RxPG News : General News

Excerpts from Indian court ruling on homosexuality

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:52:42 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Delhi High Court gave a landmark judgement that de-criminalises homosexuality. Here are key excerpts from the 105-page ruling:

- The notion of equality in the Indian Constitution flows from the 'Objective Resolution' moved by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1946. He said: 'Words are magic things often enough, but even the magic of words sometimes cannot convey the magic of the human spirit and of a Nation's passion... - seeks very feebly to tell the world of what we have thought or dreamt of so long, and what we now hope to achieve in the near future.'

- This Court believes that Indian Constitution reflects this value deeply ingrained in Indian society, nurtured over several generations. The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognising a role in society for everyone.

- In our view, Indian Constitutional law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconceptions of who the LGBTs - are. It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster the dignity of every individual.

- We declare that Section 377 IPC -, insofar it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution. The provisions of Section 377 IPC will continue to govern non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors. By 'adult' we mean everyone who is 18 years of age and above. A person below 18 would be presumed not to be able to consent to a sexual act. This clarification will hold till, of course, Parliament chooses to amend the law to effectuate the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in its 172nd Report.

- The criminalisation of homosexuality condemns in perpetuity a sizable section of society and forces them to live their lives in the shadow of harassment, exploitation, humiliation, cruel and degrading treatment at the hands of the law enforcement machinery.

- The Government of India estimates the MSM - number at around 25 lacs -. The number of lesbians and transgenders is said to be several lacs as well. This vast majority is denied 'moral full citizenship'. Section 377 IPC grossly violates their right to privacy and liberty embodied in Article 21 insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts between adults in private.

- Since 1967 the process of change has informed legal attitude towards sexual orientation. This process has culminated in the de-criminalisation of sodomy in private between consenting adults, in several jurisdictions. The superior courts in some of these jurisdictions have struck down anti-sodomy laws, where such laws remain on the statute book. In 1967 in England and Wales and in 1980 in Scotland sodomy between consenting adult males in private was de-criminalised. However, in Northern Ireland the criminal law relating to sodomy remained unchanged.

- Homosexuality is no longer treated as a disease or disorder and now near unanimous medical and psychiatric expert opinion treats it as just another expression of human sexuality.

- Sexual transmission is only one of the several factors for the spread of HIV and the disease spreads through both homosexual as well as heterosexual conduct. There is no scientific study or research work by any recognised scientific or medical body, or for that matter any other material, to show any causal connection existing between decriminalisation of homosexuality and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

- Popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights under Article 21. Popular morality, as distinct from a constitutional morality derived from constitutional values, is based on shifting and subjecting notions of right and wrong. If there is any type of morality that can pass the test of compelling state interest, it must be constitutional morality and not public morality.

- The Constitution of India recognises, protects and celebrates diversity. To stigmatise or to criminalise homosexuals only on account of their sexual orientation would be against the constitutional morality.

- Section 377 IPC has the effect of viewing all gay men as criminals. When everything associated with homosexuality is treated as bent, queer, repugnant, the whole gay and lesbian community is marked with deviance and perversity. They are subject to extensive prejudice because what they are or what they are perceived to be, not because of what they do. The result is that a significant group of the population is, because of its sexual nonconformity, persecuted, marginalised and turned in on itself.

Scientists create metal that pumps liquid uphill like a tree

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:21:48 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Trees draw vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves hundreds of feet above the ground through capillary action. But now University of Rochester scientists have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle, but at a much faster speed.

The metal may prove invaluable in pumping microscopic amounts of liquid around a medical diagnostic chip, cooling a computer's processor, or turning almost any simple metal into an anti-bacterial surface.

'We're able to change the surface structure of almost any piece of metal so that we can control how liquid responds to it,' said Chunlei Guo, professor of optics at the University of Rochester.

Guo and his assistant, Anatoliy Vorobyev, use an ultra-fast burst of laser light to change the surface of a metal, forming nanoscale and microscale pits, globules, and strands across the metal's surface.

The laser, called a femtosecond laser, produces pulses lasting only a few quadrillionths of a second. A femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years.

During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire electric grid of North America, all focused onto a spot the size of a needlepoint, he says.

'Imagine a huge waterway system shrunk down onto a tiny chip, like the electronic circuit printed on a microprocessor, so we can perform chemical or biological work with a tiny bit of liquid,' says Guo, according to a Rochester release.

'Blood could precisely travel along a certain path to a sensor for disease diagnostics. With such a tiny system, a nurse wouldn't need to draw a whole tube of blood for a test. A scratch on the skin might contain more than enough cells for a micro-analysis,' said Guo.

These findings are slated for publication in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Scientists develop technique to trace alien life

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:02:04 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, April 24 - Researchers may be able to find extraterrestrial life even before it leaves its home planet -- by looking for left or right-handed light.

The technique they have developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology - for detecting life elsewhere in the universe will not spot aliens directly.

Rather, it could allow spaceborne instruments to see a tell-tale sign that life may have influenced a landscape: a preponderance of molecules that have a certain 'chirality,' or handedness.

A right-handed molecule has the same composition as its left-handed cousin, but their chemical behaviour differs.

Because many substances critical to life favour a particular handedness, Thom Germer physicist and his colleagues at NIST think chirality might reveal life's presence at great distances, and have built a device to detect it.

'You don't want to limit yourself to looking for specific materials like oxygen that earth creatures use, because that makes assumptions about what life is,' said Germer. 'But amino acids, sugars, DNA -- each of these substances is either right- or left-handed in every living thing.'

Many molecules not associated with life exhibit handedness as well. But when organisms reproduce, their offspring possess chiral molecules that have the same handedness as those in their parents' bodies.

'If the surface had just a collection of random chiral molecules, half would go left, half right,' Germer said. 'But life's self-assembly means they all would go one way. It's hard to imagine a planet's surface exhibiting handedness without the presence of self assembly, which is an essential component of life.'

Because chiral molecules reflect light in a way that indicates their handedness, the research team built a device to shine light on plant leaves and bacteria, and then detect the polarized reflections from the organisms' chlorophyll from a short distance away. The device detected chirality from both sources, said a NIST release.

Mosquito survives in outer space

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:24:27 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Moscow, Feb 22 - A Russian scientist has said that a mosquito had managed to survive in the outer space for 18 months.

Anatoly Grigoryev, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: 'We brought him - back to Earth. He is alive, and his feet are moving.'

The mosquito did not get any food and was subjected to extreme temperatures ranging from minus 150 degrees Celsius in the shade to plus 60 degrees in the sunlight.

Grigoryev said the insect had been taken outside the International Space Station - on orders from the Institute's scientists working on the Biorisk experiment. 'First, they studied bacteria and fungi till a Japanese scientist suggested studying mosquitoes,' Grigoryev said.

Scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medical and Biological Problems are assessing the impact of cosmic radiation on living organisms, one of which even managed to survive in outer space.

Since 2005, the Institute has been cooperating with two Japanese institutes under a grant and has been studying biological objects with preset properties, including barley and peas with high genetic resistance.

'Professor Takashi Okuda from the National Institute of Agro-Biological Science drew our attention to the unique, although short-lived, African mosquito -, whose larvae develop only in a humid environment,' Grigoryev said.

Rains are rare in Africa, where puddles dry up before one's eyes. However, this mosquito is well adapted to adverse local conditions, existing in a state of suspended animation when vital bodily functions stop almost completely.

When suspended animation sets in, water molecules are replaced by tricallosa sugar, which leads to natural crystallisation. The larvae were then sprayed with acetone, boiled and cooled down to minus 210 degrees Celsius, the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Amazingly, they survived all these hardships.

The Japanese also studied bloodworm DNA and found that it could be switched on and deactivated in 30 to 40 minutes. 'This is facilitated by the crystallisation of biological matter,' Biologist Vladimir Sychev from the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems told RIA Novosti.

Sychev said scientists were interested in this mechanism, which makes it possible to assess the potential of living organisms subjected to multiple loads in outer space.

He said plant studies had made headway, but that living organisms were affected by gravitation, radiation and temperature fluctuations.

In the summer of 2007, Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov placed a gray cylinder with 24 cups containing barley seeds, bacteria, crustaceans -, bloodworm larvae and other biological objects, on the outer ISS surface.

More than a year later, cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko removed the cylinder and returned it to Earth.

The unique Biorisk experiment made it possible to study the impact of vacuum, subzero and hot temperatures and radiation on biological objects. But it is impossible to simulate these processes, Sychev stressed.

He said scientists were planning to send a number of microorganisms to Phobos, one of the Mars' moons, under the Phobos-Grunt programme, and to return them to Earth. This will make it possible to assess their survival and reversible suspended-animation mechanisms.

Sychev also discussed various findings of the Biorisk project. First, it appears that panspermia, the hypothesis that 'seeds' of life already exist all over the Universe, that life on Earth may have originated through these 'seeds', and that they may deliver or have delivered life to other habitable bodies, is quite plausible.

Second, it is becoming possible to choose various methods and options for placing biological objects in a state of suspended animation and transporting them on long-duration space missions.

An interplanetary Noah's Ark would probably contain crystallised animals and other living organisms, thereby reducing feeding costs.

Although this is still in the realm of science fiction, researchers are currently preparing to sum up Russian and Japanese findings.

Indian American Renu Khator is head of Houston varsity

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:55:16 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Nov 8 - As she formally took the helm of a major US research institution, Renu Khator, the first India-born president of the University of Houston -, has outlined a bold new vision declaring student success as its first priority.

Khator, who began her tenure in January, was formally endowed with the powers and responsibilities of the office at an inspiring investiture ceremony Friday at Cullen Performance Hall of the university in Houston, according to a university release.

The event, attended by an estimated 1,500 members of the university community and a host of international, federal, state and local dignitaries, marked her entrance onto the academic stage of national and global leadership as the UH System's eighth chancellor and UH's 13th president.

She is the university's second female president, and the third person to hold the dual title of UH System chancellor and UH president.

'I'm impressed by her intellect, contagious enthusiasm, creativity and, yes, by her dogged determination to take this university and make it a Tier-One university,' Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said.

'We pledge that, as a system of higher education, we will provide access to students from all backgrounds, living in any part of the region and the state, and having any level of educational aspirations,' Khator said.

'We pledge that their educational experience will be top-tier and their training will be globally competitive.'

Khator dedicated the investiture 'to our students and their dreams, and - pledge to raise $100 million toward the goal of student success'.

Illustrating the university's resolve on this issue, as well as the generosity of its donors, alumni and friends, Khator announced that $1 million toward this goal already has been raised through a single scholarship event - unprecedented in the history of the university.

She also announced four strategic initiatives aimed at the pursuit of excellence and the attainment of top-tier status for the university.

The UH Energy Initiative will bring together 70 of the university's top faculty from eight colleges, 14 centres and institutes, and multiple disciplines to pursue the highest and the broadest level of energy research, including fossil fuels, biofuels, wind and solar.

The UH Health Initiative will expand the university's presence and its partnerships with Texas Medical Centre institutions, filling gaps that currently exist and advancing strengths already in place.

The UH Arts Initiative will position the university as a world-class arts destination and as a national innovator in commissioning new work, employing and training thousands of artists and sponsoring world-class arts series.

The Star Initiative will complement the university's existing commitment to strengthen its centres of excellence, which Khator called 'our star programmes' - nationally ranked programmes.

'Under the fourth initiative, we plan to make our stars shine even brighter,' Kahtor said.

'How will this bold vision become a reality? It will take this entire community to build a great university.

'Your commitment and passion have the power to transform the University of Houston and make it a nationally and globally competitive university. To dream anything less is to short change our students, our region and our state,' she added.

The University of Houston, Texas' premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centres and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities.

Nanotechnology centre to come up in AMU

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:08:21 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Aligarh, Oct 9 - The Aligarh Muslim University - will set up a state-of-the-art Nanotechnology centre to facilitate advanced research and studies in material sciences, a university official said Thursday.

'For setting up the centre, the Department of Science and Technology -, governed by the Government of India has just allocated over Rs.24 million,' AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar told IANS.

'At present, there are only 20 seats in the Nanotechnology course which is being offered by AMU at the postgraduate level. With the setting up of the centre, the varsity would be able to enrol more students in the course,' Abrar added.

Nanotechnology, the science of understanding the structure and behaviour of materials at atomic or molecular level, is an emerging field across the globe, varsity officials said.

Blood and tears at Delhi hospitals after terror bombings

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 23:50:54 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 13 - Minutes after the terror bombings ripped through the national capital, dripping blood, running footsteps of doctors and loud wails engulfed several Delhi hospitals Saturday evening.

The penetrating sirens of ambulances, the cry of the innocents, the creaking sounds of the stretchers carrying the terror victims and busy doctors inside the hospitals were grim signs that another tragedy had occurred - an inhuman act of terror that resulted in a chilling sense of fear gripping the national capital.

On entering the Jassa Ram Hospital in central Delhi, the tragic scene took one back to Jaipur and Ahmedabad - cities that have witnessed similar serial bombings in the last three months.

'Take him to the operation theatre...quick,' said a young doctor at the hospital, where victims were pronounced dead and another 20 were struggling to survive.

At the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where over 50 people are nursing blast injuries, the scene was no different: a woman crying outside the main gate, a child sitting silently near a group of people, a stray dog moving through a corridor, sniffing at the blood that had dripped from a victim's body.

It was a sad reminder of how the weekend had proved fatal for many.

'We were planning to go to a movie Sunday. I don't know when he will be able to accompany me,' said Ravi, whose friend had been wheeled into the emergency ward at the hospital.

'Why make beautiful women widows and children orphans?' remarked a nurse at the hospital.

A old woman cried aloud, a young girl could not hold back her tears and a group of shell shocked men were giving sound bytes to a TV crew outside the Sir Gangaram Hospital.

'You know, journalism is painful sometimes. Neither can you hold yourself - nor can you console a bereaved family,' said TV journalist as he asked his cameraman to pan the camera towards a blood splashed body.

The pain, the tears and the busy mortuaries forced one to ponder: 'What do these heartless terrorists gain by killing innocent people?'

Five serial bombings shook the capital Saturday evening, killing at least 20 people and injuring nearly 100 others.

Top government doctor murdered in Uttar Pradesh

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:26:19 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Lucknow, Aug 9 - The chief medical officer - of Uttar Pradesh's Etawah district was murdered early Saturday morning at his official residence, a police official said.

'Prima facie, it appears that CMO Om Prakash was battered to death with a heavy object like a huge stone while he was asleep,' police officer R.K. Sharma told IANS on phone.

Although the exact cause behind the murder is yet to be ascertained, the police suspect the involvement of a sweeper in the murder.

Gopi, the sweeper, used to work at Prakash's official residence in the Civil Lines locality in Etawah, about 250 km from here. However, he had not get his salary for the past four months, the police said.

Probably in a fit of rage, Gopi, who had already threatened Prakash with dire consequences for not giving him his salary, murdered the chief medical officer, the police official theorised.

'Gopi has gone missing after the murder,' said Sharma.

The doctor used to live at his official residence along with two of his servants, who were also attacked and were being treated at a hospital, the police official said.

'The servants, who are unconscious after the attack, can provide us vital clues to solve the murder,' said Sharma.

India to join International Organisation for Migration

Thu, 01 May 2008 21:26:24 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, May 1 - The union cabinet Thursday gave permission to India to take full membership in the International Organisation for Migration.

An official communique, issued after Thursday's cabinet meeting, said India's membership in the 122-member IOM will help the country in 'improving conditions for Indian workers abroad'.

'India's membership of IOM will enable us to engage more actively with this inter-governmental organisation dealing with the issue of migration in areas of interest to us, particularly those relating to improving conditions for Indian workers abroad,' said the communique.

India has been an observer in the IOM since 1991 after the multinational organisation helped in airlifting thousands of Indian nationals from Kuwait after the Iraq invasion.

'The IOM was of much help when some 300 Indian nationals were stranded off the coast of Mauritania, and in another incident supported 59 stranded Indian migrants in Kamsar in Guinea Conakry and facilitated their safe repatriation,' the release noted.

Besides, the ministry of overseas Indian affairs is engaged with IOM in the Colombo Process on Labour Migration, a consultative mechanism for management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia.

The Geneva-based IOM was established in 1951 as the International Government Committee for European Migration. It has 122 states as members, with 92 observers.

Indian science could gain from open access push

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:17:23 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Bangalore, April 12 - Indian academic institutions are finding it 'exceedingly expensive' to have a well-stocked library of science journals. New ways to access research is needed, a prominent science journal has said.

Bangalore-published Current Science, India's prominent fortnightly journal of research, has editorially argued for 'the idea of open, institutional archives' and called for it to be 'vigorously promoted in India'.

Open access is free, immediate, permanent, full-text, online access for any user web-wide to digital scientific and scholarly material, especially research articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Explains Wikipedia, the collaboratively crafted online encyclopaedia: 'Open access means that any user, anywhere, who has access to the internet, may link, read, download, store, print-off, use, and data-mine the digital content of that article. An OA article usually has limited copyright and licensing restrictions.'

Libraries in India are facing growing costs, specially to sometimes maintain both print and on-line subscriptions and issues related to 'perpetual' electronic access to back-files.

Current Science, in the signed editorial titled 'Science Journals: Issues of Access', called the open access movement a 'new wind' blowing over the 'turbulent world of science publishing'.

Open access campaigners point out that science is most often paid for by public funds. Therefore, they say, the results of research must be freely available to anyone who wishes to read. This, argued the Current Science editorial, would 'presumably enhance the worldwide reach of science'.

Sometimes, authors even pay the publisher to get their article published with funding coming out of their research grant. This allows reading to remain free.

'With internet search engines becoming ever more powerful, with every passing day, open archives may indeed lead to greater visibility and higher citation rates for publications; an outcome that is most desirable for both individual scientists and their institutions,' the April 10, 2008, issue of the magazine said.

Editor P. Balaram noted that scientific literature was globally exploding and publishing was an increasingly profitable enterprise.

'The frenzy to judge scientific output in terms of numbers of publication is now exploited by publishers, who are rapidly expanding their stable of journals,' the editorial added.

It suggested new laws to vest copyright with institutions, when research was publicly funded.

Current Science cited pressures on libraries worldwide to 'prune their subscriptions in the face of mounting costs'.

It said Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science -, probably India's largest holding of science and engineering journals, was thinking of trimming the library's subscriptions.

Journals that the IISc faculty did not publish for a few years, which were not cited by IISc authors and also did not cite papers emerging from this Bangalore institution, were listed. This list could save Rs.10 million - by way of subscriptions.

'Surprisingly, when the list was circulated there were strong pleas for retention of journals in which no one seemed to publish and there seemed little evidence for readership,' said the editorial in the Current Science.

It hinted that the relationships between readers, writers, editors, publishers and buyers are extremely complex in the world of academia; sometimes bordering on the incestuous.

'Large publishing houses like - Elsevier Science and Springer-Verlag are beginning to monopolise the world of science journals; a situation that promotes a seller's market. Efforts to contain bloating library budgets meet with resistance at every step,' said the editorial.

Current Science, founded in 1932, is published in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences. It aims to serve as a medium for communication and discussion of important issues that concern science and scientific activity.

Moving an active gene from the interior of the nucleus can silence genes , preventing their transcription . scientists report .

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Moving an active gene from the interior of the nucleus to its periphery can inactivate that gene report scientists from the University of Chicago Medical Center .

Attachment to the inner nuclear membrane, they show, can silence genes, preventing their transcription--a novel form of gene regulation.

Several years ago, we and others described the correlation between nuclear positioning and gene activation, said study author Harinder Singh, Louis Block Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Chicago.

With that in mind, we wanted to take the next step, to design an experiment that could test causality. Could we move a gene from the center of the nucleus to the periphery, we asked, and then measure the consequences of such repositioning?

In mammalian nuclei, chromatin--a complex of DNA and associated proteins--is organized into structural domains through interactions with distinct nuclear compartments. In this study, the authors developed the molecular tools to take specific genes from these interior compartments, move them to the periphery and attach them to the nuclear membrane--which turned those genes off.

Not only were selected test genes that served as markers turned off after being attached to the inner nuclear membrane, but also nearby real genes the scientists quoted.

Existing IITs, IIMs can take thrice as many students: PM

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:31:04 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Sep 13 - The student intake in the Indian Institutes of Technology - and Indian Institutes of Management - should be increased three-fold given the vast land they occupy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Thursday.

'The Planning Commission, in consultation with the Ministry of Human Development Resources, should set up a group for the purpose,' the prime minister told a meeting on education at the Planning Commission, of which he is chairman.

'Some of the existing IITs and IIMs are well endowed with land and have the capacity to expand the size of the student population by three fold,' the prime minister said.

'The IITs and IIMs have acquired star status globally and we have ambitious plans of expanding the number of such institutions. However, there are large potential capacities within existing institutions, which can be easily captured.'

He said this proposal will also go a long way in ensuring 27 percent reservation planned for other backward castes - in higher education, without affecting the intake of regular students.

'We should set up a committee to go into the optimum capacity of the existing IITs and IIMs.'

The prime minister also reiterated his plan for eight more Indian Institutes of Technology -, seven Indian Institutes of Management - and five Indian Institutes of Science, Education and Research -.

He said the action plan for opening 6,000 schools in every village block, 30 central universities and a network of vocational training institutes across the country would be ready in two months.

Last year, the central government approved a proposal for 27 percent quota for OBC students at institutes of higher education, including the IIMs, IITs and the Indian Institute of Science - and Indian Institutes of Science, Education and Research -.

After protests from academicians, students and even industry leaders, it decided to increase student intake in all central government-funded institutes by 54 percent so that the general category students do not suffer.

But the IITs and IIMs opposed implementing this move in one go, as they said they did not have adequate infrastructure, and instead suggested a time frame of three years.

Currently, the reservation proposal is sub-judice with the Supreme Court.

Bias in research on health benefits of non-alcoholic drinks

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:01:50 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers from the Childrens Hospital, Boston, USA and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, D. C., USA, have found that there is a high potential for research findings into non-alcoholic drinks to be affected by bias from companies providing funding.

Previous studies on the relationship between funding source of
pharmaceutical trials have shown that the outcome of published research often favors the funding organizations. However, it has not previously been clear how much this bias extends beyond drug research.

The researchers, led by David S. Ludwig, examined 206 review and research articles, published between January 1999 and December 2003, which discussed soft drinks, fruit juices, and milk, and categorized them in relation to their health outcomes, as well as by who funded the study. The relation between the funding and the outcomes was then examined.

There was a strong association between the source of the funding for these studies and the conclusions that were drawn. Research funded completely by food and drink companies was approximately four to eight times more likely to produce results which were favorable to these companies, compared with studies with no industry funding.

This research was confined to just soft drinks, juice, and milk, and hence without further studies it is important not to extrapolate the results to other types of food. However, the authors conclude that Industry funding of nutrition-related scientific articles may bias conclusions in favor of
sponsors products, with potentially significant implications for public health.

Nizam's jewelled shoes stolen in Canada

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 16:25:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Toronto, Jan 24 (IANS) A rare pair of shoes worn by an 18th century Indian prince were stolen from the Bata Shoe Museum located in this Canadian city.

Fully embroidered with gold thread and the instep ornament embellished with rubies, diamonds and emeralds set in gold, the shoes were worn by Albar Ali Khan Sikander Jah (1768 -1829) from the princely state of Hyderabad.

Investigators working on the case are seeking the public's assistance in the theft.

The shoes were displayed as part of the newly renovated "All About Shoes" section, museum curator Elizabeth Semmelhack told IANS. The shoes were stolen between noon and 5:00 p.m. on Jan 22, she said.

In addition to the stolen shoes, staff discovered later that two other items also dating back to the 18th century were missing, according to Toronto police.

A gold toe ring, set with diamonds and rubies and valued at $11,000, and a gold anklet, set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds and valued at $45,000, were also reported missing by the museum authorities.

The museum's collection includes 12,000 artefacts from earlier civilisations, some dating back 4,500 years, to the catwalks of today's leading designers, the museum's website boasts. It also claims to be the world's largest collection of shoes and footwear-related objects.

The privately funded collection includes French chestnut crushing boots, Chinese silk shoes for binding women's feet, pre-Columbian sacrificial boots, bear fur shoes used by Japanese samurai and human hair slippers used by Australian Aboriginal executioners.

The Bata Museum includes an archaeological collection, which exhibits ancient Egyptian sarcophagi with painted sandal designs, leg-shaped perfume vials made by an ancient Greek potter and Roman bronze lamps representing sandal-clad feet.

It also includes a celebrity collection that displays Queen Victoria's ballroom slippers, Robert Redford's cowboy boots, Elton John's monogrammed silver platform boots, Terry Fox's running shoe, Elvis Presley's blue patent loafers, Karen Kain's ballet pointes and John Lennon's Beatle boot.

Indo-Asian News Service

Jharkhand to open mental hospitals

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:12:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Ranchi, Jan 25 (IANS) Jharkhand plans to open five mental hospitals with 10 beds each.

The hospitals will be set up at Dumka, Hazaribagh, Daltanganj, Chaibasa and Koderma, officials said.

"The hospitals will both outpatient departments and residential facilities," an official said.

Indo-Asian News Service

Colorectal training for Asian surgeons at Singapore

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:10:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Singapore, Jan 25 (DPA) General surgeons across Asia will have the opportunity for training in colorectal operations at the Singapore General Hospital under a new agreement.

Eighteen surgeons from the region will come to the city-state for training during the next three years, under the programme set up by the hospital and Tyco Healthcare, a US-based manufacturer of medical devices.

Associate Professor Eu Kong Weng, head of colorectal surgery at the hospital told The Straits Times that he is regularly invited to India, Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere to train or lecture on the latest techniques.

This is an effort to train Asian colleagues at the hospital, he said.

The first group of surgeons is likely to begin the three-months training in April.

Indo-Asian News Service

Gujarat allows private practice by government doctors

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:17:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Gandhinagar, Jan 24 (IANS) Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi announced Tuesday that doctors employed in government-run health centres would be allowed to practice privately.

Modi said here that doctors affiliated with primary health centres and community health centres could now attend to patients on a private basis too, said an official statement.

He was hopeful of the healthcare structure becoming efficient in remote regions of Gujarat following the freedom awarded to the doctors serving in government-run facilities.

The move will encourage more professionals in healthcare to serve rural areas and this would further help the government in filling vacant positions in the health centres, the statement said.

Indo-Asian News Service

'Munna Bhai' racket uncovered in Lucknow

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 18:21:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Lucknow, Jan 24 (IANS) The arrest of two doctors apparently with a controversial background here has laid bare a racket that is being compared with the Hindi movie "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S."

The head of King George's Medical University (KGMU) admits that the two, assistant professor K.K. Singh and junior resident Raj Kumar Gupta, got into the century-old institution without passing the medical entrance examination.

KGMU vice chancellor Mahendra Bhandari told IANS: "We have reason to believe that both managed to gain entry into the MBBS course the 'Munna Bhai' way."

The box office hit is about a mischief-maker played by Sanjay Dutt who enters a medical college after arm-twisting the teachers and college staff.

Singh and Gupta have been arrested but for other reasons - this month's violence and arson at the campus.

Ashutosh Pandey, the senior superintendent of police here, told IANS: "During investigations we discovered that these doctors got imposters to appear for them in examinations.

"They allegedly intimidated their teachers into getting clearance for this."

University records, officials say, show that K.K. Singh's appointment violated all rules of the university, allegedly aided by his father K.M. Singh, who then headed KGMU.

"K.K. Singh was initially appointed a casualty medical officer and was subsequently named an assistant professor in the surgical department," said one senior faculty member.

Vice chancellor Bhandari added: "Records show that he has rarely taught students and hardly entered the operation theatre."

Pandey claims to have gathered sufficient evidence to establish the involvement of Singh and Gupta in the arson that caused the death of a medical student during KGMU's centenary celebrations.

Gupta, who reportedly belonged to a humble rural family, made it to the MBBS course in 1992, allegedly with a fake certificate that showed him as a Dalit or Scheduled Caste.

"He dropped his surname - Gupta - to project himself as a Scheduled Caste. But he reverted to Gupta after clearing the undergraduate course," Bhandari said.

Indo-Asian News Service

IIM-B set to log into Singapore

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:16:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, 20 (IANS) The Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) has initiated steps to pave the way for setting up campuses abroad ahead of a meeting of IIM directors convened Feb 1 by Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh.

The IIM-B board Friday approved a plan to effect changes and amendments in its memorandum of association to remove impediments to starting a campus in Singapore.

The board is expected to present the amended memorandum at the meeting.

IIM-B director Prakash. G. Apte Friday said the board had approved changes in the memorandum of association to start the Singapore campus.

He also announced that student intake would be increased to 270 in the forthcoming academic session and perhaps to 300 in 2007.

The memorandum of association, which was signed by IIM and the central government, limits the institution to set up campuses only within India.

The move to amend it came after Arjun Singh said the government was not opposed to IIMs setting up campuses, but that they should stick to legalities laid down under the agreement.

This was seen as a softening of stance by the government, which had earlier turned down the IIM-B plan to set up a campus in Singapore.

The institute has also complied with Singh's directive by announcing an increase in student intake. Singh had declared the IIMs must meet the increasing demand for management education within the country by taking in more students before venturing to foreign shores.

India Inc has hailed IIM-B's expansion plan since industry has been keen that the government reconsider its decision not to allow premier engineering and management institutes to expand overseas.

According to an Assocham survey, over 85 percent of 150 CEOs and managing directors surveyed said the apprehension that the overseas expansion plans of IIM-B would be at the cost of domestic expansion was misplaced.

More than 90 percent said Indian business schools like the IIMs have already established their reputation among the world's best employers, but considerable ground needs to be covered to join the league of best institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Assocham said.

IIM-B has been recognised as one of the best international business schools since its inclusion in the Wall Street Journal's list of top 100 business schools worldwide. It was the only Indian facility on the list.

Indo-Asian News Service

Court stays CBSE order on fee waiver for girls

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:13:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Jan 20 (IANS) Delhi High Court Friday stopped a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) circular directing all schools under it to waive the fees of girls who were the only child of their parents.

The move came on a petition filed by the minority institution Mount Carmel School here, which said the October 2005 circular - applicable to girls from Class 6 onwards - violated Article 30 of the constitution.

Staying the circular's implementation, judge Vikramjit Sen sought responses from the CBSE, the central government and the director of education of the Delhi government. It asked them to file their replies within four weeks and posted the matter for hearing March 27.

Mount Carmel, through its lawyers Romy Chacko and A.K. Jha, asked that the circular be quashed as, among other things, it violated the constitutional article guaranteeing the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.

It said it was a minority educational institution entitled to constitutional protection and argued that the restrictions imposed by the CBSE could not apply to a minority educational institution due to the constitutional protection given to them to fix fees.

The petitioner said the CBSE failed to note the distinction between the right conferred on aided and unaided educational institutions as laid down by the Supreme Court, which had held: "In the case of private unaided institutions, maximum autonomy in the day-to-day administration has to be with the private unaided institutions.

"Bureaucratic or governmental interference in the administration of such an institution will undermine its independence."

Indo-Asian News Service

Private sector can do more for education: Makinson

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:12:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Chennai, Jan 20 (IANS) John Makinson, chairman of the Penguin Group and a member of the board of Pearson Education, Friday said India's private sector should play a greater role in primary and middle education.

Speaking at an event to mark the first year of Pearson Education's content development centre here, Makinson said few areas had received "such sustained focus from successive governments" as education.

This had led to a knowledge explosion and the growth in higher education had scaled up dramatically, he noted.

Pearson Education is the one of the world's largest education content providers in English. Officials said it would focus on more local education material and had ventured into higher education material.

The content development centre here was set up in December 2005 and taps some 150 academics from the region to provide content to its educational material.

Indo-Asian News Service

Striking Uttar Pradesh junior doctors call off strike

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:58:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Lucknow, Jan 20 (IANS) Striking junior doctors resumed work in seven medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh Friday morning after four days following the state government declaring their strike as "illegal".

The doctors went on strike Monday following a clash between a group of junior doctors from King George's Medical University (KGMU) and police recruits on a train. The strike paralysed work in medical colleges at Lucknow, Agra, Allahabad, Kanpur, Meerut, Jhansi and Gorakhpur.

This was the second round of violence on the KGMU campus in a fortnight. Last week, the death of student in a mishap sparked large-scale violence and arson on Lucknow's 100-year-old KGMU campus.

The government had Thursday said that the striking doctors would be liable to face action under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) if they failed to resume duty with immediate effect.

Meanwhile, K.K. Singh, an assistant professor in KGMU, believed to be the mastermind of last week's violence and arson, was arrested bringing a sobering effect on the agitating junior doctors.

At least 10 unattended patients were reported to have died during the course of the present agitation. Many other patients had to be shifted to other hospitals as senior faculty members were unable to run the wards in the absence of junior doctors.

According to police, Singh was formally arrested Thursday midnight in connection with the first round of violence. Singh, who is with the surgery department, has a "shady" track record, police said.

"Singh was suspected to have prompted some students and junior doctors to burn down the office of the deputy registrar, where a lot of evidence about his alleged misdeeds were stated to be stored," Lucknow Senior Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Pandey told IANS.

Singh was last year jailed for his alleged involvement in a medical examination paper leak scam, which was busted by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Reports reaching here from Agra, Allahabad, Meerut, Jhansi, Gorakhpur and Kanpur medical colleges said that most of the junior doctors had resumed work.

The UP Junior Doctors Association president Debashish Shukla formally called off the strike Friday and also dissolved the association.

With a view to ridding the campus of "undesirable elements", the KGMU administration has suspended teaching and ordered students to vacate their hostels by Friday evening.

"We have to identify the black sheep and clean up hostels where some undesirable element are suspected to have crept in," KGMU Vice Chancellor Mahendra Bhandari said.

"The hostel allotments will be made afresh and punitive action taken against mischief mongers who are spoiling the academic environment in this prestigious institution," Bhandari said.

He stated that the "hospital services stood fully restored from this morning".

Indo-Asian News Service

Ramadoss for strict enforcement of on-screen smoking ban

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:35:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) Upset over the leniency in implementing the ban on the depiction of smoking in movies and television shows, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has decided to pursue the matter with the information and broadcasting ministry.

"I don't know what their problem is. I am definitely taking up the matter considering that a lot of children are getting affected and dying due to the impact of tobacco consumption," Ramadoss told the media during the annual Editors' Conference on Social Sectors Issues here Thursday.

The comment came a day after Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi had said that some characters needed to be shown smoking or drinking for a proper portrayal, and as such ensuring the imposition of the ban on smoking on-screen could be difficult.

Ramadoss said: "The health ministry is going ahead with the imposition of the ban (in accordance with the Anti-Tobacco Act). However the issue is currently in the Supreme Court."

He regretted that the health ministry lacked the powers to ensure a total ban on consumption of tobacco products, which are known to impact not only the health of millions but also result in several thousand deaths every year.

Ramadoss said while a total ban on tobacco products was not possible, the government had issued a draft notification to ban the use of tobacco and alcohol in food items.

Once the legislation came into force, the government would be in a position to ban the use and sale of products like tobacco-flavoured edible products.

Indo-Asian News Service

National Drug Authority envisaged by mid-2007

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:16:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) A central drug legislation is likely to be in place by next year, paving the way for creating a National Drug Authority to check the manufacture and trade of spurious medicines, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said Thursday.

"So far we have only taken up the issue of legal and penal punishment recommended by the Mashelkar Committee on spurious drugs. The draft recommendations are with the standing committee," Ramadoss told an Editors' Conference on Social Sector Issues.

"The remaining part of the report on regulation of drug industry is being studied now. Once the National Drugs Authority, for which the building is ready in the capital, is constituted, all licenses for new drug molecules would be centralised."

Currently, if a manufacturer is denied permission or forced to close operations, he is able to get a licence in another state due to the lack of a central law.

"By the winter session (of parliament in 2006), we hope to get cabinet clearance for the centralised drug legislation and within a year and a half, to get the National Drugs Authority established," he said.

Ramadoss hoped that the proposed National Drugs Authority, which is expected to be an autonomous body, would oversee the quality of both drugs and food products.

Though the food processing ministry has drafted an integrated food law, the prime minister is expected to take a decision on an expert committee's recommendation on the implementing agency for this proposed law.

"If the food law is brought under the health ministry, than we will be looking after it. Our proposal is to have 10 divisions in the National Drugs Authority to look after various issues like safety, licensing, industrial systems, and medical devices among others," Ramadoss said.

To be manned by about 150 professional experts, the authority is expected to have wide representation from stakeholders like consumers, professors, civic society and other professional links.

"It is envisaged that within the next five years all licensing of drugs and drug manufacturers will be done by the National Drugs Authority as per the Mashelkar Committee report," he said.

Ramadoss said his ministry has allocated Rs.3.7 billion for upgrading the food and drug testing laboratories in India as part of steps suggested by R.A. Mashelkar, a senior scientist and director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), for better monitoring of medicine quality.

Indo-Asian News Service

Emirates Airlines to link Kolkata and Dubai

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:25:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com )

World's first Text Mining service to benefit British academics

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 21:18:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new £1 million initiative to help academics with their struggle against data deluge was launched on 21 March at Manchester Town Hall.

Search engines return thousands of documents, but the difficulty for the user is to find those which are most personally relevant. Most of these searches have little concept of the meaning of words that is gained from the context of a sentence. By using natural language processing, text mining can discover this meaning and focus on specific needs of the user.

Detailed abstracts can then be compared and contrasted using data mining to discover patterns and associations that the human eye is more likely to miss. This has proved to be particularly useful in the fields of drug discovery and predictive toxicology.

Initially focusing on providing a service for the fields of biological and biomedical science, the Centre will also serve the broader needs of the academic community through the provision of text mining tools, advice and ongoing research.

Strong contacts will be forged by the Centre with business and government sectors to achieve long term sustainability for the service.

Presenters at the launch will include Dr Anne Trefethen (Deputy Director, e-Science Core Programme) and Professor Margaret King (University of Geneva), Professor Ray Larson (University of California, Berkeley), Professor Regan Moore (San Diego Supercomputer Center) and Professor Junichi Tsujii (University of Tokyo). All are leaders in the field of informatics and computing.

Professor John Keane from the Universitys School of Informatics, and Co-Director of the National Centre for Text Mining commented: The potential of text mining is virtually endless. In the future, databases could be populated with accurate, valid, exhaustive, rapidly updated data where users find what they want all the time; where drug discovery costs and development time are slashed and animal experimentation is reduced through early identification of unpromising paths.

Curriculum Committee to Revise the Medical Curriculum in India

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:31:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Central Government in India is to set up a Curriculum Committee to revise the medical curriculum in the next one or two years.

This was stated by the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss in response to certain suggestions by private and Government medical and dental college representatives in a meeting here today. He pointed out that there was a need to revise the curriculum not only to include newer courses and more practical oriented education but also to make it socially oriented and rural oriented.

In the first meeting of its kind, the Health and Family Welfare Ministry today invited more than 200 representatives of medical and dental college management to discuss issues relating to medical education.

Reacting to a suggestion that the retirement age of teachers in medical colleges should be raised from 65 to 70, he said the matter will be looked into. In order to boost medical healthcare on availability in rural areas, the Minister said that they are deliberating a proposal to make a rural stint necessary before either getting a Graduation Certificate or before applying for a Post-Graduate course.

The Health Minister exhorted the participants to increase medical colleges in backward areas. He said, of the 229 medical colleges in the country, 143 were in the four southern states and Maharashtra and Gujarat. Of the 229 medical colleges, 104 were in the private sector.

Reacting to a suggestion for regulating pay structures of doctors, the Minister said that the Government was planning to set up a Medical Grants Commission on the lines of the University Grants Commission. He said, there was a need to start courses on family medicines and public health and in order to maximize the technical experience, there was a need to network. He said, the Pharmaco Vigilance Committee which was set up recently was a network of 229 pharma departments across the country and was done with the aim to maximize the available resources and even explore possibilities of funding research. The Minister said that a stringent view will be taken of excess admission in the colleges as well as proxy teachers.

The Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Smt. Panabaka Lakshmi said that the aim of the meeting was to bring quality education into the medical arena. She said that the Government was committed to transparency and any participant was welcome to come to the Ministry to discuss any grievance.

Indian State Governments Authorised to Authenticate Educational Certificates

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 23:06:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) People going abroad for jobs or for higher studies can now get their educational certificates authenticated within their State itself by the authorized officials of the State Government and need not travel to Delhi for the same.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development in consultation with Ministry of External Affairs has already delegated the power to authenticate educational certificates to the State Governments. The State Governments are required to authorize nominated officials to authenticate educational certificates. Although not all foreign governments insist on for authentication, this is required by a few West Asian countries.

Databasing the Brain

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:02:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Understanding the structure, function, and development of the brain in health and disease represents one of the great scientific challenges of our time. The emerging field of neuroinformatics integrates neuroscience with informatics to create unique databases and analytical tools for the large variety of neuroscience data types, applying them to brain research and linking them with databases within neuroscience and other fields such as genomics and proteomics. "Databasing the Brain: From Data to Knowledge (Neuroinformatics)" (Wiley; February 2005; $135.00; Paper; 0-471-30921-4) is the first book to comprehensively cover neuroinformatics, from relevant computational science and modeling issues to its diverse applications.

Expertly edited by two pioneers in this growing discipline, the text covers the basic principles and specific applications across a range of problems in brain research. Extensively illustrated throughout, this book discusses the state-of-the-art informatic tools and models and how they are being applied to clinical and basic research. In addition to presenting new ways to acquire, store, visualize, analyze, integrate, synthesize, and share data, this comprehensive overview demonstrates how data obtained using different species, levels of biological organization, and methods can be integrated.

"Databasing the Brain" Offers:

* A solid foundation for the application of computer science in order to build databases, tools, and workflow environments in neuroscience
* An analysis of neuronal systems in a quantitative context
* Specific applications in neuroscience that reflect present and future information infrastructures

"Databasing the Brain" is an invaluable resource for students entering this interdisciplinary area, as well as for researchers wanting to cross-train between neuroscience and informatics.

CBI FILES CHARGESHEETS FOR IMPERSONATION IN AIIMS PARAMEDICAL COURSE EXAMINATION

Fri, 26 Mar 2004 22:34:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Central Bureau of Investigation has filed two chargesheets in two separate cases against S/Sh. Jalaj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar both residents of Bihar in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate, Karkardooma, Delhi for adopting unscrupulous means to obtain admission in the B.Sc (Hons.) Paramedical Course conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences on 27-6-2001. In similar five other cases CBI had already filed chargesheets.

The then Director of AIIMS in his letter dated 14-8-2001 addressed to the Director, CBI had intimated about eight instances of impersonation from among the 410 candidates who appeared in the tests. The impersonations were detected by the counseling committee of AIIMS. AIIMS had requested CBI to investigate into the case of impersonation. Following this, CBI had registered eight different cases with its Special Crime Branch on 27-8-2001. So far, chargsheets have been filed in seven cases out of the eight. In connection with these eight cases CBI has so far arrested 16 people.

CBI ARRESTS A MEDICAL STUDENT FOR IMPERSONATION IN PARAMEDICAL ENTRANCE EXAMINATION OF AIIMS

Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:31:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested Shri Abhishek Kumar Aman, then an MBBS student at Medical College, Calcutta, who had impersonated as a candidate in the B.Sc.(Hons) Paramedical Entrance Examination,2001 conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The accused appeared in the said examination on behalf of another candidate, Shri Shabda Kumar and stood first in the merit list. The examination was conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences on 27.06.2001 and a total number of 480 candidates had appeared. CBI registered the case on the complaint of then Director, AIIMS, New Delhi on 27.8.2001. Candidate Shabda Kumar and the middleman Jitendra Kumar @ Bhola were earlier arrested during March, 2002 and October, 2002 respectively. Accused Abhishek Kumar Aman was absconding since registration of the case. The arrested accused is being produced in the court of the Metropolitan Magistrate, Karkardooma Courts, Shahadra, Delhi.