Credit Policy: RBI sees sticky inflation; risks to upside

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said inflation was likely to remain near current levels during the fiscal year, with risks still to the upside, sounding a cautious note a day before it is expected to cut its policy interest rate for the first time i

n three years.

Earlier on Monday, India reported annual wholesale price index (WPI) inflation for March at 6.89%, mainly driven by higher food prices, exceeding forecasts.

“While inflation has moderated, risks to inflation are still on the upside,” the RBI said in a report.

“Monetary policy would … need to support growth without risking external balance or inflation by excessively fuelling demand,” the report said.

The RBI has left interest rates on hold after raising them 13 times between March 2010 and October 2011. It disappointed many investors a month ago when it left rates unchanged, accompanied by strong anti-inflationary comments.

On Monday, the central bank said inflationary drivers remain, with inflation “likely to remain sticky at about current levels” in the fiscal year that started this month.

“Price pressures persist with considerable suppressed inflation in oil, electricity, coal and fertilisers, (and) the incomplete pass through of rupee depreciation,” it said.

The government heavily subsidises fuel and fertilisers, and is expected eventually to free up fuel prices in order to ease its fiscal burden, which would add to inflation.

Most analysts polled by Reuters last week expected the RBI to begin its easing cycle on Tuesday with a 25 basis point cut in the policy repo rate to 8.25%, while a minority expected it to bring down the cash reserve ratio for banks by 25 basis points to 4.50%.

An RBI survey of economists forecast the Indian economy to grow at 7.2% in the fiscal year that began on April 1, little changed from the 7.3% forecast in the last survey three months ago.

Growth in Asia’s third-largest economy slowed to 6.1% in the three months to December, the weakest in nearly three years. The government has forecast growth in the fiscal year that ended on March 31 to dip below 7% for the first time in three years.

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SBI expects 100-125 bps rise in savings bank fund costs

October 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

MUMBAI (Reuters) – State Bank of India, the country’s biggest lender, expects its average funding cost for savings bank accounts to rise 100-125 basis points, its chairman said Friday.

“I think that’s going to be inevitable. We are prepared for some pressure on the cost of saving bank funding,” Pratip Chaudhuri told television channel CNBC-TV18 in an interview.

The RBI on Tuesday deregulated the savings deposit rate, the last administered bank rate in India. Within hours, YES Bank increased the rate it offers on such deposits by 200 basis points to 6 percent from the earlier mandated 4 percent.

The deregulation of the rate is expected to spark off competition among banks to garner low-cost deposits. New banks, like YES Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are expected to be more aggressive in mopping up such deposits.

Savings bank deposits comprise about 34 percent of SBI’s total deposit base, Chaudhuri said. Of the bank’s total savings deposits, 30 percent have a balance of more than 100,000 rupees.

The RBI, while deregulating the rate on Tuesday, did not put a floor on the savings rate or restrict the number of times banks may change the rate. It does require that each bank offer a uniform interest rate on savings deposits up to 100,000 rupees.

Chaudhuri, however, said SBI would not take the first call among the larger banks on raising the savings bank rate.

“We will have to see how other banks play it out and then we will take appropriate policy action,” he said.

He said the increase in the savings bank rate would not be uniform — for higher value accounts it may be 100 basis points, but for lower value deposits it may be 50 basis points or less.

At 2.15 p.m., shares in SBI were up 2.1 percent at 1,906.10 rupees in a firm Mumbai market.

(Reporting by Subhadip Sircar; Editing by Rajesh Pandathil)

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Steve Jobs’s death a reminder that pancreatic cancer’s toll is still too high

October 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, many people were both saddened by his loss and hopeful that his very public experience with this ghastly disease might prompt a race for the cure.

But medicine moves slowly. With the loss of Steve Jobs and, just weeks before him, Nobel Prize recipient Ralph Steinman, we’re struck again by the fact that pancreatic cancers are a horribly tough nut to crack.

As with everything he did, Steve Jobs surpassed expectations and forged new territory in surviving his disease, described as a rare form of neuroendocrine tumor on his pancreas, for more than five years. But his was an exceptional case.

The five-year survival rate for the more common form of pancreatic cancer is less than 4 percent, according to the American Cancer Society. That’s because there’s no way (yet) to detect it early: It creeps up quietly, not causing noticeable symptoms until the tumor on the pancreas has grown too large to be surgically removed or the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, typically the liver.

An estimated 44,030 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S. in 2011; 37,660 of them will die from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Despite some recent developments in detecting and treating pancreatic cancer, the numbers haven’t budged in years. As the CDC reported in 2010, between 1999 and 2007, the death rate “decreased by 9.6 percent for lung cancer, 23.9 percent for prostate cancer, 15.2 percent for breast cancer, and 19.6 percent for colon cancer. The death rate for pancreatic cancer did not change significantly during this period.”

As I wrote when Pausch died, pancreatic cancer research doesn’t attract the attention that many of us think it should. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t scientists out there working hard to crack this nut and others working to raise awareness and provide support for those affected by this disease. But finding ways to detect pancreatic cancer early enough to make a difference, to effectively treat it, to improve survival rates — or even to prevent it — will require the kind of tenacity and visionary thinking that Steve Jobs brought to the table.

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Invading black holes cause ‘cosmic flashes’

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 19 (ANI): Mathematicians at the University of Leeds, UK, have determined that cosmic flashes, known as gamma ray bursts, are produced by jets of plasma that originate from invading black holes.

Gamma ray bursts are beams of high-energy radiation that are similar to the radiation emitted by explosions of nuclear weapons.

The orthodox model for this cosmic jet engine involves plasma being heated by neutrinos in a disk of matter that forms around a black hole, which is created when a star collapses.

But, mathematicians at the University of Leeds, have come up with a different explanation: the jets come directly from black holes, which can dive into nearby massive stars and devour them.

Their theory is based on recent observations by the Swift satellite, which indicates that the central jet engine operates for up to 10,000 seconds – much longer than the neutrino model can explain.

Mathematicians believe that this is evidence for an electromagnetic origin of the jets, that is, that the jets come directly from a rotating black hole, and that it is the magnetic stresses caused by the rotation that focus and accelerate the jet’s flow.

For the mechanism to operate, the collapsing star has to be rotating extremely rapidly.

This increases the duration of the star’s collapse as the gravity is opposed by strong centrifugal forces.

One particularly peculiar way of creating the right conditions involves not a collapsing star, but a star invaded by its black hole companion in a binary system.

The black hole acts like a parasite, diving into the normal star, spinning it with gravitational forces on its way to the star’s centre, and finally eating it from the inside.

“The neutrino model cannot explain very long gamma ray bursts and the Swift observations, as the rate at which the black hole swallows the star becomes rather low quite quickly, rendering the neutrino mechanism inefficient, but the magnetic mechanism can,” said Professor Komissarov from the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds.

“Our knowledge of the amount of the matter that collects around the black hole and the rotation speed of the star allow us to calculate how long these long flashes will be – and the results correlate very well with observations from satellites,” he added. (ANI)

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Mystery of odd rotating stars solved by scientists

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, September 18 (ANI): A team of scientists has solved a longstanding mystery about a pair of stars called DI Herculis whose peculiar rotation had remained a mystery for three decades.

The shift in the orbit of DI Herculis was a mystery till now.

Now, MIT (Massachusetts Institute Of Technology) researchers and colleagues have determined that the stars are rotating tipped over on their sides, relative to their orbits around each other.

This produces tidal effects that counteract the expected rate for the orbits to shift orientation over time (called precession), finally explaining the mysterious anomaly.

The discrepancy in the rate of precession had been seen as a possible refutation of Einstein’s theory of relativity, so finding a conventional explanation means that relativity has withstood another possible challenge.

This discovery could also help to shed light on how binary stars (about half of all known stars) are formed and how their rotation and orbits evolve over time.

The mystery was solved by postdoctoral researcher Simon Albrecht and assistant professor of physics Joshua Winn and others, who used a high-resolution spectrograph called Sophie on a 1.93-meter telescope at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in France to make highly detailed observations that revealed the unexpected tilt – one of more than 70 degrees from vertical, the other more than 80 degrees – of the stars’ rotation axes.

The team now hopes to study other unusual binary stars to try to determine how unusual this tipped-over configuration is. (ANI)

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Weight loss can prevent kidney disease progression in obese patients

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 18 (ANI): Shedding extra pounds can preserve kidney function in obese people with kidney disease, according to a new study led by Indian origin scientist from Cleveland Clinic.

Weight loss can improve a number of health problems, like it can improve control of diabetes, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and reduce the effects of heart disease.

During the study, Dr Sankar Navaneethan, and his colleagues analysed the studies that examined the effects of weight loss interventions in obese kidney disease patients.

It showed that weight loss attained through diet and exercise reduces proteinuria (excess excretion of protein in the urine-a hallmark of kidney damage) and may prevent additional decline in kidney function in obese patients with kidney disease.

Studies also showed that surgical interventions normalize the filtration rate of the kidneys in obese patients with high filtration rates (a risk factor for the development of kidney disease).

While the findings imply that weight reduction may prevent the progression of kidney disease in obese kidney disease patients, the authors noted that there were only a small number of studies available for analysis and additional high-quality long-term studies on this topic are needed.

The study appears in Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology. (ANI)

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Atheists ‘more successful at online dating’

September 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Sept 16 (ANI): People who don’t believe in god are more likely to achieve success at online dating, according to a new study of opening messages.

Self-effacing men are also more likely to get a reply to their approaches, while nothing turns off potential dates more than textspeak like “ur” and “luv”.

The researchers analysed 500,000 “first contacts” sent by users of OkCupid, the leading US dating website, and found that nearly 42 per cent of messages, which included the word “atheist”, received replies, significantly higher than the average response rate of 32 per cent.

The study also showed that references to “Christian”, “Jewish” and “Muslim” only had a marginal success rate, reports the Telegraph.

Moreover, mentioning “god” in a first approach actually discouraged people from replying.

The research also suggests online daters to avoid making personal compliments too early like “sexy” and “beautiful”, which reduced response rate.

It showed that people who used the words “good taste” or “you mention” in their messages pushed their response rates close to 50 per cent.

In addition, dreary greetings such as “hi”, “hey” and “hello” are far less successful than sparkier openings like “how’s it going” and “what’s up”.

The results of the analysis were published on OkTrends, the dating website’s official blog. (ANI)

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Fish sales shoot up during Ramadan in Kashmir

September 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, Sept 16 (ANI): Sale of trout fish in Kashmir has been witnessing an upward trend, as Muslims prefer nutritious alterative to meat varieties during the holy month of Ramadan.

Normally people eat trout fish during whole year at different occasions. But in the month of Ramadan demand for trout fish automatically increases because of its health benefits.

Long queues of customers were seen outside the sales counter in Srinagar to take home their share.

“During Ramzan, people like to eat good food. Before Ramzan, the shop is open once a week but during Ramzan it opens twice a week. It has become preferred food,” said Kaiser Ahmad, a customer.

“I think trout fish is the best food available of all the food options available to us and that is why so many are buying it. There are no scales also. It has protein and vitamins,” said Mohammed Ashraf, another customer.

The state fisheries department is providing two kilograms per head at the rate of 150 rupees per kg.

“We have to order fish again later in the day as stock lasts only few hours. We try to supply fresh fish to our customers,” said Mohammed Hussain Wani, fisheries marketing officer.

Trout is a delicious and a very energetic food. It has a number of vitamins and doctors also advise people to use trout fish in large quantities in place of meat. By Afzal Butt(ANI)

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Adopt new, transparent selection process for police forces: Chidambaram

September 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Sep 14 (ANI): Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday asked the State Governments to adopt new, time bound and transparent selection process for the state police forces on the lines of the Central Police Force selection procedure.

Addressing the three-day long conference of the Directors Generals and Inspectors Generals of state police forces organized by Intelligence Bureau, Chidambaram said: “Revamp the recruitment procedures and make them quick, time bound and transparent. We have introduced a new recruitment procedure in the CPMFs that is based on technology, objective assessment and transparency. I would take this opportunity to urge State Governments to immediately adopt the new procedure.”

Chidambaram expressed concern over the way police officers are treated and asked states to constitute the police establishment boards as the earliest.

“Constitute a Police Establishment Board that would decide on transfers and postings. It is a matter of deep regret that many police officers have been reduced to a football, to be kicked here and there, from one post to another, without regard to the damage done to the job as well as the officer,” he said.

Expressing concern over the non providing of funds to the police forces by some of the states, Chidambaram said: “I am also concerned about the attitude of some State Governments to providing funds for the police. Let me remind you that Police and Public Order are State subjects. States are right in zealously guarding their turf. The Central Government has no desire to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the State Governments. Given the Constitutional responsibility, State Governments must provide adequate funds for the State Police. “

The Home Minister appealed to the state governments to change the practice of allotting the residue – after providing funds for other Plan and Non-Plan Schemes to the head of Police.

The Central Government increased over Rs.13, 000 crore in the budget of the current fiscal to strengthening the CPFs, and for Modernization of Police Force, CCTNS, Strengthening of Fire and Emergency Services, Scheme of ICP, etc.

Chidambaram called on the conference to mark the beginning of a process of reinventing the security system in the country.

“We must learn from our past mistakes. We must also learn from the experience of other countries. It is the neglect of tried and tested methods that has led us to a situation where we seemed unequal to the challenges that face the internal security of the country,” he said.It is not enough to walk with firm steps on the path that is known. We must also lay out a path forward that will draw heavily upon technology and innovation,” Chidambaram added.

He said once the ambitious projects of CCTN and NATGRID are fully rolled out and implemented, it would mark a quantum jump in our ability to counter the challenges that we face.

Chidambaram also stressed on the creation of a first rate National Counter Terrorism Centre.

“It is also my desire that once the Police Mission submits its report, we should implement the recommendations in a time-bound manner. There is the need to enact a “Model Police Act”. Mega-city policing is a new requirement, and there is much to learn from the experiences of other mega-cities,” Chidambaram said.

Chidambaram also asked the state police chiefs to sharply upgrade our Forensic Science Laboratories and make them among the best in the world. (ANI)

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How people lose muscles as they get older

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 12 (ANI): Even the most well-built people tend to loose their muscles and develop thinner arms and legs as they get older, and researchers in Nottingham have now explained why this happens.

As age catches up, it becomes harder to keep our muscles healthy-they get smaller, which decreases strength and increases the likelihood of falls and fractures.

The researchers have already shown that when older people eat, they cannot make muscle as fast as the young, and now they have found that the suppression of muscle breakdown, which also happens during feeding, is blunted with age.

Led by Michael Rennie, the scientists and doctors at The University of Nottingham Schools of Graduate Entry Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, believe that a ‘double whammy’ affects people aged over 65.

But the team think that weight training may “rejuvenate” muscle blood flow, and help retain muscle for older people.

The study’s results may explain the ongoing loss of muscle in older people- when they eat they do not build enough muscle with the protein in food and also, the insulin (a hormone released during a meal) fails to shut down the muscle breakdown that rises between meals and overnight.

Normally, in young people, insulin acts to slow muscle breakdown.

These problems could be a result of a failure to deliver nutrients and hormones to muscle because of a poorer blood supply.

In the study, the researchers compared one group of people in their late 60s to a group of 25-year-olds, with equal numbers of men and women.

Professor Rennie said: “The results were clear. The younger people’s muscles were able to use insulin we gave to stop the muscle breakdown, which had increased during the night. The muscles in the older people could not.”

“In the course of our tests, we also noticed that the blood flow in the leg was greater in the younger people than the older ones. This set us thinking: maybe the rate of supply of nutrients and hormones is lower in the older people? This could explain the wasting we see,” he added.

Later, Beth Phillips, a PhD student working with Rennie, confirmed the blunting effect of age on leg blood flow after feeding, with and without exercise.

The team predicted that weight training would reduce this blunting.

“Indeed, she found that three sessions a week over 20 weeks ‘rejuvenated’ the leg blood flow responses of the older people. They became identical to those in the young,” said Rennie.

The study has been published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (ANI)

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Stay-at-home parents ‘most stressed workers’

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, September 12 (ANI): Parents who stay at home and look after the household are the most stressed out, a new UK study claims.

According to a research conducted by Mindlab Organisation, mothers or fathers who do household chores are more frazzled than those with traditionally high-pressure jobs, like city trading, teaching or nursing.

Stress levels were investigated in British adults as per their “work” roles – stay-at-home parents, taxi drivers, teachers, nurses and city dealers.

The conclusion was reached by measuring levels of the stress hormone cortisol throughout an average working day.

It was found that stay-at-home parents proved to be the most under pressure. Nurses ranked second in the list, followed by the traders, then teachers and finally, taxi drivers.

A bio-monitoring equipment was used to measure and record the heart rate and skin conductance.

The participants were connected to the equipment and tested over a seven-hour period.

Also, samples of saliva were taken at crucial junctures during the day to measure cortisol, which is a direct indicator of stress.

“The key here is the degree of control each of these professionals feel able to exercise over their lives,” the Daily Express quoted Dr David Lewis, who was part of the research, as saying.

“Stay-at-home parents receive little or no specific training and are furthermore typically isolated from other adults for much of the day,” he added.

Psychologist Jenni Trent Hughes said: “The answer is simply to be selfish and take some time out. After 21 years of running around after the family, pets, supermarket and the house, women have earned it.

“If you’re not taking care of your- self then how can you properly take care of anyone else?

“If you’re ratty or short-tempered, tired or at your wits’ end how can you possibly be the best you can be for your partner, children, family and last but definitely not least yourself?” (ANI)

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Polar bears face extinction in less than 70 years because of global warming

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, September 11 (ANI): A new research has warned that polar bears face extinction in less than 70 years because of global warming.

“Recent projections suggest polar bears could be extinct within 70 years,” Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University, who led the latest study, told the Telegraph.

“But we think this could be a very conservative estimate. The outlook is very bleak for them and other creatures such as ringed seals,” he said.

Melting ice is causing Polar bear numbers to drop dramatically, scientists warn.

“The rate at which sea ice is disappearing is accelerating and these creatures rely on it for shelter, hunting and breeding. If this goes, so do they,” said Post.

Others also at risk include ivory gulls, Pacific walruses, ringed and hooded seals and narwhals, small whales with long, spiral tusks.

One of the problems is that other animals are moving north, encroaching on their territory, spurred by increasing temperatures, pushing out native species.

The animals are also struggling with the loss of sea ice.

The international team analyzed average temperature in the Arctic over the last 150 years and warned many animals that are dependent upon the stability and persistence of sea ice are faring especially badly.

Polar bears and ringed seals both give birth in lairs or caves under the snow and can lose many newborn pups when the lairs collapse in unusually early spring rains, triggered by climate change.

Among animals migrating further north are red foxes, which are driving out the smaller Arctic foxes. (ANI)

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New biomarker can bring rapid relief from major depression

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 11 (ANI): Scientists from University of California have identified a biomarker that can help accurately predict whether a particular drug will be effective in treating major depression.

During the study, the researchers measured changes in brain-wave patterns using quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG), a non-invasive, computerized measurement that recognizes specific alterations in brain-wave activity.

These changes precede improvement in mood by many weeks and appear to serve as a biomarker that accurately predicts how effective a given medication will be.

The new non-invasive test would help predict within a week whether a particular drug will be effective.

The added benefit of the biomarker test is that it ispainless and fast – about 15 minutes – and only involves the placement of six electrodes around the forehead and on the earlobes.

The researchers recruited a total of 375 people who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) and prescribed the antidepressant escitalopram, commonly known as Lexapro.

Then they examined a biomarker called the antidepressant treatment response (ATR) index – a specific change in brain-wave patterns.

The study showed that the ATR predicted both response and remission with an accuracy rate of 74 percent, much higher than any other method available.

The researchers also found that they could predict whether subjects were more likely to respond to a different antidepressant, bupropion, also known as Wellbutrin XL.

“Until now, other than waiting, there has been no reliable method for predicting whether a medication would lead to a good response or remission,” said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and lead author of the study.

“And that wait can be as long as 14 weeks. So these are very exciting findings for the patient suffering from depression,” said Leuchter.

The study results appear in the journal Psychiatry Research. (ANI)

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Cancer safety fears of most common heartburn treatment rejected

September 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 10 (ANI): The largest ever study on ‘Proton pump inhibitors’ (PPI)-the second most prescribed group of drugs for heartburn-has dismissed all fears about the cancer causing effects of the treatment.

PPI are the most commonly used treatment for chronic acid reflux, or ‘heartburn’, a painful burning sensation in the chest, neck and throat which is experienced by almost a third of people in developed countries.

Regular and prolonged heartburn is known to cause ‘benign oesophagitis’, a reversible inflammation of the gullet.

However if left untreated a condition called Barrett’s Oesophagus (BE) occurs in around 10 per cent of sufferers, which can in turn develop into a potentially fatal cancer called oesophageal adenocarcinoma.

While PPIs had an excellent safety record, it was unclear if long-term use of these drugs to reduce the discomfort of heartburn could increase the risk of developing either BE or the spread of the associated cancer.

But, the new research carried out at Queen Mary, University of London and Leicester Royal Infirmary, has given the most conclusive evidence yet that this is not the case.

Professor Janusz Jankowski, who co-authored the study, said: “This is one of the most detailed studies investigating both the laboratory and clinical side of proton pump inhibitor drugs. As a consequence we are now better able to inform patients of the good benefit/risk ratio of this commonly prescribed therapy.”

Tests carried out during the two-year study looked at tissue sampled from the oesophagus lining of ninety volunteers, each of whom were given PPI drugs at either a high or low dosage.

Researchers found that there was no difference in the rate at which BE developed, neither was there a change in the number of precancerous cells in either group.

Despite fears about how the treatments might affect people already suffering from BE, the study showed that there was no evidence that this led to any worsening of the condition or any extra incidences of cancer.

PPIs work by blocking the action of gastrin, a hormone that controls acid levels in the stomach, and is known to increase the normal movement of cells in the gastro-intestinal tract.

Since PPI therapy increases the levels of gastrin in the body, it had been thought this could cause expansion of BE affected tissue, but this was not found to be the case.

In fact, the scientists observed neither expansion nor contraction of the abnormal tissue.

The study has been published in the peer reviewed journal Gut. (ANI)

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Noisy roads up high BP risk

September 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 10 (ANI): Individuals living near noisy roads are at greater risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a new study.

The study has been published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Environmental Health.

Theo Bodin worked with a team or researchers from Lund University Hospital, Sweden, to investigate the association between living close to noisy roads and having raised blood pressure.

He said, “Road traffic is the most important source of community noise. Non-auditory physical health effects that are biologically plausible in relation to noise exposure include changes in blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of stress hormones.

“We found that exposure above 60 decibels was associated with high blood pressure among the relatively young and middle-aged, an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke”.

To reach the conclusion, Bodin and his colleagues used health survey questionnaires for 27,963 people living in Scania in southern Sweden and related this information to how close the respondents lived to busy roads. Modest exposure effects were generally noted in all age groups at average road noise levels below 60 dB(A). More marked effects were seen at higher exposure levels among relatively young and middle-aged people, whereas no effects at higher levels were discerned in the oldest age group (60 – 80 years old).

Speaking about this age-effect, Bodin said, “The effect of noise may become less important, or harder to detect, relative to other risk factors with increasing age. Alternatively, it could be that noise annoyance varies with age”.(ANI)

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Absence of teachers keeps literacy rate low in Bihar

September 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Patna, Sep 8 (ANI): Even as the world’s observing ‘International Literacy Day’ on Tuesday, Bihar continues to suffer from rampant illiteracy.

Despite the government’s repeated efforts to improve standards of teaching, schools are grappling with a lack of teaching staff and creaking infrastructure.

“We want to increase the number of students in our school, but this is only possible if there are more teachers. We want accommodate 2000 students in the school but we are not able to give admission to the students who come here as there are no teachers and no place to sit,” said Kamlesh Kumar, a teacher.

He added that their school has appealed to the authorities to take a notice of their condition.

The parents prefer keeping their kids at home. They feel that their kids are better at home playing.

“We don’t send our kids to the school because there are no teachers and if there are no teachers what will our kids study in school. That is why the children go to school, play for sometime and come back as there is no one to look after them in the school. Hence, my kids don’t go to the school and play on the streets,” said Mohammad Sarfuddin, a slum dweller.

The eradication of illiteracy has been one of the major programmes of successive Indian governments since independence.

The National Literacy Mission, launched in 1988 by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government, has greatly helped in increasing the rate of literacy in the country. Besides the universalisation of primary education, steps were taken to promote adult literacy. (ANI)

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PM concerned over low conviction rate of cases under SC/ST Act

September 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Sep.7 (ANI): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday expressed concern over low conviction rate of persons involved in carrying out atrocities against schedule castes and schedule tribes.

Speaking during inauguration of a conference of state ministers of welfare and social justice at New Delhi on Monday, Prime Minister Dr. Singh said: “Reports of atrocities against SCs, STs and senior citizens continue to appear with disturbing regularity. I have in fact written to the Chief Ministers of all states recently to enforce the provisions of the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. It is shocking that conviction rate for cases of atrocities against SCs and STs is less than 30 percent against the average of 42 per cent for all cognisable offences under IPC.”

“The state governments need to give more attention to this issue,” the PM said.

Singh told them to conduct meetings of state and district level vigilance committees on a regular basis and said that court cases should be pursued on priority.

Focussing on the need to change the general mindset towards disadvantaged groups, the Prime Minister said such people should be made equal partners in the developmental processes.

“We propose to amend the Persons with Disabilities Act in consultation with states so as to bring it in line with the UN Convention (on Rights of Persons with Disabilities),” Dr. Singh said.

Referring to the drought like situation prevailing in many parts of the country, Singh said, “the experience has been that weaker sections tend to be the worst affected by such natural calamities.

“We, therefore, need to step up monitoring and implementation of welfare schemes like NREGA, Annapurna and Old Age Pension Scheme, which target the weaker sections.” (ANI)

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‘Master switch’ gene may help control obesity

September 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 4 (ANI): Scientists from University of Michigan claim to have discovered a gene, which when switched off, can control obesity in mice and help them remain thin.

According to Alan Saltiel, the Mary Sue Coleman Director of the U-M Life Sciences Institute, deleting the gene, called IKKE, appears to protect mice against conditions that, in humans, lead to Type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity.

He said that if follow-up studies confirm IKKE is tied to obesity in humans, the gene and the protein it will be prime targets for the development of drugs to treat obesity and diabetes.

“We’ve studied other genes associated with obesity – we call them ‘obesogenes’ – but this is the first one we’ve found that, when deleted, stops the animal from gaining weight,” said Saltiel, senior author of a paper.

“The fact that you can disrupt all the effects of a high-fat diet by deleting this one gene in mice is pretty interesting and surprising,” Saltiel added.

During the study, the high-fat-diet mice were fed a lard-like substance with 45 percent of its calories from fat. Control mice were fed standard chow with 4.5 percent of its calories from fat.

The gene IKKE produces a protein kinase also known as IKKE. The IKKE protein kinase appears to target proteins, which, in turn, control genes that regulate the mouse metabolism.

When the high-fat diet is fed to a normal mouse, IKKE protein-kinase levels rise, the metabolic rate slows, and the animal gains weight. In that situation, the IKKE protein kinase acts as a brake on the metabolism.

The new study showed that knockout mice placed on the high-fat diet did not gain weight, apparently because deleting the IKKE gene releases the metabolic brake, allowing it to speed up and burn more calories, instead of storing those calories as fat.

The new study is published in the journal Cell. (ANI)

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US reality TV stars expecting their 19th child!

September 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Sep 2 (ANI): The couple from reality TV show ’18 Kids and Counting’ have announced that they are expecting their 19th child.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, from Tonitown, Arkansas, say that they are ‘thrilled’ to be expecting a new addition next spring, despite already having ten sons and eight daughters aged from eight months to 21.

“We are so thrilled. We just couldn’t believe it is happening,” the Telegraph quoted Michelle Duggar, 42, as having told People magazine.

Jim Bob, 44, added: “This never gets old. We are so grateful for each child. We are looking forward to our first grand baby and our 19th child.”

The couple’s eldest son Joshua, 21, and his wife Anna are also expecting a child next month.

The Duggars have confirmed that the new baby will be given a name beginning with the letter ‘J’, just like all the couple’s other children.

The existing Duggar children are called: Josh, 21, twins Jana and John-David, 19; Jill, 18; Jessa, 16; Jinger, 15; Joseph, 14; Josiah, 13; Joy-Anna, 11; twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah, 10; Jason, 9; James, 8; Justin, 6; Jackson, 5; Johanna, 3; Jennifer, 2, and Jordyn-Grace, 8 months.

If the Duggars continue to breed at the same rate the next generation will have 400 members, the third generation will have 8,000, the fourth 160,000, and the fifth 3.2 million.

This would mean that one in ever hundred people in America would be a Duggar, there would be more Duggars than Latvians, and there would be more Duggars than residents of America’s 21 least populous states. (ANI)

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