I don’t remember the last time I had such a depressing weekend....

For the first time I was glad the weekend was over. I had enough of television. Enough of news channels reminding me that my country was no longer safe for me. Enough of sights that filled my mind and soul with such gloom that I felt I would never see light again. But then...I live on…

This news channel was airing scenes from Ahmedabad, after the horrendous blasts claimed lives of 53 innocent people, people who knew nothing about what was going on around them. People who did not have the faintest idea that in the moments to come their world would topple in front of their eyes...and they could nothing much about it other than pray for dear life. Pray for their God given life which until then was totally in their control...which until then was theirs alone...ruled by no one...treasured by loved ones....all of a sudden their lives were in the hands of blood thirsty so called human beings with not a trace of humanity in them..

I saw a scene from the civil hospital in Ahmedabad. A small kid, not more than 8 years of age...torn face, burnt arms, crying for his mother...he was sitting on the hospital bed surrounded by people, relatives...little did he know that the one person he wanted to see would never come to wipe his tears or comfort him...he had lost both his parents. And no one had the courage to tell him that...I cried silent tears...and prayed for the child. May God give him the courage to accept and live on...

What’s happening to our Nation...where are the so called leaders? Other than playing the blame game are they doing anything at all. There is something seriously wrong with the way our country is being lead. I was watching this guy, one of us commoners, asking the same question. Where are the leaders? Are they involved? His voice was quivering with anger and frustration and a lot of feelings waiting to explode, "If these leaders can sell their party for meager crore’s, and shamelessly display it in front of the whole nation, for a few more crores they won’t mind selling the whole country..." he said. I kind of agreed with him. I too am slowly losing trust in our politicians but I still believe in the system. I still believe in democracy...I cling on to the hope that it'll give us better days..

Let’s wake up to reality. It all starts with us...the youth...if we can make a difference within us...we can guarantee ourselves a better future...a better democracy...where the children of tomorrow can live in peace, with their mothers close to them..

But democracy needs people who care, people who listen, people who act, people who speak out. People who stand together at times such as these...

Let’s stand together….you and I.... Let’s join hands…Let’s start all over again...

Let’s make a difference

Niyad

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By Shilpa Nangali

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel, my Mother. I find it so soothing when I keep my head on her lap and I forget all the torments, worries & woes ! We become stronger over the years, but not without battle scars along the way. However, if my parents are there with me in this journey of my life, I feel as if I have got all the strength needed to fight against any hurdles. I love you mom. This blog post is for all the mothers...they are with us every moment, being there before we ever ask, saying: "It's OK honey, Mommy's here." :)


"Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all."

A reflection on motherhood: A story shared by Deana

"I remember vividly the moment that I became a mother. Not in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense.

However, now a days, for many women, an established career and financial stability come first before motherhood. This trend is going to continue and will lead to increase in stress among older women who want to conceive. From celebrities to the woman next door, later childrearing is no flash-in-the-pan fad. By delaying child birth, they are increasing their chances of miscarriage and risk of having a Down Syndrome child. Also, an increase in the rates of cesarean sections reported by many countries appears to be associated, in part, to more and more women deciding to have children later in life, according to a report in the Journal PLoS Medicine.

As maternal age increases, the ability of the smooth muscle of the uterus to contract slows down, which is thought to slow the progression of labor, thereby increasing the likelihood of c-section. The association between advanced age and poor outcome in labor is likely to reflect a biological effect of aging on the uterus!

Twenty years ago most women would have already had their children before the age of 35, but many celebrities marry at the age of 35! And, most of the women believe that “becoming a mommy means they are getting too old” !

With more women deciding to delay motherhood the use of prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is increasing. Gray says this is because older mothers have a higher risk of giving birth to a child with a congenital abnormality. By conducting additional prenatal screenings, doctors are identifying more abnormalities than ever before. The result, is that older mothers must make more difficult decisions than women who aren’t screened.

Most of the women, who delay childbearing give reason stating that they have not met the right partner (Mr.Right!), or because they don't feel ready financially. Few women are misled by the media about how easy it is to get pregnant after 40.

“You see celebrities aged 39 and 40 having kids and you indulge in that thought. They reaffirm the trend that it’s not so bad having children later in life. It’s kind of comforting” says Lindsay Lanzillotta, 32, an independent film producer.

Lanzillotta has been married for five years but has been putting off having a child, until she is better off financially and is more established in her career. "In the dream scenario I thought I would be married by 23 and have kids by 27. Realistically it could be two years time before I have a child which is kind of frightening," says Lanzillotta.

People are giving themselves a narrower window to have children, says Roderic Beaujot, author of the paper Delayed Life Transitions: Trends and Implications and professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. What we are seeing now is the “two-worker model” where both women and men invest longer in themselves before they invest in reproduction, says Beaujot.

Before having children, they want to be an enduring relationship, and have time with their partner before they become parents, he says. In most cases, he adds, they also want to finish their education and establish their work lives. If relationships and work lives don’t evolve as anticipated this window of opportunity may be further narrowed, he says.

Before 1970, there was less reason for couples to wait says Beaujot, because women dedicated less time to developing their careers. In the “bread winner model” that commonly prevailed, a woman’s career was seen to be subordinate to that of the bread winner man and as a consequence women generally started having families earlier, says Beaujot.

Nowadays, with equal importance placed on the careers of both men and women, women are at a disadvantage if they decide to have children earlier in life, since they are in a position that is easier to exploit, says Beaujot.

Earlier motherhood means that a woman has less time to build up workplace relationships, and so is in less of a position to make maternal demands and to have these demands met, says Beaujot.

If a woman starts a family later on in her career when she is more established, she benefits by having more support from both her workplace and partner, who is likely to be more financially stable! For people to achieve their work and family goals earlier on in life there needs to be stronger governmental investments in young families, including subsidies for parental leaves, tax benefits, reduced work hours and childcare!

Sources: New Media Journalism Online, Reuters, Yahoo News, Google Books Search-But I don't feel too old to be a mommy and Parenting.Ivillage.com

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India's healthcare sector has been growing rapidly and is estimated to be worth US$ 40 billion by 2012, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers in its report, 'Healthcare in India: Emerging market report 2007'. The number of patients visiting India for medicare has risen incredibly due to a combination of experienced physicians, lower cost, rising number of super specialty hospitals and world class care provided.

But what do we lack in our health care sector?

Though the prospect for healthcare looks great, I feel that we lack in general awareness. I think the pharmaceutical companies see Indian market as out dated. India has become a dumping ground for banned drugs and also a production unit for banned drugs.

We can see many banned drug in US and UK easily available and prescribed by physicians. Let me quote an example, PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE. I know majority of the people just know the brand name, so I will quote that. (Vicks Action 500 is the brand name of a combination medicine that contains: paracetamol 500 mg + phenylpropanolamine (PPA) 25 mg + caffeine 32 mg per tablet. Paracetamol is a pain-killer while PPA is a decongestant and D,Cold). On 6 November 2000 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a "Public Health Advisory" statement notifying that it was "taking steps to remove phenylpropanolamine from all drug products and has requested that all drug companies discontinue marketing products containing phenylpropanolamine". The statement followed advice from the FDA's Non-prescription Drugs Advisory Committee that there is an association between phenylpropanolamine and haemorrhagic stroke and that phenylpropanolamine was not considered safe. The FDA advised that the risk of haemorrhagic stroke was "very low" but there were significant concerns because of the seriousness of a stroke and the inability to predict who was at risk.

As I am living in India, I know majority of us take this medicine when we have cold and headache. What is worrying is that this drug can be bought off the counter without even a prescription. To add to that the drug is advertised on prime time television without even a mention about the side effects. The medical community is also guilty of prescribing these unsafe medicines. If I quote the medicines that are banned in other countries but are available in India, I will have a long list.

So, I request everyone to check the content of the drug you take and have a general idea about it. Also spread information about the dangerous side effects. Be bold to tell your physician that you had read about the side effects. You might provide the physician with an information that he wasn’t aware of’ thus saving the lives of many others. If not, you would have at least prompted the physician to be careful and not take advantage of a patient’s ignorance. Your questions might change the fate of many others!!

Dhanya.

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If I say hello to smokers, I believe I will be addressing the majority of the people in the world. It is such a common habit nowadays that it has become a part our life. India is home to one of the largest-smoking population – estimated at 120 million.

A couple of weeks back when I was watching certain shows on the TV, an advertisement suddenly hit me. It was not mentioning the brand name, but projecting it as a help for people to quit smoking. It was being advertised by Pfizer. As I know about this drug, since I am working on it, I started thinking about CHAMPIX. CHAMPIX is the latest blockbuster from Pfizer – a billion-dollar-blockbuster drug. Pfizer launched CHAMPIX in India on 26 February 2008. The drug costs about Rs 10,000 (approx.) for a 12-week course.

CHAMPIX was introduced with much salute, and with good reason. I agree with that. A study conducted by scientists from India, Canada and the UK and published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that smoking kills 900,000 people every year in India, and unless corrective action is taken, soon the number will increase to 1 million annually by the year 2010 and beyond. Therefore, our government should do some thing as soon as possible.

On 25 February 2008, a day before the launch of CHAMPIX in India, I had gone through an article from Dow Jones Newswires which said that Pfizer had recently stopped running ads that identified CHAMPIX after the FDA had issued a safety alert about potential neuro-psychiatric side effects of the drug. Pfizer is running an ‘unbranded’ ad campaign about smoking cessation that doesn’t identify CHAMPIX.

Why does our Government entertain the entry of a drug that doesn’t reveal its identity? Are we saving our smokers in this way? The drug is facing a lot of controversy in the US and UK due to its side effects like depression which finally leads to suicide. There are strict warnings in these countries that people taking this medication should be under close monitoring by the doctors to identify the change in behaviour. They are given counseling and care with the drug.

Do our doctors follow the same method? I don’t think so. So smokers ‘BE AWARE’. Try to quit this habit with your willpower and the proper guidance of a physician. And let the whole world shout against the pharmaceutical companies that we are not ‘GUINEA PIGS’.

Dhanya

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Sexy People Sound Better!!!!! Watch Out!!!! How Close Can You Be????
LiveScience.com, By Breg Soltis (Collected By Arunava Das)
July16, 2008

People with voices deemed sexy and attractive tend to have greater body symmetry upon close inspection, suggesting that what we hear in a person can greatly affect what we see in them.

"The sound of a person's voice reveals a considerable amount of biological information," said Susan Hughes, an evolutionary psychologist from Albright College in Reading, Pa. "It can reflect the mate value of a person."

Hughes, whose new study is detailed in the June 2008 edition of the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, cautions that an attractive voice does not necessarily indicate that this person has an attractive face.

A symmetric body is genetically sound, scientists say, and in evolutionary terms, in the wild, it can be an important factor when selecting a mate. But sometimes changes during prenatal development can slightly skew this balance. For instance, the length ratio between index and ring fingers, known as the digit ratio, is fixed by the first trimester, a time that corresponds with vocal cord and larynx development. If the hormone surge that affects vocal development also affects finger growth, there should be a connection between an individual's voice and digit ratio.

Hughes could not demonstrate a connection between voice attractiveness and digit ratio in her previous work, possibly due to vocal changes that occur during puberty. So in the new study, about 100 individuals listened to previously recorded voices and independently rated them on nine traits important during mate selection: approachability, dominance, healthiness, honesty, intelligence, likelihood to get dates, maturity, sexiness and warmth.

Study participants generally agreed on what made a voice attractive. But when Hughes used a spectrogram to analyze these voice ratings according to different acoustic properties such as pitch, intensity, jitter and shimmer, she could not find a common feature that made these voices seem attractive.

This indicates our perceptual system may be more advanced than expected.

"We can agree on what's an attractive voice yet I can't capture it with a computer," Hughes told LiveScience.said.

Investigating if a combination of these properties can define an attractive voice may shed light on a connection, she said.

10 Tips for a Healthy Voice

Hogikyan and colleagues have put together the following 10 tips to help keep your voice in shape:
1. Drink water to keep your body well hydrated, and avoid alcohol and caffeine. Your vocal cords vibrate very fast, and having a proper water balance helps keep them lubricated. Important note: Foods containing large amounts of water are excellent hydration-conscious snacks, including apples, pears, watermelon, peaches, melons, grapes, plums, bell peppers and applesauce.
2. Allow yourself several "vocal naps" every day, especially during periods of extended use. For instance, teachers should avoid speaking during the breaks between classes and find quiet ways to spend the lunch hour rather than talking in a noisy staff room with colleagues.
3. Don't smoke, or if you already do, quit. Smoking raises the risk of throat cancer tremendously, and inhaling smoke (even secondhand smoke) can irritate the vocal cords.
4. Don't abuse or misuse your voice. Avoid yelling or screaming, and try not to talk loudly in noisy areas. If your throat feels dry or tired, or your voice is getting hoarse, reduce your voice use. The hoarseness is a warning sign that your vocal cords are irritated.
5. Keep your throat and neck muscles relaxed even when singing high notes and low notes. Some singers tilt their heads up when singing high notes and down when singing low notes. "The high notes are on the ceiling and the low notes are on the floor," Rosenberg says. "Over time, you'll pay for that"—not just with strained vocal muscles but also by causing future limits on the vocal range.
6. Pay attention to how you speak every day. Even performers who have good singing habits can cause damage when they speak. Many skilled singers don't continue their healthy habits when they speak; indeed, says Herseth, "many people—including singers—should have much more breath flow when they speak."
7. Don't clear your throat too often. When you clear your throat, it's like slamming your vocal cords together. Doing it too much can injure them and make you hoarse. Try a sip of water or swallow to quench the urge to clear. If you feel like you have to clear your throat a lot, get checked by a doctor for such things as acid reflux disease, or allergy and sinus conditions.
8. When you're sick, spare your voice. Don't talk when you're hoarse due to a cold or infection. Listen to what your voice is telling you.
9. When you have to speak publicly, to large groups or outdoors, think about using amplification to avoid straining your voice.
10. Humidify your home and work areas. Remember, moist is good for the voice.

Deep-Voice Men Have More Kids
If you want to have lots of kids, look for a Barry White instead of a Justin Timberlake. Men with a deep voices have more offspring, a new study suggests.
Previous studies conducted by David Feinberg of McMaster University in Canada have shown that women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, judging them to be older, healthier and more masculine than their higher-pitched rivals.
Men, on the other hand, go for women with higher pitched voices because they find them more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger-sounding.
In the new study, detailed in a recent issue of the journal Biology Letters, Feinberg set out to see how that attraction to deeper-voiced men affected reproduction and the survival of offspring.
"While we find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates," Feinberg said, "we find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them."

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Arunava Das, Media Analyst

Terror is pathology. That is what it is in India, See the government's response to terror? The serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad were met with cringe-inducing official harrumphs from Delhi that warnings had been already been given to respective state governments. It is time to ask what the Union government means when it says warnings were available or is it the negligence of the states’ intelligence agencies? Is it the case that the Centre's, or specifically the home ministry's, radars are always buzzing efficiently with actionable information that is not acted upon by inefficient state governments? If so, why doesn't the Centre say it straight? They have a duty to the nation to say it. And if that is not the case, as one strongly suspects is not the case, why take this, to put it bluntly, awful way to pass the parcel? It has to be said, in the context of this trait, that the UPA's whole approach to terror has been scarily confusing.

The present home minister will demit office as having made a spectacular non-impression as far as his leadership of national security efforts go. It took the prime minister, that too after more than half of the UPA's term in office was over, to say Naxalites were a high-priority threat to India’s internal security. Can you recall the home minister taking political leadership of this national security issue? Can you recall him owning up to his remit as home minister vis-a-vis terror? And let's remember that while strong and clear political positions are no guarantees against stopping terror, their absence severely weakens the government's fight against it.

More than four years after the UPA took over, not a single terror attack has been brought to closure in terms of catching the perpetrators and putting them through the mills of justice. There's investigative failure of a scale that would have in normal circumstances consumed the career of several ministers - but in the UPA the home ministry seems to have acquired immunity from even the most obvious of questions. And what more to expect from a country’s ministry which stands at an awful 74 in the list of the most corrupted countries of the world. It's long been known that security agencies are in part handicapped by a certain absurd notion of political correctness - a notion that implicates the very people it professes to protect. The convenient political assumption in India is that voters don't punish governments who appear to be ineffective against terror. This government really has pushed that assumption to its limit.

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By Shilpa Nangali

“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day." - Henry David Thoreau, US writer and naturalist.

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for me when I’m unhappy than any medicine in the world! Most of us work mechanically, like robots, without any physical exercises. If I work like that then that puts me into a kind of depression! In fact, even I was one among them, who have no physical workouts but now I have realized how important is walking or any other physical exercises in our lives. Walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. Trust me, when I work out, I feel happiest! After my aerobics class, I will be so joyous and that joy will be carried through out my day!

Make your feet your friend. Our legs are considered as secondary hearts of our body. Help these secondary hearts to beat properly, do not make them numb!!!

If the air quality is bad, you are more likely to have serious heart disease related events. Gokhan Mutlu, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the Northwestern's Feinberg School and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said: “Being exposed to higher levels of pollution may unmask heart disease even if you've never had any symptoms.”

Mutlu published a study in 2007 that showed how pollution triggers heart attacks and strokes. He found that microscopic air pollution, particles less than one-tenth of the diameter of a human hair, makes the blood thicker and sticky. So people, please see to that your blood will not become thicker & sticky!!!

A morning walk in greenery - the real oxygen park!!! ;)

When lungs are inflamed by pollution, they secrete a substance, interleukin-6, which causes an increased tendency for blood to clot. People who live in polluted areas are more likely to have blood clots in their legs. Traveling long distances by car or plane is known to put people at risk for these clots.

For people in certain risk groups, breathing high levels of pollution can cause heart attacks and strokes within 24 hours of exposure and increase the possibility of having blood clots in their legs on the plane home, according to a warning given by two researchers in pulmonary medicine and critical care at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

It's not just Olympic athletes who need to worry about the heavily polluted air in Beijing, for the dirty air may cause serious heart problems for some spectators too!!! Spectators could suffer serious health problems from traveling to China for the games.

People who are at most risk include those who already have known cardiovascular disease or risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, lung disease, a current smoking habit or a family member diagnosed with heart disease before age 55. "If you spend a few weeks in Beijing, your blood might become thicker and sticky and then when you fly 12 hours back to the US that further increases your risk. If clots migrate into the lungs and cause pulmonary embolism, that can kill you," Mutlu warned.

The Chinese government has been scrambling to cut down on air pollution before the world’s best athletes compete in the Olympics next month at Beijing; they’ve closed down factories near Beijing and allowed people to drive their cars only every other day.

Even if you have a healthy visit to China, you’re not off the hook—Mutlu says the same pollutant particles can cause blood clots, especially if you spend too much time sitting down on one of those marathon flights back to the States.

So what’s a globe-trotting sports fan to do? Men over 40 should take aspirin, the researchers say, and everyone would do themselves a favor by staying inside during rush hour, when cars in traffic jams are spewing forth exhaust. And what about that lengthy flight home? Make sure you get up occasionally and walk around. That’s probably good for you no matter where you’re flying to or from.

I feel that in every walk with nature we receive far more than we seek. I am right now connecting to the silence within..which is clearing most of the mental cob webs...it is in the silent mind that the true consciousness can be built...!

References:
Economic Times & Discover magazine

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After 21 days of racing, the anthem of The Tour De France echoes for the last time in the famous cobbled streets of The Champs-Élysées. This year’s winner of the Tour, Carlos Sastre, another Spaniard after last year’s winner Alberto Contador, was in the saddle for 87 hours 52 minutes and 52 seconds.



This year’s Tour was again brutal and hard but the spirit of the riders was unwavering. If the Alpe-d'Huez was the Mecca for the climbers, then the Champs-Élysées is the Mecca for the sprinters. It was really special to see the former lead out man for Tom Boonen, Gert Steegmans, a sprinter winning the final stage.



As usual, like every other year, this year too the shadow of doping hung over the race, as three riders were kicked out. Race director Christian Prudhomme, made the usual noises proclaiming that this year’s Tour was a victory over doping cheats. But really, somehow I get that sinking feeling that the Tour will never free itself from the clutches of doping scandals.



One of the highlights of the Tour was the dominating victories of one man by the name of Mark Cavendish, winning 4 stages. It was a purist’s delight watching this sprinter rack up those victories. Though he retired early after those victories in order to concentrate on his Olympic preparations, he is a rider to watch out for in the coming years.



95 Tours and still running, the pinnacle of cycling, for some it’s the holy grail; but for me it will always remain a festival of sport. With hope and eagerness, I await the next year’s edition.





Author

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By Deeksh

Scientists have been using animals for testing since years. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals worldwide — from fish to non-human primates — are used annually.

Using animals in these testing is highly controversial.

Though, the U.S. and British governments both support the advancement of medical and scientific goals using animal testing, provided that the testing minimizes animal use and suffering.

Animals are used in testing personal goods such as shampoos to some highly toxic chemicals.

Is there any alternative?

YES it is – says Christopher Austin, Director, Chemical Genomics Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

Mr. Austin says that, in future, robots might replace animal testing in screening for environmental toxins.

He believes that over the course of the next five to ten years that this (using robots) approach will refine, reduce, and ultimately replace the number of animals that are used in toxicology testing.

The process is slow, it’s expensive, it is not necessarily predicative of human toxicity, and it’s become increasingly discouraged by the public, said Mr. Austin.

According to Mr. Austin, the new method grows cells on small trays. Each tray may have over 1,500 different chambers, each chamber holding just a few cells to be tested. Robots working 24/7 quickly handle and process the information, which translates to whether a chemical might be harmful to a human being.

Mr. Austin said the new process works, and should be widely used in the next few years. That’s good news for those who feel for the plightof animals that undergo testing.

It’s really noble idea to develop new testing methods to replace these animals.

Yes – rabbits, mice and rats are cheap and readily replaceable, but that doesn’t mean we have ‘rights’ to divest their rights to live on this planet.

I, personally think that, robots may not represent the exact real reactions to these tests, we might still depend on these animals for few more decades, and it’s good to know that scientists are working on the right track – AI.

But how long this abuse on animals in the name of ‘research’ continues…

Did you know:

Types of vertebrates used in animal testing in Europe in 2005: a total of 12.1 million animals were used.

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The G8 summit concluded on an emphatic note, declaring that a breakthrough agreement on climate change has been reached, wherein the members have agreed to cut at least 50 per cent of their current carbon emissions by 2050 and committing to the principle of mid-term reduction or stabilization targets.



How valid is this agreement? Who makes sure that the targets are met? What happens when the targets are not met?



With these questions swimming in my mind, I decided to dig in. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I came across an article from The Financial Times written by David Pilling. The article states that China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa have declined to stand by the agreement and have gone on record saying that “That they cannot adopt any measures that will endanger growth needed to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”



These countries have dangled the poverty card to as a license to continue polluting the environment. To how far an extent is this justifiable? These are the ones who are right now the culprits, contributing a major share of carbon emissions. They also have adamantly suggested that the “rich & developed” countries are the ones who should cut their emission levels by between 80 and 95 per cent from 1990 levels, while they are given a free license to go and pollute our environment. Yea…license to rape.



I believe developing countries have the flexibility to adopt measures to check and cut carbon emissions when compared to the already developed ones. Any measure put in place now will hold good even in the coming future, taking into account that there would be continuous increase in population; which directly corresponds to increased amount of carbon emissions.



Why wait till a country achieves the coveted status of “developed” to implement carbon emission cutting measures? Why not now?



The stance adopted by a few countries calls into question the futility of conducting these meetings. Why cheat our conscience by adopting resolutions which will not be adhered. Go ahead. Rape our environment. We are more concerned about alleviating poverty.



We can always live with the fact that at this rate of pollution, the day when the environment becomes inhospitable for the existence of our kind is not too far away. But we just cannot live with “POVERTY.”



Author

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By Shilpa Nangali

Recently, Teva announced its plan to acquire Barr Pharmaceuticals. The Barr acquisition is the largest deal in the generics market to date, narrowly surpassing Teva's acquisition of Ivax at US$7.4 billion in 2005.

It is said that marriages are made in heaven. I do not know if it is true or not but marriages of companies are hot & happening right now!

The acquisition of Barr Pharmaceuticals was the focus of attention at an investors’ conference Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. held in New York. "Teva and Barr are a match made in heaven," said Teva CFO Eyal Desheh.

Teva president and CEO Shlomo Yanai reiterated his comments on the strategic fit between the company and Barr, and Barr's expected contribution to Teva at several levels. "1.6 million prescriptions for Teva and Barr drugs are filled every day in the US, double the number for Mylan drugs, which is in second place," he said.

Who knows, this marriage of Teva & Barr may be a boon for Teva! After this marriage,Teva can expand its leadership in the US market and fortify its presence in Europe. ;-)

There was an official meeting between Bruce Downey, Chief Executive of Barr Pharmaceuticals Downey and the Teva Executives, Shlomo Yanai and William Marth regarding the announcement of Teva’s agreement to pay $7.5 billion to acquire Barr. The deal is not expected to result in the immediate job losses in New Jersey, where Barr employs nearly 500 people. Downey said: “Teva has emphasized it wants to increase its manufacturing capabilities through the acquisition of Barr, and the combined company will need more staff to handle its additional business.”

Teva vice chairman Philip Frost is a man, who was once at the target side of a Teva acquisition when he headed Ivax Corporation, acquired by Teva three years ago. He added, "On behalf of the board of directors, but more importantly, as an investor in Teva, I want to thank Shlomo for this good deal for Teva." He also praised Barr chairman and CEO Bruce Downey as a "dear friend and colleague" and said that they were now members of the same family.

Teva's proprietary product portfolio currently consists of only two drugs, namely, Copaxone (glatiramer acetate) and Azilect (rasagiline). Although Azilect's latest clinical trial results have touted it as a blockbuster molecule, Teva's ambitions to extend the patent on its leading proprietary molecule, Copaxone, were dashed when its FORTE trials results reported findings of no added efficacy at a higher dosage.

Additionally, Teva’s Copaxone enterprise has been threatened by Momenta-Sandoz's Para IV filings and Mylan-Natco's marketing agreements for generic Copaxone. Copaxone’s patent reportedly expired during the drug development process with complete patent expiration on the drug due in 2014 and 2015 in the US and Europe, respectively.

Yoav Burgan, pharmaceuticals analyst at Leader Capital Markets in Tel Aviv, said that Teva's management was under pressure to make a high-quality deal due to a number of recent setbacks, such as losing out to Mylan Inc on buying Merck KGaA's generics business, as well as its disappointing results on its 40-mg Copaxone tests and the potential long-term generic competition for its 20-mg version of Copaxone.

Shlomo Yanai scoffed at the idea that the disappointing Copaxone results forced the company to make the deal. In landing the biggest acquisition ever by an Israeli company, Yanai applied the long-term strategic thinking of a seasoned military general. Analyst Aaron Gal said that the purchase of Barr does not solve Teva's problem with Copaxone, a proprietary drug for multiple sclerosis, which faces a decline in sales in 2012. Gal expects Copaxone to face new competition in 2012. The drug accounted for 18 percent of Teva’s sales last year.

References: Global Insight Daily Analysis, Market News Publishing, Reuters, Associated Press Newswire, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Israel Business Arena and NJ.com.

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By Shilz

Yes, CUPID is on the way to find something new in the field of multiple sclerosis. Do not scratch your head, thinking how CUPID is related to MS! I am not writing about CUPID, the God of erotic love and beauty, instead about CUPID trial - Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease.

First and foremost, I want to mention that possession of cannabis is a criminal offense, although the police are more lenient with those possessing small amounts for their own personal medical use. There have been claims cannabis may have beneficial effects in a variety of medical conditions, including MS, severe nausea and vomiting (for example, during chemotherapy), glaucoma, chronic pain and migraine. The problem is many of these claims are little more than anecdotal evidence - personal reports from people who've tried it, or treated someone with it. Reliable scientific evidence based on properly conduced clinical trials has been sparse.

The CUPID (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease) study at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth has reached an important milestone with the news that the full cohort of 493 people with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been recruited to the study. CUPID is a clinical trial which will evaluate whether tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of many compounds found in the in the cannabis plant (and the main active ingredient) is able to slow the progression of MS. This is an important study for people with MS because current treatments either target the immune system in the early stages of MS, or are aimed at easing specific symptoms such as muscle spasms or bladder problems. At present there is no treatment which slows progression of the disease.

The CUPID trial follows an earlier study -- Cannabinoids and Multiple Sclerosis (CAMS) -- which suggested a link between THC and the slowing of MS. The CAMS trial saw participants take THC for a year -- the CUPID trial will last for longer and aims to assess the effect of THC on progressive MS. It has taken two years to recruit the 493 participants who will each take part in the trial for three years, and in some cases three and a half years. After data cleaning and analysis the results should be available by spring/early summer 2012.

Professor John Zajicek from the Peninsula Medical School, who heads the team carrying out the CUPID study, said: "We are delighted to have achieved the correct number of patient participants for this trial. Patients have been recruited from 27 sites across the UK. If we are able to prove beyond reasonable doubt the link between THC and the slowing down of progressive MS, we will be able to develop an effective therapy for the many thousands of MS sufferers around the world."

The CUPID trial is funded by the Medical Research Council, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Trust. Chris Jones, chief executive of the MS Trust, commented: "The MS Trust is delighted to be supporting this study on behalf of people with MS. The ability to halt progression in MS is what we dream of - the Holy Grail for those whose condition deteriorates year on year. This study should give us the definitive answer as to whether cannabinoids will prove to be such an agent."

Dr Laura Bell, research communications officer for the MS Society, said: "People affected by MS are keen to know whether there's any truth in the suggestion that elements of the cannabis plant can help ease the symptoms and slow down progression of the condition. "The MS Society is supportive of safe clinical trials investigating the medicinal properties of cannabis and it's great news that this trial is going ahead. We look forward to the results of this exciting study."

The Cannabis in Multiple Sclerosis (CAMS) trial, funded by the Medical Research Council and published in The Lancet in 2003, demonstrated some of the uncertainty about the benefits of cannabis in alleviating MS symptoms. More than 600 people took part in the trial, which was examining the effects on spasticity. They took oral capsules containing either whole cannabis extract, or tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the drug's principal active ingredient, or a placebo (dummy treatment). The trial was blinded so that participants didn't know what they were taking. The researchers weren't able to show a significant improvement in spasticity among those treated with cannabis extract, or THC, even though the participants reported an improvement in their symptoms, in particular pain, spasms, spasticity and sleep quality, but not irritability, depression, tiredness, tremor or energy levels. The researchers did find that patients taking the cannabis derivative showed an improvement in their ability to walk. The researchers also pointed out that three-quarter of the patients given cannabis had guessed they were taking active medication, and half of those receiving placebo had guessed they weren't receiving cannabis. The researchers concluded the study had yielded no definitive verdict on whether or not cannabis eases the symptoms of MS. They added that many of those taking placebo capsules containing no active treatment felt benefits, which indicated how much patients gain by taking part in clinical trials, irrespective of the treatment they are given.

Increase in medicinal cannabinoid trials

In the past two to three years, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of clinical trials investigating medicinal cannabinoids - synthetic drugs based on the active chemicals isolated from cannabis - in MS.

These medicines, such as a delta-9-THC buccal spray, have been tested for the treatment of symptoms such as chronic pain and spasticity, and most of the studies suggest they have a helpful effect, at least for a subgroup of patients.

Risks are as unclear as benefits

Just as the benefits have yet to be proven, so the risks remain unclear. Cannabis undoubtedly has psychoactive effects (this is, after all, why people use it as a recreational drug). There's research to show that cannabis may cause short-term memory problems, poor concentration and slowed reaction times during acute intoxication. There is also some evidence to suggest long-term use of cannabis may increase the risk of psychosis, especially in certain people who are more vulnerable.The risk of long-term psychological harm and the issue of whether cannabis use leads to the use of other drugs are the subject of heated debates.

Herbal cannabis contains hundreds of chemicals, which could be having different effects, and it's difficult to know what you're getting and in what dose when you smoke it. Researchers looking at purified medicinal cannabinoids say adverse side-effects have generally been mild compared with the other drugs used to treat pain and spasticity in MS. Even so, there's concern about potential long-term effects, in particular psychiatric effects, and adverse effects on foetal development.

Prescribed cannabinoids may be the best choice

The only legal option if you want to try cannabis as a treatment for MS is to talk to your doctor about medicinal cannabinoids. These contain a synthetic version of THC and are in tablet form. They're legal, easy to take and have a guaranteed dosage. People who've tried them say they're not as effective as smoking cannabis, but do help to some degree, although side-effects may still be a problem.

Sources: ScienceDaily.com and BBC Health -Ask the doctor (Dr Trisha Macnair)

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Doping and Tour De France have a long history together. This year too, all hopes of a dope free Tour were dashed as doping reared its ugly head with two riders testing positive. Every year the organizers and the WADA speak tough on doping, urging the cyclists to compete cleanly, but their pleas are often fallen on deaf and stubborn ears. The Tour, considered to be the holy grail of cycling, the ultimate test of human endurance, skill and spirit; has given us unforgettable performances by a select few, who have managed to make the Tour their own, until they retired. It is the stuff that legends are made of.  But cheating at the highest altar of cycling is simply not acceptable. You can find the sordid tales of doping by the cyclists and the methods they use here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_doping.



Out of curiosity I decided to dig a little deeper and here’s what I managed to cull out.



Doping refers to the use of performance-enhancing drugs to improve one’s athletic performance, a practice which is forbidden by organizations that regulate competitions.



The most rampant form of doping in the Tour’s history has been Blood Doping. It is the practice of boosting the number of red blood cells (RBCs) in the circulation in order to enhance athletic performance. Because they carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, more RBCs in the blood can improve an athlete’s aerobic capacity and endurance.



In the fag end of the 18th century and early 19th century, six day bicycle races had gained popularity across the Atlantic and the cyclist who managed to ride the greatest distance by staying awake for the entire six day stretch being declared the winner.



I have one word – Brutal.



This prompted rampant drug abuse among the cyclists with side effects ranging from hallucinations, insanity and even death. But in those times it was viewed that doping was necessary in order to compete in such brutal, demanding races. For more information on instances of doping, visit this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_(sport). For official information on Blood Doping from WADA, visit this link: http://www.wada-ama.org/en/dynamic.ch2?pageCategory.id=626.



Pete Grathoff writing for The Kansas City Star hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “Sometimes in sports things just go together. Hot dogs and mustard. The New York Yankees and haughtiness. Blood doping and the Tour de France.”



The Cycling Union in a weak attempt to cleanse the cycling fraternity has come up with an oath. Any cyclist who undertakes this oath, the Union will attempt to make this oath binding by forcing on the cyclist who signs it; to forfeit a year's wages if they're caught cheating.



The oath taken by sportsmen and women at the pinnacle of sporting competition, The Olympics:



“In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams.”



I sincerely hope that athletes after taking this hope compete cleanly and uphold the spirit of sportsmanship. With the Olympics almost knocking on our doors, this hope has turned into a prayer.



Before the start of the first road stage, tradition of the Tour De France dictates that the youngest rider in the race will read the Riders’ Oath. For the remainder of the Tour, I feverently hope that this Oath is not broken.



Only time will tell…..



Author

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Being an entrepreneur is about more than just starting a business or two, it is about having attitude and the drive to succeed in business. All successful Entrepreneurs have a similar way of thinking and posses several key personal qualities that make them so successful in business. Successful entrepreneurs like the ambitious Richard Branson have an inner drive to succeed and grow their business, rather than having a Harvard Business degree or technical knowledge in a particular field.

All successful entrepreneurs have the following qualities:

Inner Drive to Succeed
Entrepreneurs are driven to succeed and expand their business. They see the bigger picture and are often very ambitious. Entrepreneurs set massive goals for themselves and stay committed to achieving them regardless of the obstacles that get in the way.

Strong Belief in themselves
Successful entrepreneurs have a healthy opinion of themselves and often have a strong and assertive personality. They are focused and determined to achieve their goals and believe completely in their ability to achieve them. Their self optimism can often been seen by others as flamboyance or arrogance but entrepreneurs are just too focused to spend too much time thinking about un-constructive criticism.

Search for New Ideas and Innovation
All entrepreneurs have a passionate desire to do things better and to improve their products or service. They are constantly looking for ways to improve. They're creative, innovative and resourceful.

Openness to Change
If something is not working for them they simply change. Entrepreneurs know the importance of keeping on top of their industry and the only way to being number one is to evolve and change with the times. They're up to date with the latest technology or service techniques and are always ready to change if they see a new opportunity arise.

Competitive by Nature
Successful entrepreneurs thrive on competition. The only way to reach their goals and live up to their self imposed high standards is to compete with other successful businesses.

Highly Motivated and Energetic
Entrepreneurs are always on the move, full of energy and highly motivated. They are driven to succeed and have an abundance of self motivation. The high standards and ambition of many entrepreneurs demand that they have to be motivated!

Accepting of Constructive Criticism and Rejection
Innovative entrepreneurs are often at the forefront of their industry so they hear the words "it can't be done" quite a bit. They readjust their path if the criticism is constructive and useful to their overall plan, otherwise they will simply disregard the comments as pessimism. Also, the best entrepreneurs know that rejection and obstacles are a part of any leading business and they deal with them appropriately.

True entrepreneurs are resourceful, passionate and driven to succeed and improve. They're pioneers and are comfortable fighting on the frontline The great ones are ready to be laughed at and criticized in the beginning because they can see their path ahead and are too busy working towards their dream.

Article By: Tele Innova and iResearchers

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By Shilpa Nangali

Look into my eyes,
See the joy, see the fire.
See love's lost.
See the newness, see the end,
See a heart. See it break.
What can you see when you look into my eyes?
See the passion, see the laughter,
See our lives in a time when we still were.
See the love I still have
If you only would look into my eyes!

This is a poem by Ellen George. It is said that the eyes can be a mirror of one’s soul. Well, sometimes eyes may reveal more than what is in the heart! ;)

Actually, I was searching for this poem in Google and found something very interesting other than this poem.

Look deep into someone's eyes and know what is in their hearts or whether they will eventually get diabetes! Yeah, thinking that it is something crazy? Nope, it is science!

Yes, a new screening device that pinpoints early symptoms of impending eye disease is found to help doctors detect patients prone to diabetes. The instrument, designed by scientists at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Centre, captures eye images to detect metabolic stress and tissue damage. The non-invasive device takes 5 mins to test both eyes. For diabetics, diagnosed or not, it potentially offers advantages over blood glucose testing, the "gold standard" for diabetes detection.

The technology measures a phenomenon called flavoprotein autofluorescence (FA), which is thought to be a reliable indicator of eye trouble. The device measures the intensity of cellular fluorescence in retinal tissue. A high level of such fluorescence -- or flavoprotein autofluorescence (FA) -- is a reliable indicator of eye disease. "The concept behind measuring FA in the retina is to determine whether there's a metabolic dysfunction in the retinal tissue," explained lead researcher Dr. Victor M. Elner, a professor in the University's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

Victor M. Elner and Howard R. Petty, authors of the study, then measured the FA levels of 21 individuals who had diabetes and compared the results to age-matched healthy controls. The scientists found that FA activity was significantly higher for those with diabetes, regardless of severity, compared to those who did not have the disease.

Petty, a biophysicist and imaging expert, explained that hyperglycemia - or high blood sugar - is known to induce cell death in diabetic tissue soon after the onset of disease but before symptoms can be detected clinically. Petty also observed that unlike glucose monitoring, elevation of FA levels reflects ongoing tissue damage.

The findings of the study have appeared in the latest issue of the Journal Archives of Ophthalmology.

References: Times of India & Washington Post

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Deeksh

Today, I was browsing for some info. Accidentally, I came across a story that is stirring and motivating. Why not share with you all -

A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from San Francisco.

"Mom and Dad, I'm coming home, but I've a favor to ask. I have a friend I'd like to bring home with me."

"Sure," they replied, "we'd love to meet him."

"There's something you should know the son continued, "he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mind and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live."

"No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us."

"Son," said the father, "you don't know what you're asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can't let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live on his own."

At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him. A few days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide. The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son. They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn't know, their son had only one arm and one leg.

The parents in this story are like many of us. We find it easy to love those who are good-looking or fun to have around, but we don't like people who inconvenience us or make us feel uncomfortable. We would rather stay away from people who aren't as healthy, beautiful, or smart as we are. Thankfully, there's someone who won't treat us that way. Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how messed up we are.

Tonight, before you tuck yourself in for the night, say a little prayer that God will give you the strength you need to accept people as they are, and to help us all be more understanding of those who are different from us!!!

Learn more @ indianchild.com

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I bow down to him, hats off to the Billionaire Investor, Warren Buffet – I am motivated and inspired by his business ethics

Warren Edward Buffett, an, American investor, businessman, and philanthropist (born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska) . The only boy in the family, he was the second of three children, and displayed an amazing aptitude for both money and business from a very early age.

He is regarded as one of the world's greatest stock market investors, and is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. With an estimated net worth around US$62 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world as of February 11, 2008.

Often called the "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value of investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth.

Buffett is also a noted philanthropist. In 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, he was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in The World. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at the Grinnell College.

The second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:
1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, which he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house,, though his house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: Do not lose any
of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time
after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer at his desk.

His advice for young people: "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and
Remember:
A. Money doesn't create man but it is man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't follow what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel good.
D. Don't go for brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on them who really need money.
F. After all it's your life; then why give chance to others to rule your life."

Visit for more information

http://www.buffettsystem.com/

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/cs/warrenbuffett/a/aawarrenbio.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

By Prathima V

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By Geetha

The use of plants as a source of medicines is prevalent from the earliest stages of civilization. With the development of bioscience technology, it is now common knowledge that plants are potentially a new source of pharmaceutical proteins including vaccines, antibodies, blood substitutes and other therapeutic entities. These vaccines are basically ‘Edible Vaccines’.

These edible vaccines are capable of triggering an animal’s immune system. The Edible vaccines are oral, subunit vaccines that stimulate both the systematic and mucosal immune network. Banana, potato, lettuce, tobacco, wheat, soybean, rice, spinach, corn, legumes, tomato and Arabidopsis are some of the plants from which researchers have been successful in obtaining these vaccines.

Edible vaccines would be preferred over conventional vaccines for the following reasons:

1) Cutting the use and disposal of needles and syringes

2) No trained personnel required to administer injections

3) Refrigeration is not required during shipping and storage

4) Vaccines are free of mammalian viral vectors and human pathogens

5) Adjuvant is not necessary to enhance immune response

6) Production cost is low

7) Extraction and purification not required

8) Ease of mass production so on…

However, many issues must still be addressed such as low yield, immunogenicity, accumulation and stability of the transproteins, obtaining glycosylation that are normally observed in humans, contamination of food crops through cross pollination and of the vaccine itself in plant debris spreading as pollutant in air and groundwater. The vaccine antigen may affect grazing animals and humans living in the area who may drink vaccine-polluted water or breathing vaccine-polluted dust, cultivation and production of these plants are restricted to green house or plant tissue culture.

Considering the potentials, we indeed, need to think of overcoming the problems which are faced for the acceptance of these vaccines. Public and Government should encourage to open the way towards a more rapid development of this technology.

I would finally conclude, a combination of strong and adaptable regulatory oversight with technological solutions are required to make edible vaccines as potential tool to fight against many existing diseases.

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By Shilpa Nangali

Wal-Mart, the giant retailer, along with CVS (CVS, Fortune 500) and Toys 'R Us, announced recently that it plans to stop selling baby bottles containing the chemical bisphenol-A. I see that BPA is the hot topic on baby blogs and forums everywhere.

Bisphenol-A has been widely used since the 1950s. The FDA, as well as Japanese and European regulators, have no problems with it. Canada is about to ban it from baby bottles, but officials term the move purely precautionary.

To be sure, other scientists worry because animal studies have linked small doses of BPA to cancer and other health problems. However, scientific debate isn't driving the baby bottle war; a hard-hitting push by activist groups, politicians and trial lawyers is!!! Strange fact to accept!

BPA is a chemical used in the manufacturing of most plastics. It is a known neurotoxin and is used to make polycarbonate, a rigid, clear plastic for bottles, bike helmets, DVDs and car headlights. It's also an ingredient in epoxy resins, which coat the inside of food and drink cans. About 93% of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control had the chemical in their urine. Independent research is now showing that the chemical leaches into formula contents of bottles. It should be noted that the effect of this 'leaching' is yet to be determined. However, parents and others are rightfully concerned about finding the dangerous chemical in things used to feed their babies.

As traditional media picked up the story in the spring, spooked retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) backed away from BPA, while companies that had done so earlier scored a PR coup that boosted their fortunes. One could argue, as BPA opponents do, that the government is too slow to take action to protect health, so private action by consumers and companies is necessary. Or one could argue, as does Steve Hentges, a chemist and industry lobbyist that "the science can't compete with the emotion."

The chemical industry has tried to get its message out, too. See the Web sites http://www.bisphenol-a.org/ and http://www.factsonplastic.com/ , which offer a defense of BPA. But the industry is often depicted as a "special interest group," while environmentalists and politicians are seen as serving the "public interest."

It isn't that simple, of course. Controversy helps a few enviros to raise money, Democratic politicians love to find fault with the Bush administration. And the trial lawyers sense a big payday. The problem for the chemical industry is that its track record doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The Dingell-Stupak investigation of BPA looked at what the congressmen call "science for sale," finding examples of consultants promising clients how research would turn out. Needless to say, this is not how science is supposed to work.

This became a key element of the attack on BPA. Dingell has said he's concerned about whether "the science FDA relied on to approve the use of Bisphenol A was bought and paid for by industry." But, as Dingell must know, the FDA typically uses industry research because it doesn't have the money to conduct independent studies of the thousands of chemicals on the market. It then reviews what industry produces.

By April, all the news had turned bad for BPA. "There is no safe level of BPA," declared Dr. Nancy Snyderman, an NBC medical reporter, on the Today show. (Maybe NBC is the new FDA?) The Canadian government recommended its ban on baby bottles with BPA. A lengthy draft report from a part of the National Institutes of Health found "some concern" about the effect of BPA on fetuses, infants and children at current exposure levels. The NTP report is a model of thoroughness and nuance. Naturally, that makes it a flop in the court of public opinion.

With fear in the air, in the space of a few days Wal-Mart, Toy 'R Us, CVS and others said they will phase out baby bottles containing BPA. Nalgene, a water bottle maker, and Playtex also said they will stop using the chemical.

Marc Gunther, senior writer, asked Wal-Mart - why the company is removing a legal product, which may or may not be dangerous, while continuing to sell cigarettes, which are incontrovertibly harmful. "We sell products our customers want to buy," responded spokeswoman Linda Brown Blakley. "Our customers are telling us they want this option."

That won't end the war. You can expect to see anti-BPA forces keep up the pressure. Will soup, soda and beer cans be next? And is this any way to make judgments about public health?

However, I would like to mention the tips through which you can effectively minimize your baby's exposure to BPA:

(1)Do get rid of old, scratched baby bottles and replace them with new ones. The leeching of chemicals isn't instantaneous but rather happens with wear and tear over several washings. Scratches can also harbor bacteria.

(2)Bottles that have a disposable 'drop in' system, have not at this point been shown to leach chemicals. This is likely because of just getting used once.

(3)Do not heat or microwave foods in plastic containers but rather use glass or ceramic microwave safe bowls, and plates.

Of course this is yet another reason why breast-feeding is best. Breast milk doesn't contain chemicals that can harm your baby. Breastfeeding has been linked statistically to numerous health benefits including making your baby smarter, being developmentally advanced, reduced allergies, reduced risk of cancer and just about everything else under the sun that could be healthy and good for your baby. While formula cannot come close to mimicking breast milk perhaps another variable in the "breast is better" statistics is that hard plastic bottles have now been found to leak a dangerous chemical into the bottle's liquid.

Powdered formulas are the best choice for parents who want to avoid bisphenol A in their baby's diet. While powdered formula has not been tested for BPA, it is diluted with much more water than liquid formulas which reduces the amount of BPA that the baby consumes in each feeding. Nestlé has made unsubstantiated claims that they don't use any BPA to line their powdered formula cans. Nestlé, Enfamil and Similac use a mixed metal and cardboard package with less BPA-coating. Second best are Earth's Best Organic and PBM's store-brand powdered formulas that use a fully metal can.

Some liquid formulas are sold in plastic, mostly polyethylene and polypropylene which do not contain any BPA. Avoid any plastic containers that are rigid and transparent, marked with "PC". All liquid formulas sold in metal cans are lined with BPA-epoxy, which has been shown to leach into the product. If you buy formula in metal cans choose the concentrated type which is diluted with water prior to feeding. Avoid ready-to-eat formula in metal cans, which has the highest BPA leaching potential.

The majority of government funded studies found some of the following side effects from BPA:

1. Increased prostate size
2. Decreased sperm count
3. Early onset of puberty
4. Hormonal changes
5. Behavioral problems
6. Estrogen level changes

It has been proven that BPA does “leach” from bottles and cans into food and liquids. The plastics industry does not deny that BPA does leach which results in it being ingested, but they claim that these levels are well within guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

There are seven different labels for plastics:

* 1 PETE: Commonly used in soft drink, juice and water containers.

* 2 HDPE: Commonly used in opaque plastic milk and water jugs.

* 3 PVC or V: Commonly used for cling wrap.

* 4 LDPE: Commonly used in grocery store bags and plastic wraps.

* 5 PP: Commonly used in “cloudy” plastic containers such as baby bottles.

* 6 PS: Commonly used in disposable cups and Styrofoam.

* 7 Other: Usually polycarbonate. Commonly used in most plastic baby bottles, clear plastic sippy cups and water
bottles

As a general rule of thumb, you should use bottles and containers that are labeled 1, 2, 4 or 5. Avoid using bottles and containers labeled 3, 6 or 7.

If you do need to use polycarbonate bottles:

* Throw away bottles that are old and/or scratched. When plastic is worn, BPA will leach more easily.

* Avoid using polycarbonate containers in the microwave.

* Avoid cleaning with harsh detergents as this will cause the plastic to wear.

* Avoid placing high temperature liquids in polycarbonate containers.

As I said earlier, there is a lot of controversy and conflicting reports regarding BPA. This will probably continue to be a hot topic for some time to come and it is clear that more research is needed

The sad truth is many a times our world is a playground of hazardous chemicals! I

We must be careful not to expose our children to chemical cleaners, insecticides, and weed killers on our lawns. Chemicals used in pressure-treated wood used to build lawn furniture, decks, fences, and swing sets have also been shown to place children at risk. When young children are around, we must be vigilant to maintain a chemical-free environment.

SO TO BE A SAFE MAMA: "Think"... abt ur "baby"... with every decision u make.

References: Fortune Magazine, Baby.families.com, Ezinearticles.com, Diseaseproof.com, Mindfully.org and EWG.org.

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By Sowjanya Shankar

So, it seems that all prayers seeking for Andyar's safety has been heard. She is found safe. Mehbooba Andyar, who was the only Afghan female scheduled to be competing in the Beijing Olympic Games next month, has resurfaced after going missing in Italy last week and is en route to Norway, where she will be seeking asylum.

When Andyar could not be found at her training camp in Formia, there were fears that her disappearance may have been linked to a series of death threats that she had received at home from Muslim extremists, who are opposed to the concept of a woman running in the Olympics.

However, concerns for her family's safety are not over because, since Ahadgar's mysterious disappearance, her parents have been under so much pressure from the Afghan Olympic Committee in Kabul to get their daughter back into her spikes that they have been threatened with imprisonment. Her parents, though, were also in the dark as to her whereabouts until she phoned them.

While her safety is a relief within Olympic circles, her decision to go into hiding a month before the Games is a galling blow because, as an Afghan woman who is proud of her athleticism and her Muslim religion, she became a poster girl for the Games. Ahadgar had been on a scholarship from the Olympic Solidarity program, which financed training camps in Kuala Lumpur and Italy, even though her running times in her event, the 1,500 metres, meant that she would struggle to finish within a minute of the winners.

And now that she is back in the track, I wish that she taste the fruit of success after undergoing the unseen hardships. Way to go Andyar. We are with you.

Reference: Times.com
Image Source: Thepoormouth.blogspot.com

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Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. [BSNL] is India's largest telephone service provider to private and business customers with a subscriber base of 17.8 million cellular customers. It is also India's no. 1 Internet service provider. BSNL prides itself on providing Quality Telecom Network in the country and is now focusing on improving it, expanding the network, introducing new telecom services in villages and wining customer's satisfaction. Its consumer plans are quite acceptable for both prepaid and postpaid customers. BSNL has earned quite a lot of good will in customers and its time for it to introduce the crazy gadget iPhone in India.

Introduction of iPhone will be a momentous achievement for a company which has taken telecommunications into the numerous pathless villages dotting our countryside. It would be a real boon if iPhone is delivered to those villages, quaint towns and cities. It would result in the iPhone, the most technically advanced PDA being brought to the doorsteps of the villages, just like what Reliance did by introducing mobiles in every nook and corner of India.

It’s is sad that still it’s not been released in India officially, even though the other countries have already laid their hands on the 3G iPhone. Its time to awaken the public and private sector, to get the eye opening technology to India.

I had come across an article in The Times of India, which said that the iPhone will be released on Vodafone’s network. However, the network coverage of this service provider is not as good as that of BSNL. So positive feedback is very much there in terms of network coverage and customer care service, favoring BSNL. Does BSNL need any more goading to go and get this wonderful gadget?

Bharti Airtel has said that it will be releasing the 3G iPhone in the month of October in India. Airtel certainly has a great network coverage but it lags behind in customer care satisfaction. In future for any queries if you call the Airtel executives I don’t think you can get satisfactory answers.

So, with good will and customer satisfaction favoring BSNL, what is stopping them from releasing the iPhone in India?

If it is going to be happen, then I would be the first happy and crazy customer to get it from the BSNL Stores.

Over to you, BSNL!

By Hari Prasad

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By Deeksh

I am inspired by robots developed and marketed by iRobot. The company is manufacturing both consumer and military robots. Each time I come across images of PackBot or Roomba – I imagine a robot that iRobot might come up in future, a robot with fictional characters. As the Roomba is iRobot’s best selling vacuum cleaning robot, iRobot is concentrating more on consumer robots. Recently, I read a blog entry about iRobot filing a patent for a new lawn mowing robot, this means, Colin is still aiming only consumer division, I guess.

iRobot Corp. supply bomb disposal robots to military. The PackBot is already used in Iraq and Afghanistan to remove road side bombs.

Why aren’t they exploring the field of toys? Kids are crazy for these robotic toys. Anything for robotic pet. I like it too.

I would like to share an information on a robotic toy - The Vstone Blackox, which is evil menace that might probably dominate your kid’s play room.

Of course, it is a Japanese venture.

According to TECHDIGEST, only 30 units are available and 15 already on pre-order. Will he ever make it to a shelf? The Vstone Blackox stands at 440mm, weighs 2.5kg, with 20 movable axis points and some appealing cool moves.

View these clips at your own risk:

This cool monster goes on sale in September at a price about £3,800. Already he is in demand and I am unsure if this guy reaches mass consumer sector, as he costs hefty price.

If iRobot builds similar kind of robot then it would be named iChap. hE hEE..

Check this kool images:




Click here to learn more.

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The Western Influence Showing On As IIT Alumni In The US Decides To Take Dow Chemicals As Sponsors For Their 50^th Alumni Meet At The US

By Arunava Das

(In response to an article, “IITians say no to Dow” published in Silicon India on July 15, 2008)

It is really a shameful act of blemishes committed by a host of IIT’ians at the US to invite Dow Chemicals as sponsors for their upcoming 50^th Alumni Meet in the country. As far as I know and everybody will agree that to get into any one of the IIT is a big ask which requires umpteen dedication towards studies and those who eventually get into are considered the gems of the country. As gems of the country, we have responsibilities on our shoulders, we Indians rest our hopes on them that they graduate with flying colors and bring name and fame to the country. India shines with them. India’s economy grows with them as she finds a place in the global economy chart. No doubt the past decade has seen a real bloom in Indian economy and will continue to bloom this way as it heads towards the future. We are one of the few countries with China who has the youngest pool source of youth who are considered to contribute big time to the country’s growth, be it economy, politics, industry, finance, revenue, foreign trade, healthcare sector, hospitality sector or retail sector. Hence, as responsible citizens of India, we need to refrain from acts that can harm the Indian policy and the fame that India is a proud owner of.

United Carbide is one such company that will remain etched in the history books as being responsible for one of the worst industrial tragedies of all time, The Bhopal Gas Tragedy that took place on the fateful night of December 3, 1984 that left 3800 people dead and thousand affected of the gas leak. Many are suffering still now and many have not even got justice till date. The Dow Chemicals now owns Union Carbide. Under such circumstances, when IITians in India have already rejected either campus recruitment or call for sponsors from Dow Chemicals, the India based IITians would have expected their states based counterparts to also follow the suit but instead they were in with a sudden shock and surprise as they discovered that their counterparts in the US have infact endorsed Dow Chemicals as the sponsors of their 50^th Alumni Meet Golden Jubilee function which will be organized under the aegis of IIT-Bombay Heritage Fund in New York between July 18-20. This shows that once we leave our motherland for a career in the western world, we also leave behind our cultural heritage in India. According to a Mumbai based IIT-Bombay alumni, Mr. Janak Daftari, a group of IIT-B alumni, mostly from Silicon Valley, in total disregard to the sentiments and the callous practices being followed by the firm (Dow Chemicals) in their (alumini's) origin country, has gone ahead and under the aegis of IIT-Bombay Heritage Fund are organizing a two-day golden jubilee function in New York between July 18-20. Following this incident, many IIT alumni including faculty and current students in India have decided to boycott the grand event. Another Delhi based IITian, Ravi Kuchimanchi, said, “In 1984 when the gas leaked in Bhopal, I and other students in IIT-Bombay were shocked and angry. Today I am shocked to see, instead of forcing Dow to fork up money and clean up the Bhopal site, the organisers of the 50th anniversary celebrations have sought its money. As IIT alumni we can do better.”

It needs to be seen now whether the event goes on smoothly and how many alumni attend the meet. According to ex IIT-B, Janak Daftari, "Obviously, the golden jubilee celebration is being done privately but then there is a tacit approval from the senior administrators. After all they are seriously contemplating to attend the event even though scores of faculty members have opposed the sponsorship itself.” However, it would be better as to see that such blemishes do not occur again as this tarnishes the global image of India and as the responsible gems of the country, we need to respect our identity.

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Many of us would have seen poor and sick people on the streets. But have any one of us even cared to give them a second look?!

Here was a man in his early twenties, who had just finished his Bachelor’s in Hotel Management & Catering Science. One day he was driving his car down a bridge near Central Bus Stand in Madurai – a temple-town in South India. Least did he know that the next few moments would change his entire life for good.

The young man saw a heart-wrenching condition of an old man eating his own excreta. Without a second thought he went to a near by hotel and got 10 idlis and sambar. He went to the old man and opened the packet of food, offering it to him. The old man gobbled up the whole food in a matter of 10 seconds! Such was his hunger. Once he finished the food, the old man just walked away without thanking the young man. There were tears in the old man’s eyes.

This episode left an indelible impression on the young man. All that he thought from then on was to how to feed the mentally ill and very old people abandoned in the streets of Madurai. He started to feed some people in his surrounding locality. He instantly rejected the idea of going to Switzerland.

Mr. N Krishnan, our young man of 27, then went on to start the Akshaya Trust, which feeds the mentally ill and very old people. He would prepare the food himself, sticking to the highest standards of quality.

He then saw that no barber was willing to cut the hair of these people, so he enrolled himself for a hair-dressing course, got certified and he started cutting the hair of the mentally sick.

Being from a high Brahmin caste his activities were opposed by his parents. He decided to take his father and mother along with him to his daily feeding trip. Seeing the sight of hungry poor feeding on the food brought by his son, his mother said “If you keep on feeding the poor like this everyday, I will see to it that I will feed you till my last breath”. His parents were very happy.

To top this, he has even cremated around 40 old people who have died on the street.

It is amazing to know that the poor have been offered meals daily and this has been going on from June 2003 without a break. From September, 2007 about 200 people are fed 3 times daily, costing around Rs.8000 per day.

Apart from Krishnan, Akshaya team now consists of one cook, two assistants, two maids, two drivers.

And this is not where he stopped. Mr. Krishnan has found that several elderly, sick and infirm people have been left on the road and uncared for. Krishnan has thought of building the Akshaya Home to shelter the aged and mentally ill homeless. Land has been purchased and registered for this purpose.

All in all, what we can learn from this man is immense. Living in this 21^st century we have forgotten the basic love for our fellow humans. Isn’t it our basic responsibility to help persons in need, especially the ones who are old and mentally unstable?

Below are few videos which shows one man’s dream to feed the poor. (These videos almost brought me into tears)

Akshaya Trust CNN TV Show Part 1

Akshaya Trust TV Show CNN Part 2

Akshaya trust TV Show on Raj TV (This is in Tamil language)

If anyone is interested in donating, kindly look at the details below:

Donations can be remitted in any branch of ICICI Bank in India favouring
Akshaya’s Helping in H.E.L.P. Trust
ICICI Bank Ltd.,
Kochadai Branch, Madurai-625010
S.B.Account No.601 701 013 912

And a final word from Mr. Krishnan himself which I felt was very motivating. He says “Definitely there is a Krishnan in every village, every town and every city; all that we need to do is motivate him and get him out. If this happens our world would be a better place for everyone to live”. Well said Mr. Krishnan. You have indeed brought out a Krishnan in many of us.

By

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By Shilpa Nangali “Leave us alone, the problem is in our area, we can handle it, do not interfere” - This was the message conveyed to the neighborhood residents by some of the Muslim community residents of JC Nagar on Friday’s (July 11, 2008) incident at a masjid in JC Nagar and Hebbal. Local politicians doubt political ambitions behind this. However, the best part was finally Hindus and Muslims displayed unity to settle this issue. Few months back, two Kashmiri Muslim teens were arrested in North Karnataka while doing ‘namaz’ in a Hindu `Temple’. I have no idea about their intentions. Probably people and police thought they were desecrating the Hindu temple. How nice it will be if there is unity between Hindus and Muslims in our country. However, as Gandhiji has said, the cement binding the two is yet loose and wet. I was talking to my father about this, and my father told me about a news clipping, which he read in a English weekly, a year back. Though it was a small incidence, I felt happy that I came to know about this one. A reporter had gone to Kashmir and while he was returning to Orissa,the driver (a Muslim), asked the reporter whether he wished to visit the ‘Sun Temple’ at Konark. The reporter agreed and visited the beautiful Sun Temple. The reporter was going around the temple, and that time, he saw two Muslims doing ‘namaz’ in the precincts of the temple. The reporter was surprised to see that and out of curiosity he asked them being Muslims were they not offended to pray in a Hindu temple? They questioned him back with a smile, `Why, don’t you know, that the God is one irrespective of religion?’ Here, I do not mean to say that only in Muslims there are such people, who think that we all are one. Even in Hindus there are such kind of rational thinkers. However, the union of these two is what I love to see... If I had been born Catholic, Presbyterian, Muslim, Jain or Hindu...what ever..the caste/religion label means absolutely nothing to me. We are known in this world by our deeds, thoughts, aspirations, actions, achievements, by the way we live, and by the way we treat our fellows...lets be aware of God within us..and make our mind worth staying for that supreme power..Almighty...lets illuminate our soul with the light of knowledge, courage and sincerity in all our efforts. If a person’s character is loathsome, what’s the use even if he belongs to an upper class? It all depends on how we grow ourselves, how we think and how we act.

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By Deeksh

The cat owner spends time on dirty jobs like scooping and disposing of litter clumps for just one litter box! That’s almost spending your free-time just to cleaning up your cat’s poo!

Never scoop, touch or change cat litter again. Save time not having to do a dirty job. Enjoy the only true sanitary solution to a litter box. No more saving of cat waste in a box. No more litter box odors and mess.

Genie will do that for you. Yes Genie – the CatGenie.

Complete automatic cat sanitation for all cat lovers including: busy moms, working people, travelers.

It takes few minutes to maintain CatGenie. Plus you’ll be providing your cats with safe, clean, superior sanitation, in virtually no time at all!

Each CatGenie comes with easy-to-follow instructions so you can set it up in just minutes and provide a sanitary alternative to traditional litter boxes for up to three cats.

Whether liquid, solid, or in between, the CatGenie handles it. So you don’t have to.

Cats have different personalities and adjust to new things in their environment at different rates, but most cats take to the CatGenie immediately.

The CatGenie completely dries the granules so cats have a dry litter-like bed to do their business in comfort.

hE hEE..

Cats sleep from 15 to 20 hours a day. They pass solids within 30 minutes of eating their main meal. So you have plenty of time to run the CatGenie.

The washable granules are a non-toxic combination of safe synthetic and natural ingredients. If swallowed, the small, smooth granules will simply pass through the digestive system.

lol!!

Cats accept the cat-friendly shape and comfy litter Granules of the CatGenie. They use the CatGenie as they use any clean litter box.

The great benefit of the CatGenie is that it is the only cat box that actually washes and cleans itself. Like any appliance, it is a good idea to wipe the outside.

With the CatGenie, you never need to come in contact with cat waste or germy, smelly litter. There’s no litter dust to breathe in. There’s no fear of catching the toxoplasmosis virus from cat waste. For those reasons, the CatGenie is healthier and safer especially for pregnant women, patients undergoing cancer treatments, anyone with a compromised immune system, and those with allergies or asthma.

More Information @ CatGenie

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The Life of Sri Aurobindo: A tribute to him on his 137th Birth Anniversary on 15th August, 2008: A tribute to a man who left Extremism in search of Complete Peace

(A special dharma and darshan is organized on 15^th August, 2008 at Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)

Foreword: As an Alma matter of Aurobindo International School under the wings of Aurobindo Ashram at Chandernagore, Bengal, I take pride to write this article on his 137^th Birth Anniversary this 15^th August, 2008. A special tribute to him; my small 4 page article though is not enough to speak of his works, yet as a life disciple of him, I have tried to sketch out important events of his life in this summary. Anybody interested in attending the Dharma can contact the Ashram office at SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 123, S.V. Patel Salai (North Boulevard), Pondicherry - 605 002, India. # +91-413- 334980, 223328, 334072 or Fax: +91-413- 223328, 334836 or can contact me at 9980206747

Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. In 1879, at the age of seven, he was taken with his two elder brothers to England for education and lived there for fourteen years. Brought up at first in an English family at Manchester, he joined St. Paul's School in London in 1884 and in 1890 went from it with a senior classical scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied for two years. In 1890 he passed also the open competition for the Indian Civil Service, but at the end of two years of probation failed to present himself at the riding examination and was disqualified for the Service. At this time the Gaekwar of Baroda was in London. Aurobindo saw him, obtained an appointment in the Baroda Service and left England for India in January 1893.

Sri Aurobindo passed thirteen years, from 1893 to 1906, in the Baroda Service, first in the Revenue Department and in secretariat work for the Maharaja, afterwards as Professor of English and, finally, Vice-Principal in the Baroda College. These were years of self-culture, of literary activity - for much of the poetry afterwards published from Pondicherry was written at this time — and of preparation for his future work. In England he had received, according to his father's express instructions, an entirely occidental education without any contact with the culture of India and the East.' [1. It may be observed that Sri Aurobindo's education in England gave him a wide introduction to the culture of ancient, of mediaeval and of modern Europe. He was a brilliant scholar in Greek and Latin. He had learned French from his childhood in Manchester and studied for himself German and Italian sufficiently to study Goethe and Dante in the original tongues. (He passed the Tripos in Cambridge in the first class and obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian Civil Service.)] At Baroda he made up the deficiency, learned Sanskrit and several modern Indian languages, assimilated the spirit of Indian civilisation and its forms past and present. A great part of the last years of this period was spent on leave in silent political activity, for he was debarred from public action by his position at Baroda. The outbreak of the agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905 gave him the opportunity to give up the Baroda Service and join openly in the political movement. He left Baroda in 1906 and went to Calcutta as Principal of the newly-founded Bengal National College.

The political action of Sri Aurobindo covered eight years, from 1902 to 1910. During the first half of this period he worked behind the scenes, preparing with other co-workers the beginnings of the Swadeshi (Indian Sinn Fein) movement, till the agitation in Bengal furnished an opening for the public initiation of a more forward and direct political action than the moderate reformism which had till then been the creed of the Indian National Congress. In 1906 Sri Aurobindo came to Bengal with this purpose and joined the New Party, an advanced section small in numbers and not yet strong in influence, which had been recently formed in the Congress. The political theory of this party was a rather vague gospel of Non-cooperation; in action it had not yet gone farther than some ineffective clashes with the Moderate leaders at the annual Congress assembly behind the veil of secrecy of the "Subjects Committee". Sri Aurobindo persuaded its chiefs in Bengal to come forward publicly as an All-India party with a definite and challenging programme, putting forward Tilak the popular Maratha leader at its head, and to attack the then dominant Moderate (Reformist or Liberal) oligarchy of veteran politicians and capture from them the Congress and the country. This was the origin of the historic struggle between the Moderates and the Nationalists (called by their opponents Extremists) which in two years changed altogether the face of Indian politics.

The new-born Nationalist party put forward Swaraj (independence) as its goal as against the far-off Moderate hope of colonial self-government to be realised at a distant date of a century or two by a slow progress of reform; it proposed as its means of execution a programme which resembled in spirit, though not in its details, the policy of Sinn Fein developed some years later and carried to a successful issue in Ireland. The principle of this new policy was self-help; it aimed on one side at an effective organisation of the forces of the nation and on the other professed a complete non-cooperation with the Government. Boycott of British and foreign goods and the fostering of Swadeshi industries to replace them, boycott of British law courts and the foundation of a system of Arbitration courts in their stead, boycott of Government universities and colleges and the creation of a network of National colleges and schools, the formation of societies of young men which would do the work of police and defence and, wherever necessary, a policy of passive resistance were among the immediate items of the programme. Sri Aurobindo hoped to capture the Congress and make it the directing centre of an organised national action, an informal State within the State, which would carry on the struggle for freedom till it was won. He persuaded the party to take up and finance as its recognised organ the newly-founded daily paper, Bande Mataram, of which he was at the time acting editor. The Bande Mataram, whose policy from the beginning of 1907 till its abrupt winding up in 1908 when Sri Aurobindo was in prison was wholly directed by him, circulated almost immediately all over India. During its brief but momentous existence it changed the political thought of India which has ever since preserved fundamentally, even amidst its later developments, the stamp then imparted to it. But the struggle initiated on these lines, though vehement and eventful and full of importance for the future, did not last long at the time; for the country was still unripe for so bold a programme.

Sri Aurobindo was prosecuted for sedition in 1907 and acquitted. Up till now an organiser and writer, he was obliged by this event and by the imprisonment or disappearance of other leaders to come forward as the acknowledged head of the party in Bengal and to appear on the platform for the first time as a speaker. He presided over the Nationalist Conference at Surat in 1907 where in the forceful clash of two equal parties the Congress was broken to pieces. In May, 1908 he was arrested in the Alipur Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary group led by his brother Barindra; but no evidence of any value could be established against him and in this case too he was acquitted. After a detention of one year as under trial prisoner in the Alipur jail, he came out in May 1909, to find the party organisation broken, its leaders scattered by imprisonment, deportation or self-imposed exile and the party itself still existent but dumb and dispirited and incapable of any strenuous action. For almost a year he strove single-handed as the sole remaining leader of the Nationalists in India to revive the movement. He published at this time to aid his effort a weekly English paper, the Karmayogin, and a Bengali weekly, the Dharma. But at last he was compelled to recognise that the nation was not yet sufficiently trained to carry out his policy and programme. For a time he thought that the necessary training must first be given through a less advanced Home Rule movement or an agitation of passive resistance of the kind created by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. But he saw that the hour of these movements had not come and that he himself was not their destined leader. Moreover, since his twelve months' detention in the Alipur Jail, which had been spent entirely in practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the political field, at least for a time.

In February 1910, he withdrew to a secret retirement at Chandannagore and in the beginning of April sailed for Pondicherry in French India. A third prosecution was launched against him at this moment for a signed article in the Karmayogin, in his absence it was pressed against the printer of the paper who was convicted, but the conviction was quashed on appeal in the High Court of Calcutta. For the third time a prosecution against him had failed. Sri Aurobindo had left Bengal with some intention of returning to the political field under more favourable circumstances; but very soon the magnitude of the spiritual work he had taken up appeared to him and he saw that it would need the exclusive concentration of all his energies. Eventually he cut off connection with politics, refused repeatedly to accept the Presidentship of the National Congress and went into a complete retirement. During all his stay at Pondicherry from 1910 onward he remained more and more exclusively devoted to his spiritual work and his sadhana.

In 1914 after four years of silent Yoga he began the publication of a philosophical monthly, the Arya. Most of his more important works, The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Isha Upanishad, appeared serially in the Arya. These works embodied much of the inner knowledge that had come to him in his practice of Yoga. Others were concerned with the spirit and significance of Indian civilisation and culture (The Foundations of Indian Culture), the true meaning of the Vedas (The Secret of the Veda), the progress of human society (The Human Cycle), the nature and evolution of poetry (The Future Poetry), the possibility of the unification of the human race (The Ideal of Human Unity). At this time also he began to publish his poems, both those written in England and at Baroda and those, fewer in number, added during his period of political activity and in the first years of his residence at Pondicherry. The Arya ceased publication in 1921 after six years and a half of uninterrupted appearance.

Sri Aurobindo lived at first in retirement at Pondicherry with four or-five disciples. Afterwards more and yet more began to come to him to follow his spiritual path and the number became so large that a community of sadhaks had to be formed for the maintenance and collective guidance of those who had left everything behind for the sake of a higher life. This was the foundation of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram which has less been created than grown around him as its centre.

Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first gathering into it the essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of divine communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two ends of existence. Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo's rises to the Spirit to redescend with its gains bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to transform it. Man's present existence in the material world is in this view or vision of things a life in the Ignorance with the Inconscient at its base, but even in its darkness and nescience there are involved the presence and possibilities of the Divine. The created world is not a mistake or a vanity and illusion to be cast aside by the soul returning to heaven or Nirvana, but the scene of a spiritual evolution by which out of this material inconscience is to be manifested progressively the Divine Consciousness in things. Mind is the highest term yet reached in the evolution, but it is not the highest of which it is capable. There is above it a Supermind or eternal Truth-Consciousness which is in its nature the self-aware and self-determining light and power of a Divine Knowledge. Mind is an ignorance seeking after Truth, but this is a self-existent Knowledge harmoniously manifesting the play of its forms and forces. It is only by the descent of this Supermind that the perfection dreamed of by all that is highest in humanity can come. It is possible by opening to a greater Divine Consciousness to rise to this power of light and bliss, discover one's true self, remain in constant union with the Divine and bring down the supramental Force for the transformation of mind and life and body. To realise this possibility has been the dynamic aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5 December 1950.

By Arunava Das, Media Analyst
14 July, 2008

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By Shilpa Nangali

One of my friend was saying that life is not always a bed of roses like in school/college days. I told him that life is always a bed of roses with petals and thorns both...sometimes happiness like petals will kiss us and make us feel a complete bliss. However, sometimes hurdles/sufferings trouble us like thorns...!

My friend said : "Ya you are right,but it is so hard". I agree it is hard, but it is good for us. Thorns manifest more evidently after school/college days, and this is to make us independent in removing those thorns out of our life by ourselves. We need to accept that and be stronger.

We learn a lot from our lives battling against several kinds of hurdles we encounter. Isn't it? That's why, I think Gandhiji said: MY LIFE IS MY MESSAGE! How true...life is a learning experience at each stage.

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New India with a Newer Approach Will Succeed

India has potentials,

India has talent,

India has resources,

India has manpower,

India has skills,

India has innovations,

India has “Unity in Diversity”,

India has strength and

India does believe in herself.

We the 1000 million Indians believe in ourselves and dream of achieving unrealistic goals to make realistic profits.

But what is our Greatest Weakness? It’s MISUSE…….. A word synonymous with India and me.

By Arunava Das, Media Analyst (Scribbled on 09/11/2007)

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By Deeksh

Life can be difficult; living in today’s world is not always easy. But despite life’s foreseeable problems and challenges, genuine happiness is still possible.

As we know, happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status in society or the size of our bank account. Happiness is everywhere; only thing is it is unnoticed.

Most of us would have had a blissful childhood. Each day was fresh and new. Each touch thought us a lesson. Each moment has made a powerful impression on us. Days with no past, days full of experimental steps…, this just by refreshing, will bring happiness within us.

Having favorite food, reading, sleeping, listening to music, meeting friends, caring for health, practicing trend .. and being ourselves will give us happiness.

Life is in our hands, there is always a chance to create moments of happiness. Knowing who you are, gives you happiness. Knowing who you are to your beloved family, gives you happiness.

Try to analyze what is stopping you to smile. Give more importance to things that makes you feel unhappy, avoid such things. Many a times, people around us are reason for our unhappiness. Try to see less such unpleasant people whenever possible. When we can solve the problems why to dwell on such difficulties? Is there any problem without solution?

Each one of us has the power to recreate our life and regain happiness.

Happiness is contagious too. We can catch happiness just by talking to happy person. Cheerful friends can also fill happiness in our life.

Do not reject your emotions, positive or negative, which may lead to frustration and unhappiness. Instead, accept it – it’s a part of life.

We are HUMAN, lets not be hard on ourselves.

Just sitting next to special person , speaking no word, will also make one feel happy!!

Do not pretend that you are happy, at least with your family and friends.

Just by giving our time and caring for the loved ones makes us happy. When people want to talk, give them your attention and make the effort to listen to them. Take the opportunity to enjoy life as it happens.

There are untold benefits to being a happy person. If you are happy, your immune system is stronger, you have fewer medical problems and you live longer. Best of all, you find pleasure and meaning in this world. Your life is full of activities that are significant and enjoyable. It is my heartfelt wish that you have a very happy day.

Key to find happiness is to be ‘truly you’ ... not what you should be or do!!

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By Shilpa Nangali

In childhood days, we heard stories of popular superstition that extra digits in a hand are a sign of great good or evil. It is said that an extra finger on the right hand is supposed to bring good luck, ill-fortune if on the left. Six fingers on both hands indicate that its possessor will be famous or infamous in some way, like Gath, the Philistine giant mentioned in the Bible. Polydactyly reminds me of Antonio Alfonseca, a Major League Baseball pitcher, who has an extra digit on each hand and foot. Hrithik Roshan, an award-winning Bollywood actor is also born with a supernumerary thumb on his right hand. However, an extra thumb on his right hand doesn’t bother me when he has so much talent on the other side. Most people think it brings good luck. I believe that no one is born lucky; luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. And, it solely depends on us how we create opportunities for ourselves!

Moving away from superstitions and blind beliefs about polydactyly, let’s now know about the genetics of this condition. Poldactyly, which is a congenital abnormality, is the presence of more than the normal number of fingers or toes. This condition is usually inherited as an autosomal dominant characteristic and can usually be corrected by surgery. If recommended, the surgery is usually done while the child is about 1 year of age. These extra digits are sometimes called supernumerary, in a reference to the fact that they exceed the number of conventional digits. Polydactyly is not life threatening or harmful, although it may be associated with a more serious genetic condition which does require treatment. In some parts of the world, people choose to remove these excess digits to avoid comment or social isolation.

These extra digits can take a number of different forms. The most common is a stub of tissue without any joints, typically located next to the little finger or toe. In some cases, however, the extra digit has bones and articulated joints, and it can even be used. This can cause x-rays to look quite unusual and sometimes a bit confusing. Some people have polydactyl thumbs, meaning that they have two thumbs on the same hand, typically right next to each other.

Usually, African Americans, more than other ethnic groups, can inherit a sixth finger. Extra digits may be poorly developed and attached by a small stalk (generally on the little finger side of the hand). Or, they may be well-formed and may even function. Poorly formed digits are usually removed. Simply tying a tight string around the stalk can cause it to fall off in time if there are no bones in the digit. Larger digits may need surgery to be removed. The doctor should ask the parents whether there was polydactyly at birth, because a person may not know they have it.

Causes and symptoms: Polydactyly is due to errors in the process of fetal development. There will be an error in the genes which determine the shape of the hand or foot. Most often these errors are due to genetic defects. Polydactyly occurs in the womb as a detour on the road to developing just one thumb and four fingers on the hand. In the womb, the new hand starts out in the shape of a paddle, then splits into separate fingers. Sometimes the fingers do not split apart enough, and webbed fingers result, which is called as ‘syndactyly’. Sometimes a extra split forms and extra fingers resulting in polydactyly. Polydactyly can occur by itself as an isolated condition or in conjunction with other symptoms as one aspect of a multi-symptom disease. There are several forms of isolated polydactyly, which is caused by an autosomal dominant gene. This means that since the gene is autosomal (not sex-linked), males and females are equally likely to inherit the trait. Since the gene is dominant, children who have only one parent with the trait have a 50 percent chance of inheriting it. However, people in the same family carrying the same gene can have different degrees of polydactyly. In other instances, the condition may be part of a larger genetic condition such as aneuploidy, an odd number of chromosomes which can lead to serious birth defects.

Polydactyly is also possible outcome of a large number of rare inherited and developmental disorders. This can be present in more than 100 different disorders where it is a minor feature compared to other characteristics of these diseases. In some isolated cases of polydactyly, it is not possible to determine the cause. Some of these cases might nevertheless be due to genetic defects; sometimes there is too little information to demonstrate a genetic cause. Some cases might be due external factors like exposure to toxins or womb anomalies.

Also, if a person is suffering from any of the following disease/syndrome, then he/she can have polydactyly.

• Asphyxiating thoracic dystrophy
• Carpenter syndrome
• Ellis-van Creveld syndrome (chondroectodermal dysplasia)
• Familial polydactyly
• Laurence-Moon-Biedl syndrome
• Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome
• Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome
• Trisomy 13

Types: Polydactyly is one of the most common variations on the basic growth pattern of the hand. There are several forms of polydactyly, ranging from a small extra bump on the side of the hand, a finger which widens to end in two fingertips, an extra finger which dangles by a thin cord from the hand, a hand which looks normal except that it has a thumb and five fingers, and an infinite number of other variations. Usually, when a digit has duplicated, each half is somewhat smaller than usual, and it is common for the joints to angle to the sides, often in mirror image zig zag directions.

The following are the types of polydactyly:

(1) Polydactyly with cleft lip/palate and psycho motor retardation (Varadi-Papp Syndrome)
(2) Polydactyly tiopia syndrome
(3)Polydactyly post axial dental and vertebral
(4)Polydactyly post axial with median cleft of upper lip
(5)Polydactyly post axial
(6)Polydactyly preaxial type 1
(7)Polydactyly syndrome middle ray duplication
(8)Polydactyly visceral anomalies cleft lip palate

Prognosis: The prognosis for isolated polydactyly is excellent. When polydactyly is part of a syndrome or group of medical conditions, the prognosis depends on the syndrome. Some of these syndromes can be quite serious.

Diagnosis: Polydactyly and syndactyly can be diagnosed by external observation, X-ray, fetal sonogram, chromosome studies, enzyme tests or metabolic studies. During pregnancy, this condition may be diagnosed with ultrasound or a more advanced test called embryofetoscopy during the first three months (trimester).

Treatment: Polydactyly can be corrected by surgical removal of the extra digit or partial digit. The only treatment for polydactyly is surgery. Since the condition is not harmful, most surgery is cosmetic, although in some cases the extra digits may interfere with normal life. Some people choose to retain their polydactyly, and other than trouble finding gloves that fit, the condition is usually not an issue. However, in some areas birth defects are treated with serious superstition; deformities are treated as curses and they are associated with Satan and evil doings. In these cases, surgery is a good choice, because it will allow the patient a much happier life. Surgery for polydactyly is usually best done in the first few years of life so that the look, feel and function of the corrected hand is the most natural for the child. A hand therapist can help with some problems before and after surgery, tailored to the individual problem and the temperament of the child, but some children proceed through their surgery and recovery without needing therapy.

One should not forget that proper home care is also needed after surgery. For example, you will need to check the surgical area to make sure that it is healing correctly and to change the dressing.

I have read in few research articles that the surgery for polydactyly is sometimes fairly complicated, as there may be variations in all of the structures of the digit which is kept - twisted bones, crooked joints, missing or extra tendons, nerves, and blood vessels. Abnormalities in the fingers which are kept may be more obvious after surgery than before, but with careful planning, a hand surgery specialist will attempt to anticipate and correct these problems at the time of surgery. After surgery, it is usual to protect the hand in a large bandage for weeks to months, depending on what is done. Surgery done in childhood may need to be adjusted for growth with "touch up" surgery when the child is older.

Success of the treatment: The goals of surgery are to improve the appearance of the hand and to prevent progressive deformity from developing as the child grows. Surgery is generally successful in both of these areas, largely correcting the appearance and social stigmata of congenitalism. In many cases, surgery results in a greatly improved but not perfectly normal appearance, and in some situations a normal appearance can not be expected. For example, each of the duplicated thumbs in the above diagram is likely to be smaller than a normal thumb, and no amount of surgery will allow a smaller thumb to "catch up" and perfectly match a normal size thumb on the opposite hand.

I think generally what people notice about another person's hand is not the appearance of an individual finger or thumb, but the way a person uses his hand. Hiding one's hand actually draws attention to it, and if surgery allows the person to use their hand in a natural, unselfconscious way, many small details, such as a somewhat small thumb, will go unnoticed. People are less likely to be satisfied with surgery for polydactyly if surgery is delayed past early childhood.

Sources: WiseGeek.com, Wikipedia.org, NLM.NIH.gov, ChildrensHospital.org, HMC.PSU.edu, AccessExcellence.org, Eatonhand.com, UMM.edu, Healthatoz.com, WrongDiagnosis.com, BBC.co.uk, SkinAtlas.com, Britannica.com, Healthcentral.com, Bhejacry.com, UNP.co.in, BWTorrents.com, Answers.com and Unexplained-mysteries.com.

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We tend to measure God’s blessings on the basis of how many of our prayers have been answered.
We compare what we sought with what we got.
We do not often get what we prayed for and then we blame God for being unkind.
Subsequently,
We later discover that what ever happened was in fact for the ‘Good’.
The ‘bad’ event turns out to be "blessings" in disguise….

By Prashanthi

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The era of inexpensive food is over. Food prices have hit record highs worldwide and the signs are that they will go on rising. It is time for us to reflect on some pertinent questions.

In the last few years, we have seen amazing advances in technology and productivity. There has been an all round economic progress. Despite this, the price rise is a glaring reality - why? Shouldn’t the improved productivity ensure that we get more for less money? How come it is the other way around? How have things come to this?

I feel the answer could be a combination of changing trends, bad luck and bad policy.

Trends – Rise in population and the change in lifestyle.
Bad luck – Unpredictable rainfall and climate changes, natural calamities like floods, drought, etc.
Bad policy – Conversion of crops into fuel, converting agricultural land into residential areas, growing bio fuel feedstock on land that is meant for food grains.

What can be done to overcome this situation?

This could be answered in many ways. But my simple answer is the need to provide more aid to people who are in distress or who are getting affected. Many food aid organizations are working to tackle the situation. But, no one is clear how much can be done. I feel that inexpensive food may be a thing of the past…

By Prashanthi

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By Geetha

Rising cost of health care has become a major issue. Medical expenses are rising faster than the costs of any other service. Certainly, they are consuming an ever larger share of personal and national incomes.

Before getting into on how do we manage the incredible cost of expensive health care, I would like to discuss, why is it becoming expensive?

I believe that the major reason would be, most people indeed all of us get sick and die, but most of us really don’t want to and also most often the demand for better health often exceeds the availability.

The endless stream of innovation in medical and technology, from new drugs to delicate tools for microsurgery, available technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, angioplasty, positron emission tomography, and radiation oncology etc, have contributed to the increase rather than reducing health care expenditures. Technical innovations are believed to lower the costs, but it is not the fact. There are modern facilities, equipment and procedures that help improve & extend our lives & they also have a tremendous effect on the price we pay.

The other primary reason could be a massive expansion of medical insurance, beside that medical lawsuits and medical drug research also greatly add to the expense of health care.

The advances in medical field have greatly improved the outcomes of complex procedures in saving many lives, but are they affordable by all the people? Poor people are still struggling to achieve good health.

What are the alternatives that we can think of to accomplish good health with this scenario of raising cost? Before ending this question I must add a statement, alternatives need not have to fulfill all the downsides, rather if we are successful in attaining stability against few problems would make lot of distinction.

Few points that I can think of, which we can easily adopt or recommend for implementing are listed below:

• Encourage people to have their health insurance
• Be Healthy, Quit smoking, exercise more and lose weight
• More medical health programs should be promoted by the government in providing medical care for the aged and needy
• Support consumer-directed health plans
• Look for valuable free or low-cost programs like yoga that can help cut costs and avoid trips to the doctor
• Avoid Unnecessary Medical Tests; make sure doctors are ordering tests for the right reasons so on…

A ‘Good Health’ is a need that we always desire to achieve, but some of us fail to reach in some instances only due to the expenditure involved in it. We can always try to prevail over the troubles to some extent. We all should support and implement ourselves with good lifestyle which can help us to lead our life healthy despite of raising cost of health care.

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By Deeksh

“One company doesn’t make an industry” said, iRobot’s CEO, Colin Angle.

But iRobot’s vacuum cleaning robot has made a recognition symbol for the robotic vacuum cleaning industry around the world.

Welcome to the world of Roomba.

Robots are being increasingly used for household chores. Today, I will take you to the RoombaBedford, MA. world. The Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner made and sold by iRobot, a company founded by Colin Angle, Helen Greiner and Rodney Brooks. iRobot recently had a grand opening of it’s new headquarters in

When I saw the Roomba, it looked like a dinner-plate picking up dirt.

hE hEE

I wondered if people wanted this craze roaming around their home. But the answer was astonishing, over 2.5 million Roombas have been sold by January 2008.

Consumers are attached to these robotic vacuum cleaners; some give names and treat like a pet.

The Roomba automatically cleans your floor while you enjoy life. Isn’t it a perfect robotic home pet!!

One step further, owners have started dressing up their Roomba. Now, consumers can listen to the screaming of the Roomba for clothes.

hE hEE

Cleaning the floor was never so easy. With the press of a button, this incredible gadget cleans your floors. It has the ability to automatically recharge.

I am honestly impressed with this gadget!!

Has anyone tried this …

What is your experience …

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"Consumer Generated Content" (CGC) or "User Generated Content," (UGC) has become the current hot topic. The Internet, an interactive technology, is enabling conversations among people, which were not possible in the era of mass media. People are conveying their opinions, perspectives, humorous asides etc. Thanks to the web!, markets are becoming better informed and demanding more qualities.

This interactive technology plays a vital role in Pharmaceutical industry. These industries are exploiting the use of social media for their marketing. Pharmaceutical marketing is no longer a matter of simply pushing a message to physicians and consumers. It is making use of public and interactive technology for business solutions. Establishing a dialogue between consumers and a company’s medical experts has created an opportunity for the industry to dispel some of the mistrust that would have built up in the public’s perception.

The Internet is more like TV, as it includes streaming audio, video (eg, podcasts), animations and other programs that engage viewers like TV does, but also allows them to interact with the advertisement in ways that are not possible with TV.

The new media with well established features such as Websites, blogs and forums, file sharing and e-messaging allow public to discuss and debate on drugs, health care etc.

For instance, recently, Pfizer’s Chantix was in the news for posing the psychiatric side effects. The news got skimmed across and the people from different parts, started conveying their message with reference to their views as well as the experience with Chantix through blogs. Blogs are a good way to monitor problems and alert people on such problems.

Online communities around particular disease states are now being generated within popular social networking sites, such as MySpace.com. This presents another opportunity for pharmaceutical manufacturers to get involved in the area where people are gathering.

Some companies have realized that sponsoring blogs dedicated to particular disease states is a good way to reach consumers. Amgen Inc., for example, promotes its own disease-education Website - chemotherapy.com, with a sponsored link on thecancerblog.com.

Presently, every industry is thinking about how to get involved in the interactive space. I feel the use of interactive technology will provide more ease and personalization and can be a legitimate vehicle for marketing.

By Prashanthi

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By Shilpa Nangali

Early in the morning, reaching out to stop an alarm clock from ringing, I usually drop off the clock. I really don’t know how many alarm clocks I have broken like this! ;-) Thank God, I do not have the habit of setting alarm in my mobile!

Well, how it will be if u should just throw an alarm clock for it to stop ringing?! Amazing, isn't it??? Here is one such alarm clock, which is in the shape of a football, and it has to be thrown away for its alarm buzz to stop ringing.

I think this alarm clock is a perfect piece for a lazy gal like me as this will stop me from crashing the precious alarm clocks. This football shaped alarm clock with soft cushions on its side pleased me so much. I am not sure if it is available in Bangalore, but if anyone know about its availability here in our city then please do let me know, it's my request! :-)

According to the Website for Tech Gadgets, the watch in this football clock has a LCD display and it has all the default features available in a watch like time, date, as well as an hourly chime and the loud alarm. To add in more spice to the gadget, the clock shows off in various colors and in shapes of several sport ball types as Cricket, Golf, and Football. To stop the ball from rolling away, it comes with a circular mounting stand that keeps it stationary in one place.

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My dad told me this story when I was home last weekend. It’s not that great big a deal but I found it very enlightening. It’s about a time when the world was blessed with the presence of the mystical Sufi’s we always hear about. The Sufi’s are a lot like the Rishi's who live a life not achievable by common mortals like us. Their lives are all but filled with the highest possible levels of spirituality. Worldly passions do not entice them the least.

So there was this highly ranked Sufi and 20 of his disciples. The Sufi had a particular affection to one of his disciples. This did not go down well with the rest of them. They wanted to know the reason for this particular partiality. All 19 approached the Sufi and enquired about the same. The Sufi assigned them a task which would give them their answers. He asked each of his 20 disciples to go to places wherein they would not be in contact with anyone, where they would be totally alone. They would have to collect 20 birds each, kill the birds and bring it back to him.

So the disciples segregated and went to deserted places to achieve their tasks and gain their masters confidence. Every one of them but the disciple in question completed the task and bought 20 dead birds each to the Sufi.

They were surprised to see that the very person who the Sufi adored had failed to complete the task. He had bought with him 20 live birds. What would become of him? , thought the other nineteen. When asked by the Sufi as to why he could not complete his tack, the disciple answered “O master, you had asked me to go to a segregated place, a place where I would be alone. So I tried to do that once I got the birds, but wherever I would go, I would find God. I tried a lot of places but I would find him no matter where I went. Therefore I could not kill the birds. Please forgive me for I have failed you". This brought a smile on the face of the wise Sufi. He turned to the other nineteen and asked,"Now do you know the difference between him and the rest of you?"

This simple story got me thinking. If we could inculcate the thought that someone’s always watching, wouldn’t we become better people?

Wouldn’t the world be a much better place?

But then all I can do is think. Because I’m one of mere mortals, with more weaknesses than strengths, but I can still pray for a change that will remind me that it’s never too late to mend your ways because God’s watching.

May God bring that change soon...

Amen...

Niyad

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On Sun, 6/7/08, Rajesh Sachdev wrote:

From: Rajesh Sachdev
Subject: [hopethane] Maha Govt to approach SC for reducing bird sanctuary area

To: "BOB" , "Mumbainaturalists" , defendingwildindia@yahoogroups.com, "nathistory" , "Maharashtra Pakshimitra Pakshimitra" , "wild mumbai" , hopethane@yahoogroups.com, "orientalbirding yahoogroups" , forestrights@yahoogroups.com, ecwatch@yahoogroups.com, moefchalo-owner@yahoogroups.com

Date: Sunday, 6 July, 2008, 3:54 PM

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Government will approach the Supreme Court next week, for approval to limit the area of the Great Indian Bustard sanctuary in the state to around 350 sq km.

This is a drastic climb down from the original proposal of the State Government in 1985 to have the sanctuary, spread in Solapur and Ahmednagar districts, in a 8,500 sq km area.

"The apex court has asked for a compliance report and next week, we will be making a submission before the Court, for limiting the sanctuary area to around 347 sq km", a senior Forest Department official said.

Vociferous protest by people's representatives in these areas, at a meeting in Pune recently, is among the reasons for reducing size of the sanctuary, whose core area is around Nannaj in Solapur district.

Forest Minister Babanrao Pachpute's appeal to drastically shrink the sanctuary, home to the endangered bird species, has been rejected by the apex court-appointed panel.

The committee, headed by V B Savarkar, had insisted that the state should retain at least 1,222 sq km area of the sanctuary to protect the rare bird.

The apex court has the powers to de-notify areas of the sanctuaries, under the wildlife protection laws.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Maha_Govt_ to_approach_ SC_for_reducing_bird_sanctuary_area/articleshow /3202661.cms

Regards
Rajesh Sachdev
Wild Mumbai Nature Conservation

"The tiger cannot be preserved in isolation. It is at the apex of a large and complex biotope. Its habitat, threatened by human intrusion, commercial forestry, and cattle grazing, must first be made inviolate." - Mrs. Indira Gandhi

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I looked up into the sky
And felt my love as unreachable like the sky, so high!

I looked at the greenery around me
And felt the cool breeze caressing my cheeks

I got drenched in the rain
And felt that erased my hopes which were vain

The warm rain drops falling down on my face
Took all my tears away to accelerate my life’s pace

Those warm rain drops were like thousand small kisses
Reminding me that eliminating the gloom, the sun of my life rises!!!

By Shilz

Read on »

By Deeksh

And yet I couldn’t capture.

I even find it difficult to write it down,

Love that no one can ever explain.

Love which is kind and made of sentiments..

Love made of sacrifice and pain..

Love which is unselfishness and endless.

Love that cannot be stolen or destroyed.

Love made of forgiveness and purity..

Love that means everything in the world to me..

Love which makes me feel so special.

Love that wipe my tears and worries..

Love that face my fears.

Love that always cross that extra mile, just to make me smile..

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- dedicated to the lotus feet of one of the eternal teachers: Paramahamsa Yogananda

By Guruvardhan

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When the festival ended last year, it left me craving for more. It was a festival of team-spirit, embodying the spirit of sacrifice. Eight men riding on their magnificent machines, with one aim: their team leader finishing first. Eight men, with no regard to their placing or ranking in the race, working as a team to make sure the team leader finishes first and more importantly safely without crashing. Eight men, who are willing to push themselves to such an extent for the team that they find themselves being eliminated from the race. And not to forget, they need to ride through the pain barrier, covering almost 200 – 300 kilometers every day, for 20 days. They need to face their own demons in the process, their own personal battles, discovering a new limit to which they need to push and go beyond. A unique festival, which silently speaks of blood, sweat and tears; literally. At the end of the festival, each rider has his own sordid tale to tell for generations to come, but nothing comes to close to this one single phrase “I was a part of the team that had won.” Around 190 riders, 19 teams with 9 men in each team, it was truly a festival of sport itself.



A festival called “ Tour de France.”



With merely hours left as I write this post for the Tour de France – 2008 to begin, another epic in the making, of which I am sure.



It’s a majestic sight to behold. Around 200 cyclists bunched up close, almost touching wheels, yet, riding at speeds of 30-40 miles per hour; it seems these cyclists are out to enjoy the sunshine. Of course, it requires exceptional bike handling skills to ride in a bunch so close to each other. But when they crank it up, the entire ‘peloton’ (the whole bunch of riders which contains the leader) often gets stretched into a straight line 2-3 kilometers long, moving over 60 miles per hour.



The Tour de France started in 1903 and is the world's largest cycle race. The first Tour de France was designed as a publicity stunt for the French sports newspaper L’Auto, a race that was for the most gutsy and tough of professional cyclists of the time. In all, 54 men have shared 87 Tour de France wins between them, riding thousands of kilometers in search of their holy grail, the yellow jersey, also known as the Maillot Jaune. It’s called the yellow jersey because the pages of the newspaper, L'Auto is yellow.



It is a 23-day, 21-stage bicycle road race usually run over more than 3,500 kilometers. The race consists of 20 to 22 teams with nine riders each. The route traces a circuit around most areas of France, and often passes into neighboring countries. The race is broken into stages from one town to another, each of which is an individual race. The time taken to complete each stage is added to a cumulative total for each rider, to decide the outright winner at the end of the Tour.



The 2008 Tour de France is set to begin on July 5th, running until July 27th, 2008.



Image Source: BBC, SMH.com



Author

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Blogger Buster is a must read for any aspiring Blogger. Here at 80 Feet Road, we are always trying to innovate on the means of group networking for a better cause. Thanks to you, Amanda, we have been trying many innovative methods by which we can bring out the best from the Blogger Platform. The tricks and hacks you post in Blogger Buster are just amazing. We wonder how you come up with such creative ideas. :) Thank you Amanda.

The Blogger Wishlist Competition is a wonderful opportunity for us to give us our thoughts on how we think Blogger can help us to achieve our goal of getting a better template. We want our voice to be heard by Blogger and you can help us achieve it. Thanks for this innovative and novel idea of a contest.

Here is a list of what we would like in a template:

1. Our Blog is a ‘Team Blog’ – where different bloggers of our team post frequently. Blogger has the ability to allow author names to appear at the end of each post. What we would like is to have the name linked to the author’s Blogger ID and if possible give a small picture-image of the respective author beside the author ID.

2. Templates which uses json scripts.

3. Default “Contact us” Form for all blogs.

4. Offer customized blogger templates like Firefox does for its addons.

5. Better options to easily create three column and four column template (option to drag and drop columns would be great!)

6. A static homepage for a blog from Blogger.

7. A social-networking platform in Blogger.

We do hope that our voice will be heard.

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By Deeksh

Reading is a keystone for anyone’s success in life. Without reading skills, opportunities for personal achievement is lost. I think, literacy is a value – value that is more than proficiency.

Reading is the gift of life, which can’t be stolen. Many people around us cannot even read basic instructions on the food packets, which is indigestible when you think of it.

Don’t you think even poor kids are equally having rights to succeed in this world, like any other children?

Is poverty a barrier for such success?
What is the source of illiteracy problem?
Is illiteracy created by the improper education system at schools?
Can improvement in the schools change this current scenario?

I feel there is a core relationship between poverty and illiteracy.

Each individual faces illiteracy based on their rate of living conditions. Most importantly, the company that child is exposed to.

Always, children should be exposed to adults who emphasize good attitudes towards literate activities.

Children reading in the poorest schools can also overcome obstacles and succeed int heir life, if influenced by literate environment.

India is home of rich culture, geography, and off course very rich population.

Like most third-world countries, India is ridden with problems of poverty, high mortality rates, illiteracy and more…..

Although a lot has been achieved in education, a lot more remains..

The target literacy rate set for the 11^th five-year plan (2007-2012) is 85%. Do you think it can be achieved?

Does every child get atleast a primary education? What can be done to achieve a higher literacy rate in India? Is poverty a barrier for literacy?

Living in today’s society, is as tough as it sounds, it is clear that homelessness, hunger, unemployment, and illiteracy are direct effects of poverty.

As a result, this is causing people to struggle throughout their lives..

It’s time for some glossary:

‘I’ for India…

……

…

and for..

Illiteracy!!

Read on »

By Deeksh

Reading is a keystone for anyone’s success in life. Without reading skill, opportunities for personal achievement is lost. I think, literacy is a value – value that is more than proficiency.

Reading is the gift of life, which can’t be stolen. Many people around us cannot even read basic instructions on food packets, which is indigestible when you think of it.

Don’t you think even poor kids are equally having rights to succeed in the world, like any other rich kids?

Will poverty be a barrier for such success?

What is the source of illiteracy problem?

Is illiteracy created by the improper education at schools?

Can improvement in the schools change the current scenario?

I feel there is a core relationship between poverty and illiteracy.

Each individual faces illiteracy based on their rate of living conditions. Most importantly, the company child is exposed to. Always children should be exposed to adults who emphasize good attitudes towards literate activities.

Children reading in the poorest schools can also overcome obstacles and succeed in thier life, if influenced by literate environment.

India is home of rich culture, geography, and off course very rich population.

Like most third-world countries, India is ridden with problems of poverty, high mortality rates, illiteracy and more……….

Although a lot has been achieved in education, a lot remains to be done. The target literacy rate set for the 11th five-year plan (2007-2012) is 85 percent. Do you think it can be achieved?

Does every child get at least a primary education? What can be done to achieve a higher literacy rate in India? Is poverty a barrier for literacy?



Living in today's society, as tough as it sound, it is clear that homelessness, hunger, unemployment, and illiteracy are direct effects of penniless among people today. As a result, this causes people to struggle throughout their lives.

It’s time for glossary:

'I' for 'India',

and for....

…………

……

....

Illiteracy!!

Read on »

By Shilpa Nangali

Carl Icahn is currently on the downside of his hedge-fund career. Icahn, who is famous as 'the shrewdest investor on the planet' has lost money on Motorola, his biggest investment!

He also failed to persuade executives at Yahoo! and Biogen Idec to take his advice for boosting their stock prices. He lost a proxy battle in June 2008 to elect his candidates to Biogen's board, making a sale of the world's biggest maker of multiple sclerosis drugs less likely. Icahn has declined to comment on his investments and performance. I visited Icahn's blog and read his articles. Most of the articles in Icahn’s blog are against the managers and boards of large firms in America.

People talk about corporate governance in America and all that..but I really never understood how Pfizer could pay Hank McKinnell $180 million in retirement benefits – a person who presided over the deletion of tens of billions in Pfizer’s market value. Or even, how the board of Cell Therapeutics, that reliably subpar performer, could in 2006 pay its CEO James Bianco some $1.1 million in cash along with other perks, $220,000 in the use of chartered aircraft.

Thinking about all this a question arises in my mind- Is corporate governance ruling America or is it stinking?

Sources: Bloomberg & The Invivo Blog

Read on »

Runaway Ice chunk In Antarctica Worries Scientists
The Associated Press
March 26, 2008
(Taken by Arunava Das, Media Analyst, EmPower Research, Bangalore with special permission from Alfred Albert Al Gore, Environmental Activist, UN for Blog Display on 3 June, 2008… Details: http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/entry/giant_chunk_of_ice_collapses_in_antartica/
Saviourofforests is a registered user with http://www.wecansolveit.org --- We Can Solve The Climate Crisis)

WASHINGTON: A chunk of Antarctic ice seven times the size of Manhattan Island has suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, according to scientists.

Satellite images starting Feb. 28 show the runaway disintegration of a chunk covering 414 square kilometers, or 160 square miles. The ice was on the edge of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and had been there for possibly 1,500 years.

This is the result of global warming, David Vaughan, a scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, said Tuesday.

Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.

"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple. That gets to be a runaway situation."

While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he explained.

The rest of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which totals about 14,500 square kilometers, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it, too, may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 1995 and 2002.

There is still a chance the rest of the ice shelf will survive until next year, Vaughan said, because this is the end of the Antarctic summer and colder weather is setting in.

Scientists said that they were not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event but that it was a sign of worsening global warming.

Read on »

By Deeksh

Next time you're in a training session, try this little experiment: Take a big yawn, cover your mouth out of courtesy. Watch out how many people yawn.

Before you finish reading this post, it's likely that you will yawn at least once. I am not intending to bore you, but just reading about yawning will make you yawn, just as seeing or hearing someone else yawn makes us yawn.

As we all know, everybody yawns — from unborn babies (Research shows that 11-week-old fetuses yawn) to the oldest great-grandparents. Animals do it, too.

But the simple truth is that even though humans have been yawning for possibly as long as they have existed, we have no clue as to why we do it.

Let’s look what a Yawn is:

Yawning is an involuntary action that causes us to open our mouths wide and breathe in deeply.

Did you know the interesting Yawning facts:

Ø The average yawn lasts about six seconds.

Ø Your heart rate can rise as much as 30 percent during a yawn.

Ø 55 percent of people will yawn within five minutes of seeing someone else yawn.

Ø Blind people yawn more after hearing an audio tape of people yawning.

Ø Reading about yawning will make you yawn.

More from our bloggers:

“I love yawning......it refreshes ..... kind of the refresh we do in our computers...”

- RockSta

“YOUR yawing is injurious to MY health…”

- Hari

“When the laziness rises up in your body and threatens to erupt , it evolves into a reaction ,"the yawn", and when its coupled up with outstreched hands and legs, the feeling is just pure heaven…”

- Niyad

“I find it relaxing when I yawn… rather than being just a precursor to sleep, sometimes yawning also cools my overheated brain, helping it to operate more efficiently and that keeps me awake….may be that's why I like yawning..”

- Shilz

“Early morning early morning when i wake up from my sleep.. thoughts of yours crosses my empty brain, and make me yawn like sheep.. and then I go again to sleep”

- Jeshal

“Yawning is the most powerful way to release my stress... it energizes the body and the soul...”

- Guruvardhan

Read on »

I remember feeling restless in class. Looking at my watch every other second, cursing at the hands that told me there was still time.

I would run the instant the bell rang. Smelling the air of freedom at last, running to catch the first bus I could. The conductor never liked me, or any other kid who used student concessions, but I dint care. The hate was mutual. I’d jump down the bus, run home, throw my bag and run to the place I loved. The lush green ground that spread far and wide, the dark brown pitch in the center, the guys sitting on the neighboring fence (this was the fence to my house by the way...my mom never appreciated this...I could never understand what the fuss was about)...

I would be tensed as to whether I’d get a chance to play. The first twenty two lucky ones could play. I remember not being that good, cutting any chances of reservation in the team. The joy if I got to play, the dejection if I didn’t. Emotion in either case was strong for the 14 year old in me. The little kid who was tired of the bag of books that was just a little less heavy than him, the prick who loathed special classes (and normal classes for that matter) , the clean bath's, the homework and everything his mom thought was good for him.

Today I miss the nasty prick. I wish I cud meet him again. Maybe I could find him in the kids who have taken over.

I was back home after 5 years of college. I had my evening tea and walked out, seeing if I fall upon anything interesting to pass time. I walk through the ground once again. This time, there was not a soul in sight.

Where were the kids?

I saw them in the end.

I was wrong about finding myself in them after all. There they were, fiddling with their fancy gadgets; hi end mobile phones and mp3 players, all the joys of the world in the palm of their hands.

What went wrong? What changed them?

They do not know the joys hidden in the heavenly green ground that is waiting for their running feet …or they just choose to ignore.

What ever the reason, I pray for them, I pray for their lost innocence. I pray for us.

Most of all… I pray for the little boy in me....the boy who wants to play.


Niyad

Read on »

Fig: 2 Danaus genutia Fig: 1 Graph is plotted taking “Duration of Treatment
in Hours” on X-axis vs. “Percentage of Treatment” on
Y-axis.

ISOLATION OF BIOINSECTICIDES FROM THE STRIPED TIGER BUTTERFLY, Danaus genutia (Lepidoptera: NYMPHALIDAE)

***Arunava Das, Chandan Mithra, R.Revanna, A.R.V. Kumar, and K. Chandrashekara

Department of Entomology,

College of Agriculture

(South Block), University of Agriculture Sciences,

Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra, Hebbal, Bangalore-65, India.

A plant grows in a highly competitive environment. It is continually being threatened by other plants encroaching upon the space from which it draws it’s sustenance, by microorganisms, by insects, avian, reptilian or mammalian herbivoures. In order to survive, each plant must draw upon a complex of defenses, which may be physical, such as Spines or Leathery Leaves or Chemical.These defenses are passive, coming into action only when the plant is attacked which repel insects or the herbivoures that attempt to feed on them.Plants protect themselves from insect attack by providing a multitude of repellent chemicals including toxic and bitter alkaloids and tannins. Non-specialist insects and other animals that attempt to feed on the plant may be repelled, injured through severe gastrointestinal malfunction or even killed. The cabbage, spinach, mustard etc. are well known for their mustard pungent flavor that deters most animals from consuming it. Even most medicinal plants like Cynanchum collialatum of the family Asclepedeciae have tannins or alkaloids like “cardenolides” that repel most animals and insects. Most of these plants have a basic enzyme "Myrosinase" which react with these specific tannins to produce the toxic metabolite, which repels insects and animals. But caterpillars of few insects are known to tolerate these toxic alkaloids (ex: caterpillar of Striped Tiger Butterfly-Danaus genutia) and in turn sequester the toxic alkaloids into their tissues making themselves non-palatable to their enemies. We hypothesize the analysis of possible roles of toxic alkaloids isolated from these butterflies as bio-insecticides.

Keywords- Toxic, Tannins, Alkaloids, Myrosinase, Asclepedeciae.

Email: arunavadas1983@yahoo.co.in , arunava_er@yahoo.com

¹ P.G. Student, M.Sc. Biochemistry, CMR Institute of Management Studies, Bangalore University, Bangalore (2005-2007)

² P.G. Student, M.Sc. Biotechnology, I Sem., Bangalore University, Bangalore (2006-2008)

³ Associate Professor, College of Agriculture, Mudigeri, Karnataka

⁴ Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, UAS, GKVK, Hebbal, Bellary Road, Bangalore

⁵ Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, UAS, GKVK, Hebbal, Bellary Road, Bangalore. & Principal Investigator, Butterfly Park (DBT), Bannerghata National Park, Bangalore.

*** Main presenter at Pondicherry University, JNU and IISc

INTRODUCTION:

Bio-insecticides are a group of insecticides that are derived from Biological origin like plants, microbes, insects, lower amphibians etc. They act only on Target Organisms like pests which cause widespread damage to plants and crops without affecting other spheres of life like grazing mammals, birds etc. They can also reduce major environmental hazards caused by Chemical Pesticides.

They posses some general features:

· Have a narrow target range and a specific mode of action.

· Are slow acting but highly effective.

· Have relatively critical application times.

· Suppress, rather than eliminate a pest population.

· Have limited field persistence and a short Self-life.

· Are safer to human and the environment than conventional chemical ones.

· Present no Residue problems.

The proteins of one insect can either be processed or directly utilized to kill the target organisms.

There are a large number of sources which are discussed below:

Plants: (e.g. Azadiracta indica – Neem)

Other medicinal plants having potentially toxic alkaloids (Alkaloids are mainly Cardenolides: formed by condensation of Progelenone or progesterone with Acetate, normal sugars or unbranched Aldohexoses, have 23 carbon atoms and a Lactone ring) belonging to the families like Apocynaceae, Asclepiadeceae, Brassicaceae, Celestraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Liliaceae, Moraceae, Ranunculaceae, Scrophularaciae, Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae.

Genetically Modified

(a) Bacteria: Bacillus thuringiensis

(b) Fungi: Actinomycetes, Streptomyces

(c) Viruses: Vascular Arbascular Mycorhizae

(d) Protozoans

Insects: Butterflies belonging to the Order: Lepidoptera, Family: Nymphalidae and Sub-family: Dannaid are known to feed on medicinal plants having toxic alkaloids in their sap and cells. Therefore these butterflies in their caterpillar stage sequester the toxic compounds from their host plants and stored them in their tissues, exhibiting the warning color which gives an indication that these colored caterpillars are not palatable to their natural predators. Even there are reports of permanent damage to the predators who try to feed on them with severe GI tract disorders leading to death or inhibition of Protein Synthesis. Their excreta analysis has revealed that they do not excrete the toxic alkaloids. Hence, like butterflies are fascinating examples of insects storing poisons. One of these butterflies (brightly colored ones) belonging to the Sub-family: Dannaid is Danaus genutia (STRIPED TIGER) being widely available in all urban gardens. (Evans 1932)

The natural chemical metabolites produced by plants may be either acutely or chronically toxic to other animals. These acutely toxic metabolites may be either aversive or repellant, or they may be neutral or attractive (Provenza et al. 1991) A plant grows in a highly competitive environment. It is continually being threatened by other plants encroaching upon the space from which it draws it’s sustenance, by microorganisms, by insects, avian, reptilian or mammalian herbivoures. In order to survive, each plant must draw upon a complex of defenses, which may be physical, such as Spines or Leathery Leaves or Chemical (Rosenthal and Janzen 1979). These defenses are passive, coming into action only when the plant is attacked which repel isects or the herbivoures that attempt to feed on them. The plants might even produce chemicals that exude in soil and inhibit the growth of microorganisms and effective growth of competitive plants, a phenomenon known as Allelopathy. Many predators like Butterflies and Grasshoppers (Brower L.P. 1967, Whittaker and Feeny 1967) are however known to tolerate or circumvent the physical and chemical defenses of these plants and sequester the toxic compounds produced by the plants in their own defense purposes. Certain of these chemicals are amino acids and therefore certainly not utillized as their nutrition and are therefore stored (Rosenthal and Bell 1979).

A great deal of discussion has surrounded the particular concept of Plant Toxins and their relation with other predatory organisms that prey on these plants.

Palatability is extremely difficult to define in terms of biological processes ionvolved in food selection. Odors alone can produce such amarked response that many individuals will refuse to sample the item. Scientists studying the palatibility in insects can accurately measure responses such as refusal to feed, reduced growth rate and disrupted maturity.

Consideration of palatibility or unpalatability of foods generally leads to consideration of aversions. A striking example of aversion in nature is that of the larvae of Monarch Butterflies (Danaus plexippus) and Striped Tiger (Danaus genutia). These larvae feed exclusively on leaves of Milkweed plants (Asclepias curassavica and Cynanchum collialatum, respectively ) from which they absorb and sequester considerable amounts of toxic cardiac glycosides. This led Lincoln Pierson Brown of University of Florida 1967 to rear monarch butterfly larvae on Milkweed and allow them to be eaten by Blue Jays. The birds which consumed these butterflies first vomitted and then became violently sick. Brower also went on to analyse these compounds sequestered by the Monarch larvae and found 10 different cardenolides, the most harmful and toxic of them are Calactin and Calotropin; the total amount of toxin concentration in the body of each butterfly is several times higher than the amount necessary to kill a cat or a small dog. He also experimented on the Grasshopper (Poikilocerous bufonius) which feeds solely on plants of Asclepiadeceae family. When this grasshopper is attacked by a potential predator, it can defend itself by ejecting a spray from it’s poison gland which has the same composition as that of Cardiac Glycosides.

Insects as source of Drugs, Enzymes and Bioactive Compounds: Nowadays insects and some lower amphibians like frogs are being used as potential sources of drugs, enzymes, anti-microbial compounds and other bioactive compounds. The same concept can be extended to search for new insecticide molecules because they repel their natural enemies by chemical defenses they procure from the plants from which they acquire nutrition, well documented by scientists world over. Most of the attempts have centered on the idea of isolating and charecterizing the cardenolides derived from these insects or plants, however this is the first such attempt to study and analyze the effect of cardenolide containing extract as a source of potential Bio-insecticides

OBJECTIVE:

Most of the attempts have centered on the idea of isolating and charecterizing the cardenolides derived from these insects or plants, however this is the first such attempt to study and analyze the effect of cardenolide containing extract as a source of potential Bio-insecticides.There are a large number of pests for the cruciferous crops like cabbage, cauliflower and also mustard plant. One of the major pests creating widespread leaf damage to both these plants are the larvae of Diamond Black Moth (DBM). Instead of spraying harmful chemical insecticides and pesticides, we can similarly spray Bio-insecticides, which will be as effective as their predecessors as well as absolutely safe when these plants are used for human consumption. We wish to analyse the possible effects of toxic alkaloids isolated from these butterflies as bio-insecticides.

MATERIALS & METHODS:

All works reported here have been carried out under strict laboratory conditions at the Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, UAS, GKVK. The methodology of rearing the test organism and Bioassay methods are outlined below:

Rearing Method of Danaus genutia: Danaus genutia viable eggs are collected (around 20-15) and incubated them in special boxes with fresh leaves (each leaf is washed properly, trimmed, maintaining the size of 5cm. x 2cm surface area, wrapping the end with wet cotton and alluminiun foil) of Cynanhcum colialatum till they hatch. Every 24 hours, the leaf is replaced with a fresh one. One egg should be kept per box. After 2-3 days, they hatch into caterpillars and for next 10-15 days, till they go to pupation, we had to every 24hrs. change the leaves of Cynanhcum colialatum (only when fully eaten) keeping them under constant observation and noting their life cycle data. After 2-3 days in pupae they hatch into adult butterflies.

Preparation of Extract: First allow the butterflies to die and keep them in refrigeration for 4-5 days for drying. Weigh around 1.032gms of butterfly (whole body) and grind them in a pre-chilled mortar and pestle with liquid nitrogen into a fine powder. Then solubilize the powder with 95% pre chilled ethanol in a paste. Filter out with the help of a double-layered muslin cloth. Allow to evaporate to minimum and then Serial Dilute.

Take the filtrate/ extract and dilute with distilled water to get 3%, 2%, 1%, 0.5%, 0.25%, and 0.125% as shown:

33.3ml. Extract + 66.7ml Distilled Water (d/w) = 3% concentration

22.2 ml. Extract + 77.8 ml. d/w = 2% concentration

18.5 ml. extract + 81.5 ml. d/w = 1% concentration

13.9 ml. extract + 86.1 ml. d/w = 0.5% concentration

13.9 ml. extract + 86.1 ml. d/w = 0.25% concentration

13.9 ml. extract + 86.1 ml. d/w = 0.125% concentration

Leaf not sprayed with Extract = Control

Bioassay: Take washed & trimmed (maintaining the same surface area as for Cynanchum leaf) Mustard leaves with intact petiole and moisten ends with cotton and alluminium foil. For each experiment 3 sets of Petri plates or replicas should be taken. In each of the Petri plate one trimmed Mustard leaf sprayed with the said concentration of Extract should be taken. We used Potter's Spray Tower to spray the leaves with the corresponding concentration. After that the leaves are dried in open air, 10 DBM larvae in each of them are released. All the 3 replicas of a particular concentration are kept together and observed every 24 hours for 7 days. Also a Control was kept in which the leaf was not sprayed with Extract.

OBSERVATION AND RESULTS:

Each day (after every 24 hours) the Mortality Rate of larvae was observed for each of the replicas and for each of the concentration. When leaves were fully eaten up, they were changed with new leaves. This time leaves were not sprayed as this would lead to overdosing of the larvae. The mortality rates were calculated and Corrected Percentage Mortality was worked out as follows:

Calculation of Percent Mortality Rate: Workout the per cent mortality for each replication and workout corrected per cent mortality and then take the mean per cent mortality of three replications of each concentration and express in graph.

1. Percentage Mortality = (No. of Larvae dead / Total no. of Larvae put) x 100

2. Corrected Percentage Mortality Rate

= [(% Mortality in Treatment - % Mortality in Control) /

(100 - % Mortality of Control)] X 100

HOURS MORTALITY RATE

	3%	2%	1%	0.5%	0.25%	0.125%
24	10.37	41.11	30.74	7.40	14.44	17.04
48	17.40	51.85	34.07	37.41	14.44	24.07
72	22.5	56.67	30.83	14.17	38.33	20.83
96	16.19	68.99	24.44	14.76	39.58	18.47
120	16.19	68.99	24.44	19.52	42.91	23.23
144	27.3	68.99	24.44	19.52	42.91	23.23
168	27.3	68.99	24.44	19.52	42.91	23.23

Table 1: CORRECTED PERCENTAGE MORTALITY

At the end of 168 hours, i.e., after 7 days, 3% Extract showed a maximum of 27.3% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 10.37% of Corrected Mortality. Similarly, 2% Extract showed a maximum of 68.99% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 41.11% of Corrected Mortality.

1% Extract showed a maximum of 34.07% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 24.44% of Corrected Mortality. 0.5% Extract showed a maximum of 37.41% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 7.40% of Corrected Mortality.

0.25% Extract showed a maximum of 42.91% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 14.44% of Corrected Mortality. 0.125% Extract showed a maximum of 24.07% of Corrected Mortality and a minimum of 17.04% of Corrected Mortality. This clearly shows that 2% Extract has given the best results followed by 0.25% Extract. Overall, as we can see from the graph below, there has been uniformity in the curves obtained from 2% and 1% Extracts. Therefore our next step is obtaining more of the 2% and 0.25% Extracts which have given the Lethal Doses for larvae mortality such that we can now concentrate on purifying the cardenolides and applying them directly for field trials. We also wish to test the potency of these potential bio-insecticides on higher group of pests like beetles, borers etc.

GRAPH:

A Graph is plotted taking “Duration of Treatment in Hours” on X-axis vs. “Percentage of Treatment” on Y-axis, we got, please see Fig:1.

DISCUSSION:

Thus, we showed that the Butterfly Extract contains toxic alkaloids & cardenolides which have the capacity to kill the larvae of the DBM, the pest of spinach. As expected results were interpreted and calculated and it was seen that the 2% concentration of extract showed the best results i.e., 68.99% mortality followed by 0.25% concentration of extract which showed 42.91% mortality. The data obtained from the graph shows the best results in 2% Extract, but the 3% extract has shown a diminished mortality rate because the larvae did not feed on such a higher concentration of extract sprayed leaf. Our next step is to procure more of 2% and 0.25% Extracts which have given the Lethal Doses for larvae mortality and subject them to purification procedures of Dialysis and HPLC for separation, concentrating and characterization of the toxic alkaloids such that we can proceed to Field Trials. But due to acute shortage of Butterfly eggs our experiment has come to a standstill but will begin as soon as we collect some 20-25 eggs of Striped Tiger. We also wish to test the potency of these potential bio-insecticides on higher group of pests like beetles, borers etc. Thus, we are able to show that the cardenolides present in the butterfly extract can be used as a potential Bio-insecticide. Insects can be an economical source of extracting bio-insecticides. Moreover, they are small in size, have a very short life span or cycle, have small body size and hence can easily be handled as Models of experiments. Also they are widely available and performing experiments on them would prove to be a very cost-effective process. Thus, insects are the best “Biochemists”. Our work as a part of Chemical Ecology will help to show the importance of conserving Nature and it’s Natural Resources, so that we can continue to reap such benefits over and over again. As had been discussed earlier, most of the research in this area has been in isolating and characterizing the cardenolides either directly from plants or from the insects; however our’s has been the first such attempt to study and analyze the effect of these toxic cardenolides present in the butterfly extract on common pests and their prospect as a potential Bio-insecticide.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

My sincere thanks to Dr. K. Chandrasekhara for guiding me in the project. Special thanks also to my team members Dr. Revanna, Dr. Murali, Dr. Jayappa, Dr. A.R.V. Kumar and Mr. Chandan. Also my regards to my parents and my respected Teachers.

REFERENCES:

1. Kunte K., Gadgil M., Wilson E.O. 2001. India: A lifescape- Butterflies of Peninsular India. Universities Press, India ppg: 148-149

2. Rosenthal G.A. and Bell E.A. 1979. Naturally occurring toxic non-protein amino acids, ppg: 353-385. In: Rosenthal G.A. and Janzen D.H. (eds) Herbivoures. Their interaction with secondary metabolites. Academic Press, N.Y.

3. Mattocks A.R. 1986. Chemistry and toxicology of pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Academic Press, N.Y.

4. Elbien A.D. and Molyneaux R.J. 1987. The chemistry and biochemistry of simple indolizidine and related polyhydroxy alkaloids. Ppg: 1-54. In: Pelletier S.W. (eds) Alkaloids: Chemical and biological perspectives. Vol.5 Wiley- Interscience, N.Y.

5. Eriksson, T. 1965. Plant Physiology. 18: 976-993

6. Cook, R.J. (1974). Biological Control of Plant Pathogens, W.H.Freeman & Co., San

Francisco, pp. 433

7. Lindley, K and Yeoman, M.M. (1983). In Plant Biotechnology. (Eds Mantell, S.H. and

Smith, H.), pp. 39-66 Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.

8. Bergersen, F.J. 1971. Ann. Rev. Plant Physiology. 22: 121-140

9. Dwivedi R.S. (1986). Indian Phytopathology, 39: 550-560

10. Ramaswamy, K. 1980. Agriculture 28: 473-619

11. Brower, L.P. 1969. Ecological chemistry. Sci. Amer.220: 22-29

12. C.L.Bagger, S.Buskov, J.B.Hasselstrom, E.Rosa, H.Sorensen,

J.Chr.Sorensen, 1996: Bioactives From Cruciferous Crops Esp. Glucosinolate Derived Products Produced in Pilot Plant Scale And Used as Biocides Supplementary to Synthetic Pesticides; Department of Chemistry, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Thorvalsendvez, Denmark.

13. A.Y.Bagrov, O.V.Fedorova , 2005: Cardenolide and Bufadienolide Ligands of the Sodium Pump / Secondary Metabolism and Plant Defense: Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, MD, USA; Laboratory of Pharmacology, I.M.Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, St. Petersburg, Russia, Frontiers in Bioscience 10, pp 2250-2256

14. Provenza, F.D., J.A. Pfister and Cheney C.D.1991. Detection, avoidance and tolerance of

plant toxins by herbivoures: How can plants circumvent the system? Proc. of this

Symposium.

15. G.A.Rosenthal, 1979. The Chemical Defenses of Higher Plants.

16. R.J.Molyneux, M.H.Ralphs 1979. Plant Toxins and Palatability to Herbivore.

Read on »

Now this should be music to the ears of those who own sites which are flash based. All this while, those who had opted for flash templates for their websites or blogs had no way to make their content searchable using the search engines.



Of course, I had come across a different breed, who were actually proud that their content was immune from all those search spiders crawling the net, indexing whatever they could come across. The reason was that their sites were purely flash based. They felt supreme, their power to hide information from the ubiquitous, the all powerful search bots or spiders; more like “Neo: The One.” (Not all of them were big fans of the movie though)



Come to think of it, it gives me goose bumps. Search engines are getting more powerful as time passes by. They are almost at a point (at least Google is) where you put some piece of information out on the net and they find it (and index it). The naysayers were right after all. There is no such thing as “privacy.”



Enough of me rambling; let me come back to the topic. Adobe is said to be canoodling with Google and Yahoo to make content from flash files/applications available to search engines. I never imagined that files with “.swf” extension will be returned in a search result. Well I guess there is always a time for “first time.”



But there is a catch here. Not all content from a flash file can be made available for search. Images and videos are still out of bounds from those niggly web crawlers. So if the flash files contain images or videos, they will not be recognized by the spiders.



As of today, Google has already implemented this feature with Yahoo set to follow. With regard to other search engines/vendors, Adobe says that it is willing to tie up with them. Also look out for new set of tools from Adobe to help flash site builders to optimize search results, which will be available shortly.



Author

Read on »

Many of us would love to sip a hot cup of coffee to start our day. If this habit can be an advantage for our health then this really makes all coffee lovers happy. Isn’t it?

A recent study has suggested that the hot cup of coffee may help protect against multiple sclerosis (MS). The study revealed that mice immunized to develop an MS-like condition were protected from the disease by drinking caffeine.

The scientists discovered that when the rodents consumed the equivalent of six to eight cups of coffee a day, they did not develop the condition.

According to Dr.Linda Thompson, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist, the caffeine stopped adenosine (one of the four building blocks in DNA) from binding to an adenosine receptor in mice. When adenosine could not bind to the receptor, this prevented certain T cells from reaching the central nervous system and triggering the cascade of events that lead to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, the animal model for the human disease MS. T cells belong to a group of white blood cells called as ‘lymphocytes’. These T cells have a central role in cell-mediated immunity and in generating immune responses.

Thompson said that this finding could lead to new ways to prevent and treat MS in humans. While the results are inspiring, there is much more work to be done for the prevention of MS in humans.

By Shilpa Nangali

Read on »

Come along, take a walk with me
a walk down a trodden lane
this walk may give me the answers
this walk may break the chain

I dare not take this walk alone
I dare not, lest I get scared
I've never taken walks alone
I've never ever dared

I know I've been there before
coz it’s all coming back
I can see the pandemonium
like darkness through a crack

Help me with these first steps
The trip ahead is long
Talk me thru these first steps
or maybe... sing me a song

What do you see round the corner?
coz I think I see light
Just can’t wait to get there
It’s been a really long night

I'm feeling a lot better now
I'm glad I took this walk
Thanks for all your songs
and thanks for all the talk

You've been there through the dark
Now stay with me while it’s bright
Then I'd know your not leaving
coz then it'd never be night..

Now that we've reached this place
Please… don’t let go of me
Coz I've walked right into your heart
Right where I want to be..

Niyad

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By Shilpa C Nangali

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