s IT Strategy and Architecture Services VP Jeanine Cotter said.

The company further said that the assessment includes both the data centre and the distributed environment including offices, retail stores and warehouses.

As few companies have existing infrastructure that has been built with energy efficiency as part of the design criteria, the new IBM service provides clients specific recommendations on project priorities with the biggest potential gains.

Projects could comprise the network, printers, distributed servers, facilities upgrades like heating, venting, and air conditioning (HVAC) and universal power supplies (UPS), desktop computers and monitors, the company said.

According to IBM, a typical three-to-four week study includes a kick-off workshop to agree on overall objectives and targets, data gathering and data analysis leveraging a carbon impact analysis tool to help assess cost benefit analysis.

Once the workshop is over, clients are presented with the results in a report including the specific findings and recommendations by the new service.

Medical scheme for TN employees

The Government of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday launched a medical health insurance scheme for state government employees.

Under the new scheme, a government employee can avail up to Rs two lakh towards medical expenses for four years. While the employee would pay an annual sum of Rs 300, the state government would bear the rest and also the 12.5 per cent service tax.

Tamil Nadu has become the first state in India to implement such a scheme. The state government has tied up with the private Star Health and Allied Insurance for this scheme.

According to state government sources, the beneficiaries can avail medical services, including surgeries, in 52 hospitals across the state.

The state government has also formed a high-level committee besides local committees to look into complaints and grievances of the beneficiaries regarding the scheme.

Till now, eight lakh government employees have applied for the scheme, state government informed.

Rat Meat, the New Delicacy in Demand in Southern India

Rat meat is selling like hot cakes in certain pockets in southern India.


There is a growing demand for the new delicacy hamlets in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Villagers swear nothing tastes better.

That is a new phenomenon for the country. Still the consumption is confined to the poorer sections of the society. Rat meat comes cheap, at Rs 2.50 per rat, it should be remembered.

Baskar (29) hailing from Melazhunjipettu, Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu, is hooked to the new found delicacy. “It (rat meat) tastes so good. I think those who taste it once will start eating it regularly. All our family members eat rat meat now,” he said.



Competing with the villagers are the arrack and toddy shop owners. The potent brew and cheap meat are a big hit among villagers.

The paddy fields are the tribals’ hunting ground. Snake-hunting Irula tribals, desperate to peddle their rodent-snaring skills, have succeeded in getting the meat on the kitchen menu of villages in Cuddalore district and the Puducherry Union Territory. The trend could catch on elsewhere too, reports Bosco Dominique in Times of India.

Each tribal hunter catches about 15 rats a day from the fields and divide their catch among villagers, arrack and toddy shop owners and save a few to take back home.


Said a young Irula tribal, Sakthivel, hailing from Cuddalore district: “Rat meat is one of the important food items of the Irulas. But other villagers too have acquired a taste for it and demand has gone up.’’ Several Irulas settled in T N Palayam on the outskirts of the Union Territory eke out a living by selling rats to the villagers.


“The meat tastes even better than chicken. The tribals are the only source for it and we are grateful. But, they should understand our love for it and the growing demand here and should go in for large scale hunting of rats,” Viswanathan, one of villagers said.


Confirming the growing demand, Raje (45), another tribal settled in the region, said his day’s catch of rats would be sold out in a trice. But catching a rat is a laborious task. “The hunters use a pot to blow smoke into a rat hole and wait for long hours to force them out of hiding and then catch them alive,” said Sakthivel.


According to dieticians, rat meat is protein rich. Several international research institutes, which have studied rat meat, vouch for it.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L

Earth cracks in UP seismic related: Expert

Motion of a massive granitic body under the earth could be the probable reason behind alarming cracks on the earth crust that have created a panic like situation in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

“If this granitic craton motion is changed due to some tectonic reason, one may see subsidence at large scale—since a fault is present along Kanpur-Lucknow—there could be danger of large surface deformation,” cautioned an US based Indian scientist Ramesh Singh.

The effect of motion of this block will be reflected in widespread cracks, he said. Singh is a Professor at George Mason University in Washington and vice chair of GeoRisk Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

He further said that the Government of India should monitor seismic activities in the area to avert any major disaster due to this motion.

Singh, who had extensively studied the seismology in this part of UP during his stint at IIT Kanpur as a Professor said if the orientation of such long cracks was in the east-west direction, then the cracks could be due to stress on the surface of the earth due to motion of this massive craton (granitic body) exposed near Jhansi.

He said this massive body underlying the region is inclined towards northeast with depth reaching 300-500 metres near Kanpur and 1,200 metres in Lucknow.

About 18 months back, scientists observed a shift in the position of the Sangam—the confluence of rivers Ganges and Yamuna and mythical Saraswati near Allahabad—and thought it was due to the sediment load in the rivers or due to plate motion, Singh said.

“Now, the appearance of large widespread cracks is clear evidence of neo-tectonic activities associated with the building of stress in this region and we must monitor seismic activities along Kanpur-Lucknow and Moradabad faultlines,” the Professor said.

Singh said he initially suspected that the cracks might be due to subsidence as a result of excessive groundwater withdrawal but ruled it “since the cracks were seen on a regional scale in many parts of Kanpur, Hamirpur, and Allahabad.”

The formation of cracks on the earth continues to affect various districts of UP and two villages near Lucknow are the latest to witness long fissures on the surface.

Fields in Kakori block’s two villages, Dullu Khera and Vader Khera, about 10 km from Lucknow, have developed wide cracks up to 250 metres long, officials said.

Besides the villages in Lucknow district, six districts of Uttar Pradesh have been witnessing this phenomenon for about a week.

Everonn to impart IT training in Andhra schools

Everonn Systems India has received Letter of Intent (LoI) from Andhra Pradesh School Education Department for the implementation of computer aided learning in 405 high schools in the state.

The company won the bid with stiff competition from Educomp, NIIT and five other players.

“The project is based on build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model whereby Everonn will create labs, teach students and teachers,” Everonn Systems GM- IT Chandrabanu said.

The total value of computer aided learning project is Rs 30 crore for a five-year term and is based on sharing model.

The company plans to sign an agreement with state School Education Department shortly. And with this order, the total number of school where computer aided learning is to be taught increases to 3,569.

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The company is planning to provide computer aided learning to 4,000 schools in FY 2008-09.

“In 2007-08, Everonn Systems India has trained around 6.8 lakh students and in FY 2008-08, the company is planning to provide computer aided learning to 4,000 schools in FY 2008-09,” Chandrabanu said.

The company is presently providing computer training in Gujarat, Goa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, UP, Karnataka and Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Korean Researchers Working on Artificial Virus for Targeted Drug Delivery

Researchers at the Yonsei University, Seoul, capital of South Korea, are working on an artificial self-assembling virus that could be used for targeted delivery of drugs to cells.


Self-assembly is building a virus protein by protein, a huge task. But Koreans have succeeded.

They demonstrated the transport of the fluorescent chemical "nile red" into cell cytoplasms and nuclei - a very nifty tool for experimental anti-cancer medications, since the nucleus (as the name suggests) is the central point for many cell functions. Rather than flooding your system with oral or injected medicines and simply hoping that enough gets where it needs to be, a pharmacological smart-bomb can be delivered direct to the nucleus by an escort of artificial invaders, writes Luke McKinney in Daily Galaxy.

The viruses also have applications in gene therapy, the idea that debugging your DNA can help avoid or even eliminate some sicknesses. The whole point of a virus is to hijack your molecular machinery to produce more copies of itself, which it does by editing your DNA code. Artificial viruses could be programmed to use the same mechanisms for slightly more desirable results, as demonstrated by the team's incorporation of siRNA (small interfering RNA) into the artificial virus. Gene knockdown experiments indicated high transfection efficiencies, that is, they it worked.

In January this year, it was reported that researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and The Scripps Research Institute in California were designing an artificial viral shell as a valuable nano-container for pinpoint drug delivery, molecular computing components, and a host of other applications.
Artificial capsids could act as cargo containers that deliver drugs to targeted areas of the body, vessels that shuttle replacement genes to their new homes in the genome as part of gene therapy, or tiny enclosed laboratories for doing chemical reactions or building molecular computer parts, it was said.


The size of artificial capsids "is very important. It will determine which molecules we'll be able to pack inside the container. Small containers will allow for drug delivery, big ones for delivering proteins and very big for the delivery of genes," Technion chemist Ehud Keinan had noted.

Source-Medindia
GPL/L

Automatic baggage checking at Delhi airport soon

The Indian capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport has begun trial runs for an ‘inline baggage system’ that would not only enable baggage to get checked and assigned automatically while passengers wait for their boarding passes but also do away with X-rays.

The airport will install the system for all its eight baggage rows at the international terminal, reports IANS quoting a senior airport official.

While the inline baggage system will start working for two rows from July 1, six others will start three weeks later, a spokesperson of the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), the airport developer of the Delhi airport, said.

“This would ease overcrowding at the manual X-ray machines,” the official said, adding that the new system was expected to bring respite to passengers.

“Once we have the two rows for inline baggage system by July 1 and six others in the next three weeks, passengers can directly walk to the check-in counter and receive their boarding pass while the baggage gets checked and assigned automatically,” he explained.

The inline baggage system is a combination of conveyor belts, bar code readers and inline baggage sorters. The passenger also need not stand in a separate queue for X-ray screening of bags before checking in.

“When the passenger deposits his baggage at the check-in counter, a modular system weighs and transports the luggage to a conveyor belt. Once the baggage is assigned a position, it proceeds to a security checkpoint,” the official informed.

The new system enables security agencies to segregate suspicious bags from the in-feed by high-speed sorting conveyors that deliver bags to an off-line inspection area. “Only those passengers, whose baggage is brought to the inspection area, need to be present for manual inspection,” the spokesperson said.

DIAL had last month assured Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia that congestion at the airport here would be eased by June-end.

However, it sought more employees to supervise security and immigration checks. The government has provided additional manpower for the Delhi airport.

Delhi airport’s domestic and international sections handle about 20.4 million passengers annually. The number is expected to rise to 37 million by 2010 and 100 million by 2030.

According to DIAL Deputy Chairperson Kiran Kumar Grandhi, the airport handles passengers beyond its annual capacity of 12 million.

Additional relief is in the offing with the third runway expected to become operational by August this year. The international terminal (Terminal-2) would be revamped by July.

Besides, the Haj terminal would be upgraded by October and would be used for international operations from January next year.

A new Terminal-3 would come up by 2010, which would be an integrated terminal. It would handle about 34 million passengers, the spokesperson said.

Found: magic bullet to kill acute diarrhoea

The discovery of an inexpensive compound could virtually sound the death knell of diarrhoea, which kills up to 2.5 million children annually in the developing world.

The Texas University team that made the discovery described it as a ‘magic bullet’ that would not only save millions of lives in the developing world, but would also save billions of dollars that are lost annually.

The major share of these fatalities is being accounted by enterotoxigenic E coli (ETEC) strains, according to an article in Clinical Microbiology Reviews.

The compound targets acute and virtually untreatable diarrhoea caused by ETEC and other bacteria strains.

They produce toxins that stimulate intestinal linings to secrete excessive fluid, said Stanley G Schultz, a member of the Texas team.

During pre-clinical tests, the compound was associated with a significant reduction in intestinal fluid secretion in an animal model of bacterial diarrhoea.

It was also linked to reduced fluid build up during laboratory tests on human colon cells. It caused significant decrease in fluid secretion without apparent toxicity.

This unique approach to the treatment of ETEC diarrhoea works by interrupting the diarrhoea-causing chain of events that occur when bacterial toxins enter the intestinal tract.

The compound slows the transmission of information in the epithelial cells lining the intestines. Consequently, molecular mediators regulating the secretion of salt and fluid in the gut do not get fully activated.

“While this research looks extremely promising as a preventive or therapeutic intervention in Third World diarrhoeal disease and travellers’ diarrhoea, much work remains to be done to move into clinical trials and eventual therapeutic approval,” co-author of the study Ferid Murad said.

In the event of an earthquake, typhoon or other catastrophe, this potential diarrhoea treatment could be used to treat ETEC outbreaks caused by faeces contaminated food and water supplies, Murad said.

The compound can be placed in a pill for adults and in a liquid for children.

The results of pre-clinical tests appeared in Monday online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Link Between Cancer and Alcohol Uncovered

European researchers are reporting that the clue to why some alcoholics develop cancer lies in the genes.


The researchers found that two genes present in the body work to prevent development of mouth and throat cancers in alcohol drinkers. The absence of these genes increases the risk of developing these cancers.

Researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France looked at 9,000 people for this study and found that two variants of a gene called ADH were responsible for lowering the risk of developing mouth and throat cancer.

The details of the study are published in Nature Genetics.

Source-Medindia
RAS/L

Gurgaon launches hi-tech policing system

Taking the e-Governance initiative at the forefront and focusing on the IT savvy population of Gurgaon city, the police here on Tuesday launched an online Citizen-Centric Policing System to enable the filing and tracking of complaints.

A snap of the Gurgaon police siteNot only this, the police would also respond to an SMS sent by a person in distress and zero-in on the location from where it was sent to rush assistance, reports IANS.

Police have also started installing hi-end Internet Protocol (IP) CCTV cameras at crucial locations in the city. All police vehicles, including the control room vans, are being fitted with global positioning system (GPS) locators.

The CCTVs and police vehicles have been hooked to a broadband-based online software surveillance system that senior officers can access on their laptops even while on the move.

Police plan to install about 110 such cameras in next two months, and 5,000 by 2010.

“The initiatives were aimed at improving the comfort levels of the people, including senior citizens and women who were not in a position to venture out of their homes on their own,” Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mohinder Lal said while launching the new system.

Those working with BPOs and MNCs who did not have enough time to visit police stations would also benefit from the online policing system.

“We have floated a website at which the people in distress can file their complaints and even get the status of the action taken on their complaints without moving out of their homes or offices,” Lal said.

The Commissioner said that people can also SMS their complaints or report suspicious movements on a specially allotted police mobile number 9717595423.

The police of the concerned area would be informed and action would be taken promptly, he added.

According to Lal, all the written complaints filed in the police stations would be digitised online and a printout FIR would be given to the complaints.

http://www.gurgaonpolice.net/

Website for Jharkhand ex-servicemen soon

Ex-servicemen of Jharkhand would soon have a website of their own. It will contain latest database of retired personnel of the defence services, like Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, residing in the state.

The website, conceptualised and designed under the supervision of the 23 Infantry Division of the Indian Army, will also provide information on the latest benefits and incentives doled out from time to time by different offices of the government.

“The first of its kind initiative will have the facility of accepting complaints from the ex-servicemen regarding their grievances in receiving required post-retirement benefits,” the Infantry Division General Officer Commanding (GOC) Maj Gen AK Singh said.

He further said that it will allow the aggrieved persons to keep a watch on various stages of disposal of their grievances.

Speaking to iGovernment, Lt Col RK Singh of the same Division said that complaints and grievances can be lodged on the website by any ex-servicemen from anywhere. The website is expected to go live by first week of July.

He also said that the website will assist ex-servicemen to know about the medical benefits available to them and the vacancies where they could apply for.

There are around 25,000 ex-servicemen in the state. They, however, often remain unaware of latest incentives offered to them by the central government or the state government or even the Defence Ministry.

“The website could prove to be of great help who do not frequent to the local defence offices, as they can have it just at the click of the mouse,” Maj Gen Singh said.

He said that that over 95 per cent of database about ex-servicemen from the state has already been compiled, while for the rest ex-servicemen welfare boards situated at different districts have been asked to furnish the required details at the earliest.

According to Army officers, every detail of the ex-servicemen would be posted on the website so that it could be accessed by their known ones across the globe.

Underlining the need of such a high-tech facility for ex-servicemen, the GOC said that ex-servicemen usually remain in dark about latest incentive schemes until they come in touch with serving staff.

“The Government of India recently launched a scholarship scheme for the ward of ex-servicemen. But I am sure that majority of them would still be not aware of it,” Maj Gen Singh claimed.

Decks clear for seaplane operations in India

Ninety-eight years after the French engineer Henri Fabre invented the first seaplane, India on Tuesday announced a detailed operational and safety norm paving way for take off and landing of the ‘floating aircraft’ in the country.

The Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) issued by the country’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is expected to boost tourism in the island territories of the country.

Besides, it would also help coral islands like Lakshadweep improve inter and intra-island connectivity without putting any additional pressure on their scarce land resource.

dsc_9138.jpgHowever, the DGCA notification bars operators from night operations of seaplanes or operations under the Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) conditions at water aerodromes.

IFR are a set of regulations and procedures for flying aircraft in low visibility conditions using data provided by his instruments or by the Air Traffic Control.

The CAR, issued under Rule 133(B) of the Aircraft Rules, 1937, mandates that an operator will need to obtain a permit for non-scheduled passenger services or for charter operations for offering the seaplane service in India.

With the country having no prior experience in running seaplane operation, the CAR also makes it necessary for the operators to obtain ‘airworthiness’ certificate for each seaplane from the DGCA.

Seaplane operation is unique in nature and has its peculiar specialisation. The take-off and landing operations from waterbed with varying winds and rapidly changing meteorological conditions pose a challenge to pilots operating seaplane.

“It is a specialised operation and therefore, pilots engaged in this role are required to be given specific role oriented training,” the CAR states.

According to the DGCA notification, while pilots would need to conduct a detailed check of the aircraft before take-off, a detailed pre-takeoff and pre-landing briefing for passengers has also been made mandatory.

“This is important to equip them with adequate information on survival techniques in case of deep impact with water,” a senior DGCA official said.

Besides the pre-takeoff briefing as mandatory even in the case of normal airplanes, the CAR mandates that seaplane operator shall set-up a passenger briefing room for a pre-boarding audio-visual briefing of passengers.

Seaplanes tend to come to rest inverted in water accidents or incidents but can remain afloat for long periods if the floats are not breached.

Specifying the pilot qualification the notification says that since seaplane services does not exist in the country, pilots with a general flying experience of over 250 hours would need to undergo a minimum 10 hours of special training programme.

The special seaplane training includes a minimum of five hours dual instruction experience, and another five hours of take-offs and landing experience as sole occupant of the seaplane.

The experience includes a certain minimum runs of taxiing, sailing and docking. However, in case of two crew aircraft, the pilot also needs takeoff and landing experience as pilot-in-command (PIC), the notification says.

It may be recalled that while recognising seaplane services as part of the civil aviation sector, the Government of India had recently increased the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap in the sector.

What is a Seaplane?
A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that “a seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft designed to take off and land (alight) on water.”

Seaplanes can be divided into separate categories such as floatplanes, flying boats, and amphibians. These aircraft are occasionally called hydroplanes, a term rarely used in English.

The word ‘seaplane’ is used to describe two types of air and water vehicles—the floatplane and the flying boat.

The Floatplane
A floatplane has slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage. Two floats are common, but many floatplanes of World War II had a single float under the main fuselage and two small floats on the wings.

Only the ‘floats’ of a floatplane normally come into contact with water. The fuselage remains above water.

The Flying Boat
In a flying boat, the main source of buoyancy is the fuselage, which acts like a ship’s hull in the water. Most flying boats have small floats mounted on their wings to keep them stable.

The term ‘seaplane’ is used by some to refer only to floatplanes—aircraft with floats as landing gear—with the flying boat being a distinct type of craft.

An amphibious aircraft can take off and land both on conventional runways and water. A true seaplane can only take off and land on water.

Quick Facts
Channel: This is a defined rectangular area on a water aerodrome, intended for landing and take-off run of aircraft along its length.

Floating Platform: It is a defined platform anchored inside protected waters meant for embarkation and disembarkation of passengers or cargo by seaplane.

Water Aerodrome: The defined area on land or water—including any buildings, installations and equipments—intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure and movement of aircraft.