Tripura gets Rs 258 Cr financial discipline award

Agartala: The central government has awarded Rs 258 crore to Tripura for being the best state in terms of financial management, officials said here on Thursday.

"As per the guidelines of the 12th Finance Commission, the state government had introduced a fiscal responsibility and budget management (FRBM) system and maintained a strict financial discipline among all departments," state Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury said.

"Of the Rs 258 crore, the government has already received Rs 68 crore and the centre reduced the interest of central loan from 16 per cent to 7.5 per cent," he said.

A report of the FRBM would be tabled in the winter session of the Tripura assembly, beginning on Friday, reports IANS.

The 12th Finance Commission was constituted to make recommendations for distribution between the union and the state governments of net proceeds of shareable taxes and other revenues besides consolidated funds of states. It submitted its report to the central government in November 2004, making recommendations for the period 2005-10.

"The Tripura government has no revenue deficit since 2000, and we are holding meetings every three months to review the financial management," Chowdhury said.

$150,000 ADB aid for anti-flood measures in Assam

Manila: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is extending a US $150,000 technical assistance grant to help lay the groundwork for a project designed to improve Assam's shields against flooding.

The project also aims to strengthen the state's policy, planning, and institutional framework to address the problems with a long-term strategy, an ADB release said.

Another US $750,000 grant will be provided by the Multi-donor Trust Fund under the Water Financing Partnership Facility, reports IANS.

The fund, administered by the ADB, is contributed by the governments of Australia, Austria, and Norway. Additional counterpart financing of US $230,000 is being provided by the Assam government.

India is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to floods and land erosion. Assam is especially vulnerable with 90 per cent of its agricultural and urban land located in flood-prone areas.

The Indian government has developed a policy framework for integrated flood management but major gaps continue to exist between the national framework and actual implementation at the state level, ADB said.

Dublin launches 'cities linked' networking tool

Dublin: The Dublin City Council has launched a new online networking tool designed to create a professional, business and social network between city officials and administrators and the business community.

Developed by the International Relations Unit of Dublin City Council, the website facilitates the creation of groups of interest, sharing of resources, uploading of images and documents and notification of upcoming events.

It is an opportunity to exchange ideas, share resources and network online, 24/7, reports ePractice.

Besides supporting two channels, the Union of Capitals of the European Union (UCEU) and Cities of the Isles network (Coti), it plans to integrate further channels soon.

The website provides an opportunity for city professionals such as planners, architects, engineers to network online with their counterparts in other cities across the globe.

Schools in UP district start literacy movement

Lucknow: Nearly 300 schools in an Uttar Pradesh district have initiated a new literacy movement under which the students will have to teach at least one illiterate as a part of their syllabus.

The campaign 'Ek chatra ek nirakshar' (one student for every illiterate) is a brainchild of education department authorities in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly district, where 300-odd schools, both government-run and private, are located, reports IANS.

According to officials, the campaign has been included in the syllabi of students of class 9 to 12. In order to ensure proper participation of students, the authorities have decided to allot marks to students involved in the campaign.

"This move has been taken to create a sense of healthy competition amongst the students, who will strive to score better in their annual progress report cards," Bareilly District Inspector of Schools (DIOS) Rakesh Kumar said.

Although the campaign has been initiated on an experimental basis, it will be launched in a full-fledged manner from the next academic session, officials said.

Nearly one lakh students are involved in the campaign that aims to cover over two lakh illiterates across Bareilly district, some 250 km from Lucknow, according to officials.

"NGOs, officials of the district literacy committee and other departments are helping us in locating the illiterates and will also assist us giving marks to students after conducting a field survey, taking feedback from the locals taught by the students," Kumar said.

Under the campaign, students of class 9-12 will teach the illiterates at least twice a fortnight, officials said.

The central and the state governments have lauded the initiative undertaken by the schools in Bareilly.

"When we informed the officials of the Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry, seeking their suggestions to strengthen the campaign, they said the movement was the best way to spread literacy across the country," Kumar said.

A proposal to include the campaign in the syllabus of Uttar Pradesh board has also been forwarded to the state education authorities.

"Undoubtedly it is a novel way to weed out illiteracy that hampers development of a nation," Uttar Pradesh Board Secretary Prabha Tripathi said.

"We are contemplating how the campaign can be launched in others schools of the state," she added.

The literacy rate in Uttar Pradesh, 57.36 per cent, is below the national average of 65.4 per cent, according to the 2001 census.

Eight states—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra—had more than 15 million illiterates each and accounted for 69.7 per cent of the illiterate population of the country, the census had reported.

HC debars Jharkhand CS from tendering process

Ranchi: Jharkhand Chief Secretary AK Basu will no longer participate in any tender processing, whatever important it may be. The Jharkhand High court has debarred him and other four senior officers from representing in any tender committee.

The court's directive followed hearing on a tender process, relating to installation of 17,000 handpumps in 2006, in which it found the role of officials including Basu, who was then Principal Secretary of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department (DWSD), and other four members 'unjustifiable' and 'unreasonable'.

In an order last week, the court has said that the committee had awarded the tender to 'interested parties' instead of the one who had qualified legitimately.

It has also directed the government to take appropriate measures against the tainted officials, who had favoured private individuals while allocating the tender.

Other officials who have been debarred from any future tender process include Chief Engineer Surendra Prasad Singh, Superintending Engineer Nirmal Kumar Kedia, Special Secretary-cum-internal Financial Advisor Shashikar Samant and Regional Chief Engineer DK Bhagat of the DWSD.

Hearing an appeal petition filed by one BK Singh, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra and DK Sinha also asked the government to give an understanding in this connection by November 27, the next date of hearing of the case.

In his petition challenging the tender committee decision, Singh pointed out that the government had issued a centralised tender for installing 17,000 handpumps across the state in the ratio of 4:3:2 to the bidder, who had their own deep boring vehicles (rig machine) in Jharkhand; to those having their vehicles outside the state; and to those who did not have their own vehicle.

However, the division bench observed that the contract was awarded to contractors in violation of the tender preconditions. It said that it would not be appropriate to quash the tender, as a majority of work has been executed. However, some decision required to be taken so as to discourage illegal practice by the government officials.

Device works better than drugs for atrial fibrillation

New breakthrough reported for atrial fibrillation patients
A common irregular and often rapid heart rhythm is known as atrial fibrillation or A Fib. Roughly 2.2 million Americans are suffering from some form of heart rhythm disorder. In atrial fibrillation, the heart's two small upper chambers (the atria) vibrate irregularly instead of beating effectively. Blood is also not pumped fully out of them, so it may clot more readily. A patient can suffer a stroke if a fragment of clotted blood in the atria leaves the heart and lodges in an artery in the brain. Doctors have known for years about the link between atrial fibrillation and strokes.

The regular heart rhythm is set by a "pacemaker" in the atrium, the SA node. This specialized group of heart cells discharges in a regular orderly fashion millions of times over a person's lifetime. In atrial fibrillation, the SA node discharges electrical impulses in an irregular fashion, resulting in irregular, disorganized, chaotic, and very rapid atrial contractions. Approximately 15 percent of strokes happen in people with atrial fibrillation.

As we age the likelihood of developing atrial fibrillation increases. Today three to five percent of people over 65 have atrial fibrillation and it is even more common in the age group of 80 years. In younger people atrial fibrillation can crop up without any underlying heart disease at all. Some of the causes of atrial fibrillation are overactive thyroid, alcohol use, or pulmonary embolism - a blood clot in lungs and pneumonia. Atrial fibrillation can occur in several different patterns such as intermittent (paroxysmal), persistent and permanent.

People with atrial fibrillation can use medical therapy to regulate the heart rhythm, drugs such as sotalol, amiodarone, or digoxin. These drugs have some disadvantages, such as lack of efficacy, side effects, or narrow therapeutic window, requiring frequent monitoring of doses.

Researchers have long sought a way for patients to avoid having to use these drugs, by destroying some of the aberrant cells in the SA node. A device known as a catheter ablation tool has been used for this purpose, but is not FDA approved.

Presently,
the NaviStar ThermoColl Catheter from J&J’s Biosense Webster unit
is being used to treat atrial flutter in the United States but there
are no ablation catheters approved for marketing by the U.S. FDA for
the cure of atrial fibrillation.

Though doctors have been using such a device to control atrial fibrillation in patients, there had never been a study demonstrating how such technology performed compared to conventional drug therapy for atrial fib.

In a new study Johnson & Johnson’s catheter ablation device outclassed drug therapy for atrial fibrillation. The study, which was a randomized controlled study conducted on 167 people, patients received either catheter ablation treatment or drug therapy. The ablation group showed a 75 percent drop in atrial fibrillation recurrence, compared with 21 percent for patients who received anti-arrhythmic drugs.

Researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans that after nine months' followup, patients undergoing the catheter ablation therapy would have fewer serious side effects than those who were receiving medication treatment.

An FDA advisory panel is planned to meet November 20 to possibly approve J&J's application for an atrial fibrillation indication for the catheter device.

Did you know?

Atrial fibrillation sometimes occurs after cardiothoracic (open heart) surgery, but frequently resolves in a few days. The symptoms of this disorder include weakness, lack of energy or shortness of breath with effort, and chest pain.

More at http://interactmd.com/content/device-works-better-drugs-atrial-fibrillation-0

Himachal Food & Civil Supplies Dept to go digital

Shimla: The Government of Himachal Pradesh will computerise its Food and Civil Supplies Department to facilitate transparency and efficiency in the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the hilly Indian state.

"All the processes right from procurement of food grains to the actual distribution to the people would be computerised," Food and Civil Supplies Additional Chief Secretary Harinder Hira said.

All the fair price shops would be provided with small computers having detail of family members, entitlement of food grains and fingerprints of all ration card holders, besides a beneficiary entry would be made automatically in the stock through the computer.

"Everyday data regarding distribution of food grains and remaining stock would be sent to the main computer installed in the District Food and Supply Controller (DFSC) office. This would prevent any manipulation of stock entries by the sales man," Hira said.

She further added that this system would be implemented on pilot basis in one of the districts and then would be rolled out in other districts.

The Additional Chief Secretary said that computerised system would be in place to monitor fair price shops operation leading to accurate distribution of food grains.

Besides eliminating bogus and duplicate cards and ration shops would have accurate stock position on daily basis and the information could be disseminated to beneficiary through various means such as voice supported system, Internet and SMS through mobile so that dealers cannot cheat consumers.

She said that it would reduce and eliminate any kind of duplicity, redundancy and discrepancy in allotment and distribution of food grains, besides checking incidence of diversions of food grains.

"Better reconciliation procedures would bring about uniformity in PDS procedures by complete integration across the state, district, block and fair price shops," Hira said.

7 reasons not to mess with children.

7 reasons not to mess with children. 

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. 

The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. 

The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. 

Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. 

The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'. 

The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?' 

The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'. 

  



A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. 

As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. 

The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.' 

The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like.' 

Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.' 

  



A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. 

After explaining the commandment to 'honour' thy Father and thy Mother, she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?' 

Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, 'Thou shall not kill.' 

  



One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. 

She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, 'Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?' 

Her mother replied, 'Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.' 

The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, 'Momma, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?' 

  



The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. 

'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.' 

A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.' 

  



A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.' 

'Yes,' the class said. 

'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?' 

A little fellow shouted, 
'Cause your feet ain't empty.' 

  



The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: 

'Take only ONE . God is watching.' 

Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. 

A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples.' 

  



It doesn't matter how many people you send this to, just remember if it made you laugh, your friends will laugh

Risk-adapted strategy shows promise in CLL

Mayo Clinic researchers have published a paper outlining a risk-adapted strategy to treating CLL. This is the first trial asking whether some patients with the disease are better served by taking chemotherapy soon after diagnosis, or waiting.

CLL is an abbreviation of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. This illness is characterized by an overproduction of white blood cells, known as lymphocytes. The disease probably starts out as an abnormal activation of the immune system by some stimulus, probably infectious agents. Usually, the immune system shuts down after an infection, but in some cases, for unknown reasons, the immune system can stay activated over a period of several years.

The threshold of "clonality" is how doctors define whether the immune system overactivation fulfills the definition of cancer or leukemia. In most immune responses, the immune system produces a broad spectrum of antibodies, targeted at a very wide range of disease-causing organisms.

In the case of leukemia, the immune system devotes most of its resources into the production of immune cells or antibodies targeted against one particular target. This phenomenon can be detected using advanced technology, and is taken as evidence that one group of cells is growing outside of the usual checks and balances of the immune system.

CLL, then, is the measurement of a clonal population of lymphoid cells in the circulation or bone marrow. Doctors have long known that many patients can have persistent CLL clones in the circulation without developing progressive problems like anemia, bulky adenopathy (gland enlargement), or bleeding. If these problems are absent upon diagnosis, the usual strategy is to observe the patient until problems develop. This strategy is "watchful waiting," and many patients are satisfied not to have to take chemotherapy.

Some patients, though, ask me, "If I have a leukemia now, and it is not causing advanced problems, wouldn't it be easier to treat it now with chemotherapy to prevent problems from cropping up down the road?" I have not had a good answer to this question, and it is a vexing one, since there are probably some patients who would benefit more from treatment immediately than later.

Mayo Clinic appears to be answering this question with a clinical trial approach. Clincian-scientists there published a paper last month describing a group of 30 newly-diagnosed CLL patients who were given chemotherapy based on a set of high-risk features of their disease. In other words, patients with higher risk disease were treated immediately with therapy.

The researchers used CD38 and ZAP-70, or chromosomal mutations, as markers for high-risk disease. Patients were treated with an all-monoclonal antibody therapy consisting of Campath (alemtuzumab) and Rituximab (rituxan).

The followup was 17.6 months, not long enough to say whether this approach is superior to the current approach. The response rate was 90%, which is in the realm of what's expected with conventional CLL treatments. The median progression-free interval with FCR treatment for CLL these days is six years, so it will take a long time to see whether the Mayo Clinic strategy is superior to the treatments already available for the disease.

The study authors conclude that they have justified opening a randomized clinical trial, but I would argue that if there is such a trial, it should only ask one question at a time. That is, they should either look at whether Campath/Rituxan is better than FCR in high-risk disease, or whether early treatment versus watchful waiting is better in high-risk disease. I doubt we will get such clarity here, though I will solicit comment from the lead author, Clive Zent, M.D.

Right now, Campath is only FDA approved for the treatment of CLL as a single agent, so this clinical trial asks two questions: can we improve CLL treatment by treating the "bad risk" patients with "up front" therapy, and is a combined "antibody cocktail" a good approach to therapy?

Drug Company: Pixantrone effective, safe, for advanced lymphoma

Cell Therapeutics reveals early positive results for Phase III clinical trial of Pixantrone in refractory lymphoma
Lymphoma is a malignant neoplasm of the immune system and lymph nodes. Men and women aged 50 and above are more likely to develop this disease. With the increase in the frequency of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) during the past decade, approximately 50,000 American people are suffering from this illness now.

The exact cause of the disease is still unknown but certain viruses like EBV or HIV are responsible for some lymphomas. Though some lymphomas are curable, many patients face refractory or recurrent disease. Sometimes, patients must endure multiple rounds of chemotherapy to achieve remission over time.

The therapy of persistent disease will depend on disease manifestations and prior treatments. Most patients with refractory lymphoma are treated with chemotherapy. Radiation therapy may also be supportive in managing painful areas where the cancer has spread. Treatments for refractory disease have traditionally been only marginally effective, and many patients must endure aggressive treatments such as stem cell transplants to get a durable remission of their lymphoma once it returns.

Cell Therapeutics Inc. (CTI) has announced early results of its Phase III EXTEND (PIX301) clinical trial of pixantrone (BBR2778) for patients with advanced symptoms of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). Pixantrone directly modifies the structure of DNA, and is an analogue of mitoxantrone with reportedly less toxic effects on cardiac tissue. It is being studied as an antineoplastic for different types of cancer, including solid tumors and hematological malignancies such as non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

The outcome of the just-concluded study (which was conducted at 130 sites in 17 countries) showed that patients who were treated with pixantrone attained a high rate of persistent and unconfirmed complete remissions compared to patients treated with standard chemotherapy (14/70 (20.0%) for pixantrone arm compared to 4/70 (5.7%) for the standard chemotherapy arm, p = 0.02). No patient achieved a confirmed complete remission compared to 8/70 (11%) of pixantrone recipients in the standard chemotherapy arm. An independent data review committee confirmed remissions in this study. Pixantrone also significantly increased the overall response rate, with 37.1% reported for pixantrone arm compared to 10/70 14.3% for the control arm, p = 0.003. If confirmed, these results are some of the most encouraging seen in this disease setting in quite a while. The most common serious toxicities (>5%) seen in previous trials of pixantrone include grade 3 and 4 neutropenia and febrile neutropenia.

CTI is expected to release additional details of the study and will provide complete safety and progression-free survival information comparing treatment assignments.

It is our hope here at InteractMD.com to see these results published in a peer-review setting, and we therefore are critical of drug companies releasing their pivotal clinical trial results in press release format. This seems to be the standard practice these days, probably more for financial considerations than anything else. Looks like Cell Therapeutics stock didn't take much of a bump despite these positive results. They say individual drug results don't move stock prices much, except Viagra and Pfizer, so why can't Cell Therapeutics wait for a publication in a real journal to crow about results?

Plavix-stomach drug interaction reported at cardiology meeting

A new study suggests that patients who take the blood thinner Plavix along with heartburn drugs have a higher risk of heart attack and stroke
Plavix is mainly used to prevent blood clots after a heart attack or stroke, and it is also helpful in people who have undergone stent placement for coronary disease. It works by interfering with platelet function in the blood. This drug is prescribed to patients with artery-opening stents and those who suffered a heart attack. According to IMS Health which tracks drug sales alleged, this drug reported approximately $4 billion sales in the year 2007.

Researchers carried out a new study on 16,690 persons and confirmed that patients who are taking Plavix without any other drug are safer than those stent patients who are administered Plavix along with certain heartburn medications like AstraZeneca PLC’s Nexium. These patients are at higher risk of having stroke, chest pain, heart attack and coronary artery bypass operation. These results were announced at the heart association's annual scientific meeting in New Orleans.

This finding of the study has implications for millions of patients who depend on Plavix. Many patients taking Plavix also use Nexium, Prilosec or a similar drug to prevent stomach bleeding and ulcers, the reported common side effects of Plavix. Dr Robert Epstein lamented that this is a law of unintended consequences that this drug which is intended to ease Plavix’s side effects also happen to blunt Plavix’s core purpose.

The president of the American Heart Association, Timothy Gardner, said that this study presents a considerable challenge for physicians. Dr. Paul Gurbel studied this phenomenon in 2003, and published a paper in the journal Circulation showing that nearly 30% of Plavix patients don't absorb the drug effectively.

Gurbel said if given a choice between Plavix and a proton-pump inhibitor, doctors should by and large keep the patient on Plavix and drop the other drug because Plavix is known to prevent fatal heart attacks.

However, it is reported that there is a possible solution to this problem: Cogentus Pharmaceuticals has reportedly raised about $100 million in private funding to develop a drug that combines clopidogrel, the blood thinner component in Plavix, with omeprazole (Prilosec), which is off-patent. The company claims to have a tablet that discharges the proton-pump inhibitor an hour or so after clopidogrel, which would serve to limit the impact of the heartburn drug on the anticlotting agent. The company is now enrolling 4,000 patients in a late-stage clinical trial.

Did you know?
While taking Plavix, do not take aspirin or other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) without your doctor's recommendation. NSAIDs include ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), diclofenac (Voltaren), diflunisal (Dolobid), etodolac (Lodine), flurbiprofen (Ansaid), indomethacin (Indocin), ketoprofen (Orudis), ketorolac (Toradol), mefenamic acid (Ponstel), meloxicam (Mobic), nabumetone (Relafen), piroxicam (Feldene), and other

Summer Classes for Men at THE ADULT LEARNING CENTER

Summer Classes for Men at 
THE
ADULT LEARNING CENTER 

REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED 
by Friday, April 17th 2009 
NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL
OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM 

Class 1 
How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays--Step by Step, with Slide Presentation. 
Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

 

Class 2 
The Toilet Paper Roll--Does It Change Itself?
Round Table Discussion. 
Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

 

Class 3 
Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub?--Group Practice. 
Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

 

Class 4 
Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor--Pictures and Explanatory Graphics. 
Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

 

Class 5 
Dinner Dishes--Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink?
Examples on Video. 
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning
at 7:00 PM

 

Class 6 
Loss Of Identity--Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other.
Help Line Support and Support Groups. 
Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

 

Class 7 
Learning How To Find Things--Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.
Open Forum 
Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

 

Class 8 
Health Watch--Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health.
Graphics and Audio Tapes. 
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

 

Class 9 
Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost--Real Life Testimonials. 
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined

 

Class 10 
Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks?
Driving Simulations. 
4 weeks, Saturday's noon, 2 hours.

 

Class 11 
Learning to Live--Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife.
Online Classes and role-playing 
Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

 

Class 12 
How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion
Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

 

Class 13 
How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy--Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late. 
Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

 

Class 14 
The Stove/Oven--What It Is and How It Is Used.
Live Demonstration. 
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined. 
Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors. 

Send this to all the guys that you think can stand the heat, and to all the ladies for the best chuckle of their day!

HEC all set to join Isro's core group

Ranchi: The Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC), Ranchi is set to be included in the core group of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for its ongoing Moon Mission.

As a core group member, HEC is expected to deliver various strategic equipments to Isro required for different components of the Moon Mission till 2012.

The company's Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) GK Pillai recently visited Irso to discuss core group formalities.

Pillai said that Isro officials would be visiting shortly to the HEC to discuss the Moon Mission requirements with its technical experts vis-a-vis their expectation from a core group.

The CMD said that HEC is ready to send a second mobile lauch pad (MLP) to Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh by the end of next month.

The second MLP comprises 11 major modules or sections. Of the total components, HEC has already dispatched six components to Sriharikota. The remaining five are under various stages of manufacture and inspection.

"The cost of the Isro order is Rs 5.5 crore," HEC Director (Production) SK Choudhary said.

The launch pedestal, which is easy to dismantle and re-assemble, facilitates the movement of a space vehicle from one place to another. Ranchi-based engineering consultant Mecon has designed the MLP for HEC.

Besides the MLP, HEC is engaged in production of a giant machine for the second moon mission, which comprises a number of smaller sections, including two support rings.

The rings have been designed to serve as the resting place for a space shuttle before its blasts into space. Each major section, weighing around 82 tonne, is 4.5 m high, 9.7 m in length and 5.8 m in width.

Since the assembled MLP would be too large for transportation to Sriharikota, each module is being sent separately by trailer trucks.

Choudhary said that the total weight of the six modules, already dispatched to Sriharokota, was 540 tonne. The remaining five modules, waiting for clearance, would weigh another 270 tonnes making the weight of the assembled MLP 810 tonnes.

It may be recalled that the HEC had built the Rs 20-crore MLP that had supported India's first moon mission.

The engineering major had also manufactured the 10-tonne tower crane, placed atop the umbilical tower that held the PSLV before it blasted into space.

Nepal apex court okays same-sex marriage

Kathmandu: Close on the heels of an international furore over the state of California's decision to ban same-sex marriages, the apex court of Himalayan republic Nepal has given its nod to such unions.

"My eyes were filled with tears when I read the Supreme Court decision," said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal's first publicly gay lawmaker and a gay rights icon in South Asia.

"We, the gay community of Nepal, are the most proud citizens," Pant said.

Pant's exultation came after the Supreme Court on Monday delivered full judgement regarding a ground-breaking verdict it had announced last year, recognising sexual minorities, who were among the most oppressed in conservative, patriarchal Nepali society, as being born such and entitled to all the rights and remedies all other Nepali citizens enjoyed.

Now, following up on the judgement, the top court has asked the Maoist government to form a seven-member committee to study same sex partnership and marriage acts in other countries and recommend a similar act to the Nepal government.

The court has also asked the government—that is scheduled to promulgate a new constitution by 2010—to ensure that the language of the new statute does not discriminate against the sexual minorities.

Also striking a blow for transgenders, who were the butt of abuse for crossdressing, the court has ruled that crossdressing is not perversion but an individual's freedom of expression.

Nepal's beleaguered and reviled gay community got a boost for their rights in 2006, after the fall of king Gyanendra's army-backed government which had clamped down on the community's rights and seen them join the nationwide public protests against the royal regime.

In August 2006, four months after the king's exit as head of government, Pant's gay rights organisation Blue Diamond Society supported the first publicly conducted gay wedding in Nepal.

The first same sex marriage, however, came unstuck since then with one of the partners being a drug abuser.

Tool to compute CO2 that can be stored underground

Washington: Trapping carbon dioxide at the source like coal burning power plants and then injecting them underground could be one of the options to cut emissions levels.

MIT engineers have come up with a new software tool to determine how much can be sequestered safely in a geological formation, reports IANS.

However, injecting too much carbon dioxide (CO2) could create or enlarge underground faults that may become conduits for CO2 to travel back up to the atmosphere, said Ruben Juanes, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) and a co-author of the work. Until now the technique has never been tested in an industrial operation.

"Our model is a simple, effective way to calculate how much CO2 a basin can store safely. It is the first to look at large scales and take into account the effects of flow dynamics on the stored CO2," he said.

Already Juanes and co-author CEE graduate student Michael L Szulczewski have applied their model to the Fox Hills Sandstone in the Powder River basin straddling Montana and Wyoming.

They found that the formation would hold around five gigatons of CO2—more than half of all the CO2 emitted by the US every year, said an MIT release.

A geological basin is a large underground bowl between 100 and 1,000 km wide and 5,000 km deep that has filled over millennia with layers of sand, fine-grained clays, and other sediments that are eventually consolidated into porous rock.

Some of the layers contain brine and are called deep saline aquifers. CO2 would be injected into the aquifers through wells.

The MIT model predicts how much a plume of CO2 will migrate from its injection well and the path it is likely to take due to underground slopes and groundwater flow.

"A lot of people have done studies at small scales," Szulczewski said. "If we're going to offset emissions, however, we're going to inject a lot of CO2 into the subsurface. This requires thinking at the basin scale," he added.

"Despite the fact that our model applies at the basin scale, it is very simple. Using only pen and paper, you take geological parameters such as porosity, temperature and pressure to calculate storage capacity," Szulczewski said, adding that other methods suffer from major shortcomings of accuracy, complexity or scale.

Juanes studies a phenomenon called capillary trapping, through which CO2, liquefied by the pressure of the earth, is trapped as small blobs in the briny water (picture bubbles of oil in vinegar).

The CO2 dispersed throughout the basin's structural pores eventually dissolves and reacts with reservoir rocks to precipitate out into harmless carbonate minerals.

CO2 has been sequestered in small pilot projects in Norway, Algeria and elsewhere. In 2004, 1,600 tonnes of CO2 were injected 1,500 metres into high-permeability brine-bearing sandstone of the Frio formation beneath the Gulf coast of Texas.

Current proposals call for injecting billions of tonnes within the continental United States.

The work was presented on Tuesday at the ninth International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-9) in Washington.

Yale varsity unveils $30 mn new India initiative

New Delhi: Yale University has committed US $30 million to a new Yale India Initiative that will increase the US Ivy League University's engagement with India and South Asia.

The Yale School of Nursing Activities will announce a tie-up with Indian universities for a new nursing curriculum to ensure better intervention and care for HIV/AIDS patients next month as the first joint programme under the initiative, reports IANS.

Announcing the initiative here on Monday, University President Richard C Levin said that the rise of India since the 1990s into a nation of economic and geopolitical consequence has compelled Yale to create new faculty and curriculum across arts and sciences to expand the university's visibility and engagement with India by vigorous students' recruitment efforts, faculty and student exchanges, research partnerships and leadership education.

Yale expects to raise at least US $20 million from donors next year. The university will need endowment resources of US $75 million for the entire initiative to come into force with all its planned additions across India and South Asia.

It is one of the few universities in the world which provides need-blind admissions under which a student's financial condition is not taken into account at the time of admission. "We usually meet the students' financial needs," Joseph said.

Yale will provide a deep and rich curriculum covering all aspects of Indian civilisation—its languages and literature, religions, history, politics, economics and society, Levin said.

"We also need to engage with problems that confront contemporary India—equitable and sustainable economic development and public health," he said.

The initiative has received start-up endowments from Infosys Technologies Co-founder and Co-chairman Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini, who gifted US $5 million, and a leadership grant from Dinakar Singh.

"This commitment reinforces Yale's position as a truly global university. We expect more connections between Yale and India to the years ahead," Nilekani said.

Yale has four education programmes in India, most of which are new. They are the India-Yale Parliamentary leadership Programme for politicians, the Yale 'Bulldogs in India' programme for interns, the South Asian Studies Council and a module for professionals that will roll off December.

"The programme is very broad-based. Yale will not only increase in presence in India, but Indians will also increase their presence in Yale. The university currently has 135 students pursuing undergraduate programmes—the second largest Asian community—after China. Most of them are studying for degrees in business management, public health and environment," University Assistant Secretary George Joseph said.

Indian students are usually are on the top of the merit rosters in Yale. They are known for their social leadership qualities.

Bihar launches governance improvement mission

Patna: The Government of Bihar on Tuesday launched Bihar Prashasanik Sudhar Mission (BPSM) to enhance the administration prowess of the state government as well as to provide better services for the poor and the excluded.

The programmes, supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), aims at facilitating best-in-class administration and human resource management within the government, providing training to motivated and performance oriented officials and offer more effective, efficient and accountable service delivery to citizens.

It also aims at setting up a Centre for Good Governance (CCG) in Bihar, which would help the state government improve quality of governance—particularly for the poorest and excluded groups.

Under BPSM, the Bihar government will offer easy access to land and registration information on Internet to public.

The mission initiatives include modernisation of District Collectorates with streamlined procedures, better organisational and staffing structure, increased delegation and extensive use of IT to facilitate speedy disposal of files through e-file movement starting with a few collectorates.

The state government under the mission would develop a medium term staffing plan for the entire government with a clear road map for recruitment and an improved performance management system to reward good performers.

Besides creating transparent recruitment and transfer system for government staff, it would include modernisation of commercial tax collection systems to improve state revenue.

Initially, the mission will focus on Department for Personnel and Administrative Reforms; Revenue and Land Reforms (including District Collectorates); Commercial Tax; Registration, Excise and Prohibition; and Human Resources Development, while other departments will follow gradually.

Single website in the UK to provide health info

London: Two of the UK's leading health websites—NHS Choices and NHS Direct—are collaborating to provide the public with all the health information they need at one place.

The single National Health Service (NHS) website would help those patients who are looking for information on the choices available for their healthcare, reports ePractice.

The site will offer trusted advice and information so that the public can understand and exercise their choice on health and healthcare.

"This move means the NHS will have one of the most comprehensive online health information services in the world," according to the Department of Health in the UK.

Stating that health is one of the most searched for subjects on the Internet, the department said that it was crucial the NHS provided safe and accurate online information to meet this demand by creating a single front door to all its knowledge and services.

It would offer self-help guides, comparative information on hospitals, guides to long-term conditions, practice profiles to help find general practioners (GPs) and much more.

"This single site will make it easier for the public to find reliable health information quickly and will give relevant and accurate advice that will help them to make their own decisions and choices about their health and healthcare," Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said.

IGF calls for cyber crime free Internet

Hyderabad: The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on Thursday called for collaboration and cooperation among countries to make Internet free from cyber crime.

Voicing concern over the growing cyber crimes and misuse of the Internet by terrorists, the world's largest Internet congregation formed by the Union Nations Secretary General said that mapping exercises of cyber security and trust between the countries will be uplifted.

The four-day meet, which began on Wednesday, is being attended by 1,500 delegates from 100 countries, reports IANS.

"There is a need to exchange information without any hindrances among the nations and among the organisations to track down criminals. Global alliances and exchange of information have to be established for attaining safety, security and stability of the Internet," said Gulshan Rai, director-general of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a nodal agency for the security and protection of the critical infrastructure in the nation.

He said the legal framework of the Information Technology Act 2006 would be amended to address issues posed by new technologies and new crimes being observed in the cyberspace.

"The proposed amendments deal with data security and data privacy, identity theft, cyber terrorism, child pornography, spam, phishing and online frauds," he said.

The parliament standing committee, which scrutinised IT (Amendment) bill, 2006, has made a number of suggestions.

The proposed amendments in the legal framework would be in line with the European Cyber Convention and will address emerging issues in the cyberspace.

The draft IT (Amendment) bill has been sent to the cabinet for consideration and the bill will be tabled in the next session of parliament, he said.

"Once the amendments are made, corporate bodies will have to implement best security practices to secure data collected by them while providing services. Any leakage of the data of their account will result in payment of compensation to the victim," he said.

The number of attacks, including viruses and worms, cyber frauds in organisations, are rising by over 15 per cent annually with many types of attacks doubling in number.

"Technology-oriented indicators clearly reflect that a monthly percentage of personal computers infected by a virus in the country has grown from about one per cent in 2001 to about 17 per cent in 2007. About 350 systems in a day get compromised," he said.

Rai said that the number of phishing cases, too, are on the rise among the Indian banks. About seven to eight cases of phishing are being reported on an average every day.

"We are training our people both within the country as well as seeking cooperation from countries like the US to train our manpower in implementing security in IT infrastructure," he said.

Special video teams to watch Madhya Pradesh polls

Bhopal: Special teams are being deployed in Madhya Pradesh to capture various poll related activities through video cameras to ensure that the model code of conduct is implemented in right earnest, an Election Commission official said Tuesday.

Responsibility of this work has been entrusted to Deputy Conservators of Forests, who will work under the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), reports IANS.

The video teams, each comprising a video camera operator, will be deployed in all sensitive areas in the state. A sub-inspector and two police jawans will provide security to each team. The team in-charge will maintain contact with the state election office through telephone and fax.

The teams have been strictly instructed not to take orders from any authority but the state election office. However, they may take necessary help from the district administration.

They have also been directed not to inform about the work done by them to any other office or officer other than the office of the CEO, the official said.

In case of serious violation of model code of election laws, the videography team will capture the incident on camera and submit the proof to the office of the CEO.

Intimidation and harassment of voters by criminals and anti-social elements will also be videographed.

Madhya Pradesh will go to polls on November 27 to elect 230 members to its legislative assembly.

ADB to help MP set up energy efficiency fund

Manila: The Asian Development Bank will help set up a fund—Energy Conservation Fund (ECF)—to mobilise financing for energy efficiency projects in the central Indian state Madhya Pradesh.

The fund will complement an ongoing ADB investment programme in Madhya Pradesh's power sector which is focused on reducing the gap between power supply and demand, and improving efficiency in transmission and distribution.

"The ECF will facilitate the financing of revenue-generating energy efficiency projects implemented by public and private sector entities and it will develop a modality that could be replicated in other states of India," ADB's South Asia Department Principal Energy Specialist Neside Tas-Anvaripour said.

ADB will provide a US $1.7 million technical assistance through the Second Danish Cooperation Fund for renewable energy and energy efficiency in rural areas of the state, while the state government will contribute an equivalent of US $400,000.

The technical assistance will support the ECF by financing the initial operational expenditures.

The ECF will be used to implement programmes through technical and financial assistance, benefiting all stakeholders including the state government, power sector companies and consumers.

The technical assistance will also include outreach and awareness programmes to create an environment conducive to the ECF and establish credence among the diverse group of stakeholders whose involvement in energy efficiency is crucial to the success of the ECF.

These stakeholders include commercial building owners, utilities, industries, policy makers, energy auditors, energy service companies, energy efficient equipment manufacturers and banks and financial institutions in the state.

Under its power sector investment programme with the Madhya Pradesh, ADB has been asked to provide a loan of US $5 million as initial seed capital for ECF, while the state government will complement this with funds collected from a special electricity sales levy.

ADB's technical assistance will support ECF to ensure it has adequate operational resources for its first five years in operation, after which it is expected to become financially independent.

The sustained support for the ECF in its start-up years will encourage interest from commercial banks and other private financial institutions which are typically reluctant to finance energy efficiency projects mainly because of the requirement of collateral security for loans.

"With proper policies, awareness and training, energy conservation and efficiency could ensure better supply of energy to needy customers and reduce the burden on power sector companies during peak supply hours," Anvaripour said.

Andhra to get atmospheric studies centre soon

Hyderabad: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is ready to establish a world class facility for atmospheric studies near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.

ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair informed Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy that the organisation would establish the facility for advanced atmospheric studies, reports IANS.

Nair was replying to the message sent by the chief minister congratulating him and his team for the successful launch of Chandrayaan-I, said a statement from the Chief Minister's Office.

The moon mission was launched from Sriharikota launch station in Andhra Pradesh.

Reddy, in his congratulatory message, sought the establishment of ISRO's human space programme—astronaut training and biomedical engineering centre—and offered the necessary land in Anantapur district close to Bangalore.

Nair, however, informed him that as part of Human Spaceflight Programme (HSP), a centre for training India astronauts is planned to be set up around Bangalore, (in coordination with Indian Institute of Aviation, Medicine, Bangalore).

Madhavan pointed out that the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) of ISRO was already functioning at Gadanki, near Tirupati since 1992. It is engaged in fundamental research related to atmospheric and space sciences and developing various types of radars and lidars for atmospheric studies.

"NARL has proposed to expand its activities towards advanced technology experiments and in this regard a laboratory for developing flight instruments is planned to be set up near Tirupati," the ISRO Chairman wrote.

Naidu urged the Chief Minister to allot 20 acres of land for establishing a world class facility for atmospheric studies which would attract the participations of many Indian and foreign researchers, who will contribute to advanced research in weather and climate.

Software to track pollutants developed

Sydney: A new version of software can predict the direction and concentration of odours and pollutants.

Earlier versions of the software are widely used by 190 research institutions in 25 countries worldwide, including Australia, reports IANS.

From a one-dimensional model created by Peter Hurley of CSIRO in the mid-1990s, the software has evolved into a complex environmental modelling tool with meteorological and air pollution components that will suit most local-scale environmental applications.

"The Air Pollution Model (TAPM) increases our ability to pinpoint pollutant behaviour in a wider range of atmospheric conditions," Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Peter Hurley said.

Over the coming years the new model will continue to fill a gap between simple air pollution dispersion models and the much more complex earth system models such as Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS), Hurley stated.

In Australia, the model has recently been used in Launceston where strong temperature inversions trap particulate emissions from wood fires, burning-off, vehicles and industry, according to CSIRO release.

The software package predicts local meteorology and assesses the likely pathway and concentration of pollutants as they disperse.

Law on intellectual property transfer soon: PM

Bangalore: The Government of India plans to bring a new law to create a mechanism to transfer intellectual property (IP) created by public funded research to beneficiaries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here on Wednesday.

"We are looking at passing legislation that will create appropriate mechanisms and incentives for transfer of intellectual property by publicly funded research to beneficiaries," Manmohan Singh said inaugurating the centenary celebrations of the premier Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at the JN Tata auditorium.

Exhorting the scientific community to make science more accessible to all people across the social strata, the Prime Minister said that the knowledge pyramid in the field of basic sciences needed to be revitalised, reports IANS.

He further hoped that the slew of initiatives taken by his government would contribute to the process of building a knowledge-based society and economy.

"Science cannot be merely an esoteric academic discipline. In the modern world, it must be central to the life of the nation. The developed world, which is far ahead of us in sciences, has made continuous scientific advancement a yardstick of their progress. So should we," Singh told a gathering of about 1,000 scientists, researchers and students on the centenary occasion.

In this context, he mentioned how China and South Korea leap-frogged ahead of India in the world of science and technology. China made impressive strides in sciences in recent decades by its own efforts and linking itself to the best institutions the world over.

"We must also be open to beneficial links with institutions the world over so that there is a two-way flow of knowledge and we can benefit from it," he noted.

Expressing concern over students losing interest in science as a subject and the pleasure of findings things out, Singh said that there was an urgent need to change the way in which science was approached and taught in schools and colleges.

The vast reservoir of talent in the youth must be tapped to push the frontiers of knowledge in basic sciences, he said.

Committing his government's support to the century-old IISc, the Prime Minister said in its second century, the institute should provide academic leadership to fuel the renewed thrust in science and technology.

"The pressing problems of energy, health, water and food security and the growing concerns on climate change need much greater scientific attention than in the past," Singh told the 500-odd faculty members and 1,500 students of the institute.

Referring to the Rs 100 crore special grant the central government made to the institute in 2004, he said the gesture was an acknowledgement of its august place in the Indian academic pantheon.

He also promised the institute to free the processes of public funding of research from bureaucratic impediments.

The Prime Minister also unveiled the centenary commemoration plaque in the sprawling campus in the presence of eminent scientists and research scholars.

The centenary event marked the reunion of the IISc alumni, interactions with researchers and captains of industry, scientists and engineers.

Schools not funded by state do not come under RTI

New Delhi: The central government has informed the Delhi High Court that educational institutions which are not funded by the state are not covered under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The government made the submission while challenging a Central Information Commission (CIC) order directing a school run by the Indian Air Force to provide information sought in an RTI application, reports IANS.

Advocate SK Dubey, appearing in the court for the government, contended that institutions which do not receive government funds cannot be directed to reveal information under the RTI Act.

"Air Force schools are non-public fund ventures and are administered and managed by a society. These schools cannot be termed as public authority under the RTI Act," Dubey said while challenging the CIC's order.

Justice GS Sistani, after hearing the contentions of the government, stayed the CIC order and directed the commission to file its response on the government's plea.

The CIC held that army schools are public authority as they are headed by serving officers from the forces.

"Even if we were to concede that the school is a private body, by dint of its head being a service officer and serving as head in that capacity, the officer has the authority to access the information regarding the school and is therefore required to service an RTI application," the commission had said.

Eating eggs during pregnancy improves breast cancer outcome of offspring

New research suggests that what a woman eats during pregnancy may offer her offspring protection against breast cancer.

Researchers at Boston University studied female rats whose mothers were given different amounts of choline, a nutrient found in eggs, during pregnancy. The rats were given either no choline, normal amounts of choline, or extra choline during pregnancy, and, after birth, their female offspring were treated with a chemical that causes breast cancer. Whilst all of the female offspring went on to develop breast cancer, the results showed that offspring of the rats that had received extra choline during pregnancy had slow growing tumors whereas the offspring of rats that consumed no choline during pregnancy had fast growing tumors.

Furthermore, multiple genetic and molecular changes detected in the tumors were found to correlate with survival outcomes in humans. For example, the slow growing tumors in the offspring of rats fed extra choline had a genetic pattern similar to those seen in breast cancers of women who are considered to have a good prognosis, whereas the genetic changes that occurred in the fast growing tumors were similar to those seen in women with very aggressive forms of breast cancer that are associated with a poor prognosis.

The authors concluded: “Our results suggest a role for adequate maternal choline nutrition during pregnancy in prevention/alleviation of breast cancer in daughters.”

Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, in which the research was published, said: “The emerging science of epigenetics has yielded a breakthrough. For the first time, we've learned that we might be able to prevent breast cancer as early as a mother's pregnancy."

Kovacheva VP, Davison JM, Mellott TJ, et al. Raising gestational choline intake alters gene expression in DMBA-evoked mammary tumors and prolongs survival. FASEB J. First published on December 1, 2008. doi:10.1096/fj.08-122168

News release: Eating eggs when pregnant affects breast cancer in offspring. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. December 1st 2008.

'Child rights crying for protection by police, judges'

New Delhi: There is an urgent need to sensitise the police, the judicial system and the bureaucracy to respect child rights in the country, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) member PC Sharma has said.

His suggestion came in connection with a notice issued to Delhi Police by the Delhi Commission for Child Rights in October after it was reported that four juveniles were picked up by the cops for interrogation in the Jamia Nagar area after the September 19 shootout and were held for hours.

"The Juvenile Justice Act clearly states that no child can be held for interrogation. If required, a complaint can be lodged with a member of the Juvenile Justice Board and the minor taken into custodial care. Police officers should be sensitised about the Act because it is children we are dealing with," Sharma, a Former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said.

"One has to remember that while dealing with a child you have to look at him from the perspective of the juvenile justice system and not the criminal justice system," he added.

Calling the Juvenile Justice Act a 'benevolent' one, Sharma said that the very purpose of the act was being defeated because of poor implementation and inadequate facilities.

Giving an example, he said that the juvenile justice homes in the capital are in a pitiable state.

"I have personally visited juvenile justice homes in the capital and their condition is simply pitiable. The conditions are so unhygienic that almost 80 per cent of the children living in them have some skin disease or the other," Sharma said.

"Ideally a juvenile, who faces allegations, should be tried within four months. However, there are so many children who have been languishing in these homes for years now. There are not enough courts. Some lose their childhood in this painfully long process," the NHRC member said.

"The truth is that such issues are not a priority with the government, civil society or the media," he added.

Awareness about the juvenile justice system amongst the police and in the entire justice system, Sharma said, was the way to make things better.

"We visit the JJ homes and send reports to the state to take action but then it depends on the state to take appropriate steps. Therefore, awareness and sensitisation of the stakeholders of the system are very important to make things better in the juvenile homes and for the children themselves," he said.

Smarts cards to Maharashtra fishermen soon

Mumbai: The Government of Maharashtra has decided to issue smart cards to all the 55,000 fishermen in the state by March 31, 2009 to track the illegal people movement in the sea.

Discussing the hitherto unattended aspect of terrorists arriving by the sea routes, Chief Minister Vilasroa Desmukh said that the state government would purchase four high-speed vessels equipped with sophisticated communication and navigational aids, reports IANS.

He said that although the central government had agreed to provide similar vessels to guard the state's 760-km coastline, there could be a delay in getting them.

In the meantime, the state government would go ahead with the purchases to ward off any potential terror threats coming from the sea routes in the future.

Moreover, an elite 142-strong Maharashtra Security Guards (MSG) is being set up on the lines of the National Security Guard (NSG) with an initial grant of Rs 5 crore to prevent the repeat of the Mumbai terrorist attack, he said.

The personnel for the first battalion will be drawn from the Maharashtra police and they will be imparted top-class commando training by the NSG.

Within four months, 60 personnel would be added to the force, Deshmukh told a high-level state security review meeting in the shadow of last Wednesday's Mumbai terror attacks which left 183 dead and 294 injured.

G20 calls for greater watch on financial markets

Washington: Pledging to fix the global financial system, leaders from the world's 20 biggest economies, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have called for greater oversight of financial markets and more efforts to bolster national economies.

In a statement released at the conclusion of a historic summit here on Saturday they pledged to arrest the damage wrought by the global financial crisis by taking all steps necessary to stabilise the financial system based on five common principles.

They also agreed to meet again by April 30, 2009 by when their host US President George W Bush would have handed the charge of world's largest economy to president-elect Barack Obama.

"There was a common understanding that all of us should promote pro-growth economic policies," Bush said.

Obama did not attend the summit saying there can be only one president at a time. But Bush assured the participants that his successor had been kept fully in the picture and he was determined to ensure a seamless transition.

Obama sent former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman from Iowa as emissaries to meet foreign delegations.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and the Indian Sherpa for the Summit, was among those who met the Obama team.

Among the actions to be taken in the near term were additional measures to help stimulate demand. Such moves could take the form of interest rate cuts by central banks around the globe, as well as greater funding for developing countries struggling under the weight of the crisis.

There was also a call for regulators to improve oversight for the credit rating agency industry and take swift action to minimise the risk from the giant and largely unregulated market of credit default swaps—complex financial instruments whose proliferation some say poses a great danger to financial stability.

"Over the past months our countries have taken urgent and exceptional measures to support the global economy and stabilise financial markets," the G-20 declaration said.

"These efforts must continue. At the same time, we must lay the foundation for reform to help to ensure that a global crisis, such as this one, does not happen again," it further stated.

Earlier, seeking a global response to the financial crisis, Manmohan Singh called for a multi-pronged response to arrest the deepening recession and avoid another one in future.

"Since the crisis is global, it calls for a co-ordinated global response and this summit is, therefore, timely," he said.

Among the measures suggested by Indian Prime Minister were a coordinated fiscal stimulus to mitigate the severity and duration of the recession, special initiatives to counter the shrinkage of capital flows to developing countries and a reform of the global financial architecture to prevent similar crises in future.

'Outdated law major obstacle in tackling AIDS'

New Delhi: An antiquated Indian law that criminalises sex between men is a major obstacle in efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, according to Unaids Executive Director Peter Piot.

"Section 377 (of the Indian Penal Code - IPC) is part of the colonial heritage and should have been abolished a long time back. It is a violation of human rights and a major obstacle in fighting HIV/AIDS," Piot said.

Section 377 treats sexual relations among people of the same gender as 'unnatural' and a criminal act. The provision has been mired in controversy ever since a public suit was filed in 2001 in the Delhi High Court challenging its legality.

According to estimates, in India there are 2.46 million male homosexuals. About 86 per cent of HIV infection is through the sexual route, which includes men having sex with men (MSM) and transgenders.

India is home to 2.5 million HIV/AIDS patients including 70,000 children below the age of 14.

Piot, also an under secretary general of the UN, said the penal provision against homosexuality is not 'unique' to India and is also present in former British colonies and Islamic countries.

"Just map the world and you will see that wherever the British have ruled, this penal provision exists. It also exists in the Islamic countries and also in Singapore. I am from Belgium. It was there too. The law was changed and now same sex marriages are allowed," he said.

"For India now, the focus area is the MSM population. This is a problem which is common to other Asian countries also. It has become quite an epidemic among this group—just as it was in the western countries in the 1980s," he said.

Citing the example of China, Piot said the incidence of infection among this group in rural areas of the country is going up.

"It is a key issue and as it confronts the social fabric and has societal taboos, people are afraid to come out. They are afraid to talk about their sexual preferences, which is leading to the rise in the infection," he added.

He is all praise for India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who has championed the cause of gay rights and fought for abolition of Section 377.

But after facing criticism from his senior cabinet colleagues, Ramadoss has now changed his stance and has said that Section 377, instead of being 'scrapped', should be 'modified'.

The Indian government has been divided about scrapping the penal provision ever since the matter came up in the Delhi High Court.

While the Home Ministry has been opposing this on the ground that homosexuality is a 'criminal offence' and removing the penal clause would 'disturb the law and order situation and create unnecessary problems in society', the Health Ministry wants to legalise homosexuality to reach out to this 'hidden population' who are vulnerable to HIV infection.

"Why is discrimination shown towards a person because of his sexual orientation. It is a human rights violation. This could pose a problem for public health preparedness. It is important that this provision is abolished as the law is acting as an obstacle to our efforts," Piot added.

EU adopts action plan on e-signatures, e-ID

Brussels: With the aim of improving the legal and administrative environment to unlock business potential, the European Commission has adopted an Action Plan on e-signatures and e-identification to facilitate the provision of cross-border public services in the single market.

The action plan would offer a comprehensive and pragmatic framework to achieve interoperable e-signatures and e-identification, which will simplify access of enterprises and citizens to cross-border electronic public services, reports ePractice.

To achieve this objective, the Action Plan focuses on a number of practical, organisational and technical issues, complementing the existing legal framework.

The commission said that bringing public administrations online and enabling the cross-border communication of enterprises and individuals with them, favours entrepreneurship and facilitates the citizen's contact with public authorities.

The Action Plan would address major barriers to cross-border access to the electronic public services which are linked to the use of electronic identification and signatures.

It is aimed at tackling the main barrier for an electronic identification—lack of interoperability, either legal, technical or organisational.

The commission, in close collaboration with member states will monitor the implementation of the plan, aiming to ensure the coherence of the suggested measures, of the various legislative requirements at EU level and of the relevant operational projects.

'India needs to focus on renewable energy: WEF

New Delhi: India must improve energy efficiency and focus on boosting renewable energy development as well as nuclear in the country to meet its growing energy demand over next 10-15 years, leaders at the World Economic Forum's 24th India Economic Summit said.

"Besides improving energy efficiency, the country must also reduce its carbon emissions to address climate change," business leaders at the WEF Economic Summit said.

"If India sustains a growth rate of seven to eight per cent, there will be a huge energy shortage," McKinsey & Company (India) Managing Director Adil Zainulbhai told the participants at a plenary session on the second day of the summit.

Efforts to meet the shortfall will likely entail the use of low-cost, dirty coal and diesel fuel, he warned.

"It is critical, therefore, to decrease demand through greater energy efficiency and to increase capacity through private sector participation in nuclear power and renewable energy projects including solar, geothermal and wind initiatives," he added.

While oil will remain the dominant source of energy for some time, nuclear energy will become increasingly important, GE India President and CEO Tejpreet Singh Chopra said, noting that the safety norms in the nuclear space have significantly increased in the last few years.

Experts at the summit said that market forces will push companies to adopt low-carbon strategies and standards—India has set off on a good course.

"This is going to be a path full of pressures and opportunities. This is the only possible route. The high-carbon picture will kill itself off. The marketplace will push it and people will push it. It is the way to overcome poverty,” India's Sun Group Chairman Nand Khemka said.

He further agreed, "Clean energy technology has been under evolution in the last number of years. Geothermal, nuclear, clean energy—India needs all of it because no one source can meet our needs."

Panellists warned that renewable energy projects are generally not yet commercially viable on a large scale and need to be given a boost through government incentives and subsidies.

"Today, solar is uneconomical for now," Chopra added.

"To be sustainable for the long term, it has to be viable without subsidies," Suzlon Energy (India) Chairman and Managing Director Tulsi R Tanti said, arguing that if the pricing of energy takes into account environmental damage, this would boost investment in and the use of renewable energy sources.

Innovation and technology are rapidly reducing development costs, he explained, adding that there are major opportunities in renewable energy in India.

India's national security apparatus needs revamp

New Delhi: The multiple terrorist attacks that ravaged Mumbai with the death toll overshooting 180 have led to a justified outpouring of anger and anguish across the length and breadth of the country. India is outraged.

This is not the first terrorist attack that India has experienced—Mumbai alone recalls 1993 and 2006 with bitter memories. And tragically this may not be the last, given the ruthless determination of the extremist groups ranged against the idea of India.

Yet Mumbai and 26/11 have a contour that is viciously distinctive. In the lexicon of terrorism, it is best described as being meticulously symphonic. Multiple terrorist objectives were pursued with deadly precision and not just the city of Mumbai but the entire Indian state and, at a remove, the global community—some of whose citizens were in the city that night—were attacked with a lethality that has no precedent.

In the first few hours of the tragedy that unfolded for more than 60 hours, it was evident that Mumbai was headless. This was brought home in the continuous TV coverage of the mayhem that was let loose in different parts of the city and the response mechanism of India's financial capital and the symbol of the country's 21st century aspirations was found to be abysmally poor.

India was flailing. But the ability of the Indian system to respond to a macro-crisis is well-established (recall the Chinese aggression of 1962 and the balance of payment crisis of 1991) and this time, post-26/11 some meaningful introspection and policy review is imperative. What is this way ahead?

Democratic nations repose their trust in the electoral process and the politician. In this case, there is increasing disillusionment about the manner in which the Indian political spectrum has discharged the responsibility that devolves upon it—to ensure the basic safety of the common man.

It has been repeatedly violated and Mumbai is only the most recent example. It is often bemoaned in India that post-1984, after the tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi, apropos counter-terror—a greater part of state resources and effort has been devoted to VIP security.

Consequently many eminently useful internal security initiatives have remained still-born and rendered dormant due to politico-bureaucratic perfidy.

Hence the first step is to allocate political accountability for the spate of terrorist attacks that have taken place in the last decade and here both the Congress-led UPA government and its predecessor, the BJP-led NDA, are culpable.

For the first time a political head has rolled and India has a new home minister, but this should not remain symbolic. An objective, non-partisan review and revamp of the entire higher politico-bureaucratic-police-intelligence lattice that comprises the nation's internal security apparatus is imperative. Sacrificing one Patil is not enough.

India's internal security challenge has become progressively more complex since the late 1980s and this has been only matched by the lip service paid by the higher echelons of those sworn to rise to this challenge.

Successive governments at the centre and in the states have placed short-term electoral advantage over the compulsions of national security and this has led to the enormity of 26/11.

Post-Kargil of 1999, the NDA government had initiated the much-needed comprehensive national security review and four major task forces drawing upon the experienced security professionals were set up.

The four areas identified included the intelligence apparatus, internal security, border management and higher management of defence. These detailed reports were approved by a group of ministers in 2001, but little meaningful reform was implemented.

The spectrum covered was wide and specific policy recommendations were made. Mumbaikars will be aghast when they learn that one of the issues flagged in the border management report was about the vulnerability of India's sea coast.

The need to beef up the poor coastal security infrastructure was identified as part of the overlap between internal security and border management and the utility of a unified maritime agency was mooted.

But like many other specific policy recommendations, this fell by the way due to a combination of politico-bureaucratic indifference and turf protection.

Thus what is needed now is not one more attempt to re-invent the wheel. Let the central government convene a special session of parliament in Delhi with similar action by the state legislatures and commence the cleaning of the stables.

All reports and recommendations that have been submitted post-Kargil should be brought into the public domain and the reasons for their non-implementation be rigorously examined.

Accountability must be assigned—even if it is post-facto—and imbalances and distortions holistically restored. Piecemeal and knee-jerk attempts at fixing the internal security infrastructure will be cosmetic. The broom must be picked up in earnest.

C Uday Bhaskar is a noted defence analyst