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New
cases of swine flu in Gujarat, Karnataka
Ahmedabad:
Concerned over the consistent rise in swine flu cases in
different parts of the State, the Gujarat government on
Wednesday opted to invoke the Epidemic Act. Gujarat recorded
nine fresh H1N1 infections on Wednesday. State's Principal
Secretary for Health, Ravi Saxena said: "We have invoked
the Act and now can quarantine any person, use any building
or hospital and ask for compulsory cleanliness in any part
of the state." With Wednesday's invocation of the Epidemic
Act, Gujarat joined Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi who have
already invoked the Act. Once the Act is invoked, the state
health authorities get powers to deal with the pandemic,
Saxena said. In last two days, 22 positive cases of the
swine flu have been reported from various districts like
Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Valsad and Gandhinagar besides
Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. Meanwhile, with the fresh
cases, the total number of H1N1 infections has risen to
67 in the Gujarat state where three persons, including an
NRI, have succumbed to the viral disease.
Bangalore: The total number of the
confirmed swine flu affected cases risen to 211 in Karnataka
on Wednesday with 17 individuals testing positive for H1NI
virus. According to sources in the health department, out
of the 17 positive cases, 12 were reported in Bangalore
while two each were reported in Davangere and Belgaum and
one in Gadag. 118 cases are under treatment in various hospitals
in the state, with Bangalore seeing most cases (106) and
other districts (12) while remaining 93 patients have been
discharged.
Jaswant
Singh expelled from BJP Top
Shimla:
Taking stern action against former External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday
expelled him form the party's primary membership. Party
president Rajnath Singh said: " Jaswant Singh is expelled
from the BJP." Singh, who arrived here last evening for
the Chintan Baithak of the party, kept away from the meeting
by changing his hotel. According to sources Singh kept away
citing bad health. He also skipped a dinner hosted by Leader
of Opposition L. K Advani. Singh is in the limelight over
his newly released book on Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali
Jinnah, "Jinnah, India - Partition, Independence." The BJP
has distanced itself from the book and Singh's views on
Jinnah. BJP is meeting here to discuss the causes for the
party's defeat in 2009 general elections and its strategy
for the future. The meeting is also likely to take up the
issue of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje,
who has refused to quit as Leader of Opposition in the State
Assembly. Over 25 senior party leaders, including members
of the party's parliamentary board and chief ministers Narendra
Modi of Gujarat, Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, Ramesh Pokhriyal
of Uttarakhand and B.S. Yeddyurappa of Karnataka, will participate
in the three-day meeting.
International
Medical Center to be developed at IIT Kharagpur Top
Washington:
Officials of the University of California , San Diego Health
Sciences and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur
have signed a historic preliminary agreement to collaborate
in the development of an International Medical Center (IMC)
at IIT Kharagpur. This agreement - marked by a signing ceremony
in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India - is the beginning of a
strong educational, research and clinical partnership between
UC San Diego Health Sciences and IIT, Kharagpur. IIT, Kharagpur
is the first and largest of the IIT chain of higher education
institutes in India that focuses on engineering and technology.
The goal is to jointly establish a state-of-the-art medical
center at IIT Kharagpur, which will be the first of its
kind between a US University and an Indian Institution.
"This exciting partnership is an extension of UC San Diego
Health Sciences' traditional core mission - to provide excellent
and compassionate patient care, advance medical discoveries
and educate future health care providers," said Mounir Soliman,
MD, MBA, executive director of UC San Diego Health Sciences
International. "The establishment of an academic medical
center to include the best in clinical care, as well as
undergraduate and post-graduate programs in medical education,
will be a perfect partnership - bringing together the strengths
of both institutions," he added. According to Professor
Damodar Acharya, director of IIT, Kharagpur, "In addition
to IIT's strong education and research focus in engineering
and the sciences, we also are keenly interested in medical
science and technology, including biotechnology, imaging,
drug development and other important areas of medical research."
"The collaboration is believed to be among the first between
an IIT and a public US university in the field of medical
education and research," he said. "The aim is to initiate
technology leveraged medical education and research to provide
holistic health care for the entire life cycle at affordable
cost to underprivileged, poor and tribal population of the
region," he added. The agreement describes the two institution's
collaborative plan to build a 300-bed, state-of-the-art
hospital on land provided by IIT, Kharagpur.
BSNL
employees strike affects telecommunication services
Top
New Delhi/Kolkata:
The strike call given by employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam
Limited (BSNL) affected telecommunication services across
the country on Wednesday. While the United Forum of BSNL
Unions has called a 48-hour strike on August 19-20, the
AIGETOA with over 10,000 engineers as its members, has called
for an indefinite strike. The All India Graduate Telecom
Officers Association (AIGETOA), a forum of BNL engineers
gave a call for a strike on Tuesday over the demand that
officers on deputation for the last four years must be absorbed
into the company so that they become more accountable alongside
inculcating work culture in the organisation with an effective
corporate objective. The agitating engineers in the capital
said that the company was incurring losses and demanded
absorption of officers who had been deputed from Department
of Telecommunications (DoT). "We are on strike to save the
BSNL. In the last four years, the profit of BSNL has gone
down from rupees 8000 crore to rupees 104 crore. We have
been in the company for the last four to five years but
our future is not secured. We are worried that if the company
keeps on running in losses like this, we will be the worst
sufferers. We have to serve the company for the next 30
more years and if it runs on losses like today, we have
nowhere to go as we have become attached to the company,"
said R P Singh, General Secretary, AIGETOA, New Delhi. He
also said that they would go on hunger strike if their demands
were not met. Meanwhile, United Forum of seven BSNL Unions
of over 100,000 non-executive employees also stopped work
in support of the engineers. The agitating workers, who
were demanding a wage revision, staged a sit-in demonstration
in front of the BSNL office in Kolkata on Wednesday. "It
is most unfortunate the big officers in the industry they
have got ...or the revised wages right from the Jan.1, 2007,
but for the non-executives, they are making a derailed tactics.
They want to ignore our legitimate demands," said Animesh
Mitra, Secretary, Coordination Committee, BSNL Employees'
Unions, Kolkata.
Nepal
will give due priority to Indian investment, says its PM
Top
New Delhi:
Visitng Nepal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on Wednesday
invited Indian industry to invest in his country, saying
his government would give due priority to such moves. Interacting
with captains of Indian industry here this afternoon, Nepal
assured them of providing a conducive atmosphere for industrial
growth. Candidly admitting to the state of political flux
in his country earlier this year, Nepal said he would make
sure that the investment from India is given due priority.
He identified hydropower, roads, bridges, and infrastructure,
construction, and tourism, agro-processing and financial
services as potential areas for investment. Earlier in the
day, Nepal called on President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil.
He apprised her on current developments in Nepal. Both leaders
discussed ways to strengthen bilateral relations between
the two countries. Nepal also met External Affairs Minister
S.M. Krishna and discussed with him issues of mutual concern.
He also laid a wreath at Raj Ghat, the memorial of Mahatma
Gandhi on Wednesday morning. He is scheduled to meet Vice
President Hamid Ansari and UPA Chairperson Mrs. Sonia Gandhi
before meeting the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh later
on Wednesday evening for delegation level talks. A number
of bilateral agreements are likely to be signed after the
talks. Nepal arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday at the head
of a 64-member delegation, including the Finance, Tourism,
Commerce, Industry and Energy ministers. The two countries
are expected to discuss ways to expedite preparation of
the Pancheshwor hydropower project and feasibility study
report of the 240 Megawatt Naumure hydropower project gifted
by India.
India
rules out talks with Pak until Mumbai attackers brought
to justice Top
New Delhi:
External Affairs Minister has said that no meaningful talks
could take place with Pakistan until it brought perpetrators
of Mumbai terror attacks to justice. Talking to reporters
on the sidelines of a book release function here on Tuesday,
Krishna said, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has made
India's position very clear that unless there are visible
action that is taken to bring to justice the perpetrators
of Mumbai attack, it would be extremely difficult for any
meaningful talks with Pakistan. And we standby that statement
of Dr. Singh and we are looking forward to Pakistan moving
further in that direction of bringing to justice those perpetrators
of that crime." Dr. Singh on Monday said that there was
"credible information" that Pakistan-based militant groups
were planning fresh attacks on India. Singh's statement
was the latest attempt by India to pile more pressure on
Pakistan to act against anti-Indian terrorists that New
Delhi blames for last year's Mumbai attacks. Meanwhile in
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
has said that it would be very difficult for Pakistan to
resort to incursions as it did in 1999, leading to a limited
war. "I have a feeling that important lessons have been
learned from the Kargil war. And I think it would be very
difficult for Pakistan to recreate those circumstances.
I don't think you should confuse infiltration with what
happened in 1999. 1999 was downright invasion, infiltration
have carried on since 1989-1990."
Lung
damage from inhaling nanoparticles sparks off health fears
Top
London: A
new study, which analyzed seven Chinese factory workers
developing severe lung damage from inhaling nanoparticles,
has triggered off debate over the environmental-health effects
of nanotechnology. According to a report in Nature News,
the study claims to be the first to document cases of ill
health caused by nanoparticles in humans. "The study raises
the bar for doing appropriate research as fast as possible
to find out where the dangers might lie when working with
nanomaterials," said Andrew Maynard, a nanotechnology expert
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
in Washington DC . The study described seven women, aged
18-47 years, who worked in an unidentified printing factory
in China . Two of them later died. They all had pleural
granulomas - ball-like collections of immune cells in the
lining of the lung that form when the immune system is unable
to remove a foreign body. They also had excessive, discoloured
fluid in the lung lining. Particles around 30 nanometres
in diameter were found in lung fluid and tissue. According
to the study, the symptoms were caused by inhaling fumes
produced when the workers heated polystyrene boards to 75-100
degrees Celsius. The boards had previously been sprayed
with a 'paste material' made from a plastic identified as
a polyacrylate ester. The workroom, of around 70 square
metres, had one door and no windows. The ventilation unit
had broken down five months before symptoms started to manifest,
and the door had been kept closed to keep the room warm.
The workers wore cotton gauze masks only on an "occasional
basis". Electron microscopy found nanoparticles around 30
nanometres in diameter in the paste and in dust particles
that had collected at the inlet of the broken ventilation
unit. "It is obvious the disease is not due to microparticles
or vapours, because the pulmonary epithelial cells are full
of nanoparticles," said lead author Yuguo Song, a clinical
toxicologist at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital . Maynard said
that the symptoms seen in the patients are "similar" to
those seen in animals exposed to nanoparticles. He added
that damage to the areas surrounding the lungs suggests
that larger particles are not to blame, as these tend to
be constrained within the lungs.
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