• Indian drugs help Africa battle AIDS
• Cities best to live in
• Over 300 TV channels now available in India
• Girl Born With 4 Arms, 4 Legs Has Successful Surgery
• Obesity 'fuels cancer in women'
• Diversifying into herbs

• 100,000 devotees can dine daily at Shirdi 'prasadalaya'
• Rs 40 lakh saree seeks entry into Guiness Book
• Debate: India docs better than western counterparts?
• Body Mass Index
• Many-limbed India girl in surgery

A joint venture between India's Cipla and a local pharma company that has just opened in Uganda is all set to provide relief to millions in Africa suffering from HIV infection and AIDS. In October, a month before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it to Kampala to attend the Commonwealth meeting, a 15-acre potato garden made way for a high-tech pharmaceutical factory. The factory is a joint venture between Quality Chemical Industries (QCI) of Uganda and Cipla of India. It will manufacture Triomune, the full triple therapy combination of anti-retroviral (ARV) necessary to treat HIV and AIDS. Once the trial runs end, the authorities say the unit will be able to start producing two million pills every day, rising to 1.8 billion a year. The surplus will be exported to neighbouring countries. So important is the project that Uganda President Yoweri Musseveni is personally supervising the progress. Uganda is one of the worst AIDS-hit countries in Africa, says the health ministry. AIDS has led to the largest number of orphans, shorter life expectancy and rising poverty caused mainly by treatment. And although Uganda has achieved considerable success in battling AIDS, it has always relied on cheaper and effective Indian drugs, whose exports are now barred by New Delhi's accession to TRIPS (trade related intellectual property rights) pact of the World Trade Organisation.

Even now, Indian drugs are hugely popular in Uganda.
"Earlier, the reach of the Western medicines was very limited because of its cost," explained Yasin Masani, director of the Kampala-based Astra Pharma, which imports pharmaceuticals and surgical products. "Once Indian drugs started to come to Africa, around 1988-89, there was a near revolution," Masani, who is from Gujarat and lives here, told IANS. "Prices of AIDS drugs immediately dropped. Drugs costing $3,500 fell to $350-400." Agreed A. Shah, a doctor who studied in India, lives in Kenya and practises here: "Thanks to affordable Indian medicines, life in Kenya has become very easy. I believe it is the same story everywhere in Africa. "Even local doctors recommend the Indian medicines. It is really helping to take on AIDS," Shah said in a telephonic interview. At a drug store in the heart of Kampala, an IANS correspondent witnessed a steady stream of African women - and a few men - wanting to buy Indian medicines whose quality is overseen by Ugandan authorities. India has been the world's leading producer of generic anti-retroviral(ARV) drugs because it was one of the few drug-producing countries that did not obey regulations on patenting. Once New Delhi agreed to consider changes in its patent law, under which its companies could face legal action by WTO if they kept producing and selling such generic drugs, Africa was in ferment. There was a demonstration outside the Indian high commission here. Activists petitioned Indian leaders, including Manmohan Singh, not to jeopardise the lives of Africans hit by AIDS. ARVs, while not being a cure, can help AIDS patients return to a completely normal life as long as they have adequate nutrition and clean drinking water. It has made AIDS a manageable affair. To beat WTO rules, Indian manufacturers decided to set up factories in African nations, rather than just exporting the drugs. These factories mean that African countries are no longer dependent on others' skills - while Indian businessmen can continue to make money. This is where the Uganda factory comes in. It will produce Triomune, a combination containing lamivudine, stavudine and nevirapine. It will also make the anti-malarial combination Lumartem. Said Emmanuel Katongole, managing director of Uganda's QCI, which has teamed up with Cipla for the factor: "Our first client is going to be the government, which is committed to providing free ARVs for all those who need them. "For us TRIPS is a window of opportunity," Katongole added. "India has ratified the TRIPS agreement, so it ceases to be a source of generic drugs for Africa." Africa has 22.5 million HIV/AIDS patients - making up 68 percent of the global total, according to UNAIDS. India itself has around 2.5 million cases.

Courtesy: www.jansamachar.net, November 29, 2007

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The Saibaba temple trust here has built what is billed to be Asia's biggest 'prasadalaya', a dining hall with a seating capacity of 5,500, making it possible to feed more than 100,000 devotees daily. The Sri Saibaba Sansthan Trust, on an average, spends Rs.190 million annually on feeding pilgrims visiting Shirdi. The prasadalaya, constructed at a cost of Rs.240 million, was inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil Tuesday. The complex is built on 7.5 acres of land and has a built-up area of 183,000 sq feet. It is 700 metres from the main Saibaba temple. A gigantic hall has been constructed on the ground floor, which can seat 3,500 devotees. Two separate halls have been constructed on the first floor with a seating capacity of 1,000 each. Fourteen domes made of polycarbonate and Manglorian tiles have been constructed to give ample natural light to the hall, so that power cuts do not disturb the activities in the prasadalaya during daytime. Raghunath Aher, chief engineer, Shri Saibaba Sansthan, told IANS: "The work of the prasadalaya has been going on for 15 months and it will be fully functional in two months." The meals served at the Sansthan are at highly subsidised rates of Rs.5. Huge refrigerating rooms have been built for keeping vegetables fresh. Most of the cooking will be done with solar energy. V.R. Wakchure, executive officer of the Sansthan, said: "All the cooking will be done with modern machines, giving top priority to hygiene." According to the trust, Shirdi has become one of India's most visited pilgrim places after Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. On a normal day, around 20,000 devotees visit Shirdi whereas the number increases to about 60,000 during a festival.

The previous dinning hall had a capacity of 1,000 people together. The prasadalaya serves simple Maharashtrian food comprising dal, rice, chapatti, two vegetables and a sweet. For pilgrims who cannot afford to pay, there is another hall, which has a capacity of 150 people and the trust serves food for free. Ganpath Tatya, prasadalaya supervisor, said: "Every day more than 100 people come here to make just chapattis. The prasadalaya is always full. We like serving food to everyone who comes here, we do not want anyone visiting Shirdi to leave hungry, and they should be happy and satisfied." The prasadalaya is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.The food is first offered to Saibaba and then served to the devotees.

Courtesy: www.jansamachar.net, November 28, 2007

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A latest survey has now revealed cities such as Gurgaon that are most preferred to earn a living and where job growth is the fastest, are not among the best places to live in. According to data compiled by economics research firm Indicus Analytics on residences, earnings and investments, none of the ten cities in the "reside-in" list figure in the "earn-in" list of places with most employment opportunities. Moreover, the four metros of New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai did not figure in the list of of ten best cities to reside in, earn or invest. However, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai were among the cities preferred by millionaires to spend their life. The list of "earn-in" cities has been topped by Gurgaon, followed by Silvaasa, Noida, Faridabad, Rupnagar, Chandigarh, Surat, Bangalore, Gandhinagar and Pune. The best cities to reside are Kochi, Kozhikode, Shimla, Thiruvananthapuram, Mysore, Goa, Thrissur, Pondicherry, Kannur and Thiruvalur. Five of these cities are in God's Own Country ~ Kerala. Shimla is the only northern city on this list, while Chandigarh, among the few fully planned cities, is not on the list.

Courtesy: www.thestatesman.net, November 27, 2007

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A Rs 40-lakh silk saree, intricately woven with 12 precious stones and metals and replicating 11 famous paintings of Raja Ravi Verma, will seek an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most expensive saree. The Rs 40-lakh saree, manufactured by handloom weavers of the city-based textile house 'The Chennai Silks, replicates Ravi Verma's much-acclaimed painting 'Lady Musicians' that features women from various cultural backgrounds. The saree's border features another 10 paintings of Ravi Verma in a tribute to the renowned 20th century artist. Jewels made of gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire, sapphire, cat's eye, topaz, pearl and coral were integrated to adorn the women featured in the paintings, using an intricate hand-woven process. 'Chennai Silks' Director Chandran said it took 4,680 man hours for a team of highly-skilled weavers to complete the work, using a double warp. He claimed it was the first silk saree manufactured using 7,440 jacquard hooks (which are instrumental in weaving a design) and 66,794 cards (which are punched to create a specific design using CAD software.) "The saree, which had entered the Limca Book of Records, will be a unique drape for a bride," he added.

Courtesy: www.dnaindia.com, November 25, 2007

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The 75 million cable and satellite homes in the country will now have access to over 300 television channels, half of which are news and current affairs. The government has given permission to over 40 new channels to uplink and downlink in India in the past three months taking the total number of channels officially permitted in the country to 312. Till July, there were about 270 channels that had the neccessary permission to operate in the country. Out of the total channels, 255 channels have been granted permission to uplink and downlink from within the country while 57 channels, that are currently being uplinked from foreign country, have also been given permission to downlink. Out of the total 255 channels that are being uplinked from India, 149 are in the news and current affairs genre while 106 are in the non-news genre. In a written communication, Priyaranjan Das Munsi, Miniter of Information and Broadcasting informed the Pariliament that out of the total 255 channels permitted to uplink from India, 123 channels have Indian ownership whereas 132 have varying components of foreign equity in the parent company. "Out of the total 57 television channels uplinked from abroad and permitted to downlink in India, two channels have Indian equity whereas the remaining 55 TV channels have foreign equity," Dasmunsi said in a statement.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, November 21, 2007

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In the time of the festival of lights, a new little Lakshmi will certainly brighten our Diwali this year. After a 27-hour surgery by a team of 36 doctors, two-year-old Lakshmi has been successfully separated from her parasitical conjoint twin. The next 72 hours are critical for the little child. A team of 30 doctors at the Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore successfully removed the child's extra limbs, salvaged her organs and rebuilt her pelvis area in a surgery, which was completed much before the estimated time. The doctors had earlier estimated that it could take them 40 hours. Lakshmi is now recovering in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, but the real heroes of the day were the doctors, who despite all odds, made sure that Lakshmi could lead a new and better life soon.

Does that mean that - Indian doctors are better than their western counterparts? Senior Cardiologist and Founder, Narayana Hrudalaya, Bangalore, Dr Devi Shetty; Senior Gynaecologist, Jaslok Hospital Mumbai, Dr Indira Hinduja and Associate Professor, Centre for Community Health, JNU, Dr Ritu Priya debated the issue on Face The Nation with CNN-IBN's Sagarika Ghose. When Dr Devi Shetty was asked of Lakshmi's operation reveal the sheer skill of the Indian doctor who doesn't have the technology and infrastructure that a doctor from the West has, he said he endorsed that statement. "Indians may not be better than Westerners. It's just that we are more experienced," Shetty remarked. Dr Indira Hinduja supported the argument that an Indian doctor has a range of clinical experience, which result in a better diagnostic skill. "We were capable of doing anything even though we did not have access to technology," Hinduja said, adding that the scenario however is changing now. But Dr Ritu Priya sounded the dissenting note. When asked if the poor actually have the kind of access to health they should, she said, "It is not because deficiency of doctors and their skills. It's because of the systems not being in place." "Doctors are performing very good not just on patient care, but also demographic compassion which means they are devising systems that reach large numbers of people," added Priya. Is there argument that a lot of Indian doctors are selling out to commercialism? "It is an exception. Most Indian doctors are compassionate," Shetty said. There are approximately 1,20,000 overseas doctors in the US. The largest single group of foreign doctors is from India - 25,000. There are an estimated 80,000 overseas doctors in Britain and more than 27,000 are from India. But Shetty pointed out that the boom in the Indian health care sector and opportunities are luring Indian doctors to stay back. "Things have changed. The doctors are running back to India. The remuneration and lifestyle is beter here, " he said.

Courtesy: www.ibnlive.com, November 08, 2007

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Lakshmi Tatma Had a 25 Percent Chance of Dying During Surgery
In the desperately poor corner of Bihar, India, she was a miracle.
Tiny Lakshmi Tatma was born two years ago with four arms and four legs. The local population considered her the manifestation of a goddess. Her parents named her after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth. A local circus even tried to buy her, but her parents chose health over fame and asked a team of doctors to remove her extra limbs. The surgery, conducted in Bangalore, ended successfully this afternoon. "The child has withstood the procedure in an excellent manner," Dr. Sharan Patil, the team leader who planned the surgery for more than a month, told reporters outside the Sparsh Hospital. "This girl can now lead as good a life as anyone else." It took more than 30 surgeons 27 hours to not only remove two of Lakshmi's arms and two of her legs but also to rebuild much of her body and save her organs. They say the chances of death were as high as 25 percent. The cost of such a complex procedure would have been $625,000, far too great for the Lakshmi's family to afford. The hospital's foundation paid. "We are very grateful to all the doctors for seeing our plight and deciding to help us," Tatma's father, Shambhu, told The Associated Press. The doctors "worked relentlessly through the night to make the operation successful," Patil said, adding there had been "no setback at any stage of the surgery."

Half a Twin
Lakshmi is essentially one half of a conjoined twin without a living sibling. Her condition is called ischiopagus. In the womb, a "parasitic twin" stopped developing, but Lakshmi absorbed its arms and legs, its kidneys, its stomach and chest cavities as well as a series of nerves. The surgery removed the extra body parts and unfused Lakshmi's spine from her twin's. To rebuild her pelvis, surgeons used tissue from the twin. And to save her kidney, doctors said, they had to remove it from the "parasitic abdomen" and move it into Lakshmi's own abdomen. She may still need more surgeries. Conjoined twins occur in about one in every 200,000 births, and their survival rate can be as low as 5 percent. She immediately won the hospital staff over. "She's a very cute girl," spokeswoman Dr. Patil Mamatha told the AP. "She's very playful and gets along well with others."

Lakshmi will stay in the hospital under a ventilator for at least the next two days.
As for how she will be treated after that, she may no longer be considered divine.
"All this expenditure," her father told the AP, "has happened to make her normal."
Now, he said, "it will be great to see our daughter have a normal body."
And he hopes Lakshmi will soon have a healthy sibling. Her mother is pregnant.

Courtesy: www.abcnews.go.com, November 08, 2007

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Doctors use body mass index (BMI) as a simple way to assess whether a patient needs to lose weight. The calculation is based on comparing a person's weight with their body height. It applies equally to men and women. To calculate your body mass index divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in metres. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight and one 30 or above is considered obese. People with BMIs between 19 and 22 live longest. Death rates are noticeably higher for people with indexes 25 and above. The BMI is not infallible. For instance, it is possible for a healthy, muscular athlete with very low body fat to be classified obese using the BMI formula. If you are a trained athlete, your weight based on your measured percent body fat would be a better indicator of what you should weigh.

Courtesy: www.bbc.co.uk, November 07, 2007

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Being overweight is a risk factor for cancer

About 6,000 middle-aged or older women in the UK develop cancer each year because they are obese or overweight, a Cancer Research UK-funded study says. The study, which looked at 45,000 cases of cancer in 1m women over seven years, says this is about 5% of such cases. It is published online by the British Medical Association and blames excess fat for 50% of cases of womb cancer and a type of oesophageal cancer. Last week an international study warned of the link between cancer and weight.

'Bigger impact'

The World Cancer Research Fund warned that carrying excess weight significantly increased the risk of cancer. Figures indicate that about 23% of all women in England are obese and 34% are overweight. The latest study looked at how often cancers occurred in 1.2m UK women aged 50 to 64 over a seven year period. More than 45,000 cases of cancer and 17,000 cancer deaths occurred during that time. Lead researcher Dr Gillian Reeves, from Oxford University, said: "We estimate that being overweight or obese accounts for around 6,000 out of a total 120,000 new cases of cancer each year among middle-aged and older women in the UK. "Our research also shows that being overweight has a much bigger impact on the risk of some cancers than others. "Two thirds of the additional 6,000 cancers each year due to overweight or obesity would be cancers of the womb or breast."

Age difference

The research found that the link between weight and risk of cancer depended on a woman's stage of life. For example, being overweight increases the risk of breast cancer only after the menopause and the risk of bowel cancer only before the menopause. Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said: "This research adds to the evidence regarding the impact of being overweight or obese on developing cancer and dying from the disease. "While most people readily associate carrying extra weight with being a general health risk, many do not make a specific link with cancer." Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said: "Whereas it was once thought there was little one could do to prevent cancer, it's now clear that lifestyle impacts greatly on overall cancer risk. "The message is clear. Invest in a healthier lifestyle today and we can reap the benefits of reduced disease risk and longer life tomorrow."

Courtesy: www.bbc.co.uk, November 07, 2007

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Doctors in India operating on a two-year-old child who was born with four arms and four legs say that the surgery is going well. Lakshmi Tatma is joined at the pelvis to what is, in effect, a headless, undeveloped twin. A team of surgeons in the southern city of Bangalore is working in shifts to separate Lakshmi's spinal column and kidney from that of her twin. It is hoped the procedure will allow her to survive beyond adolescence. "It has been so far so good," hospital spokesman Siva Rudrayya told reporters. "She is responding well, although there were a lot of complications. Doctors believe she has an 80% chance of survival," he said.

'Appalling'

The doctor leading the operation, Sharan Patil, told the BBC's World Today programme that his team is prepared for 40 hours of continuous surgery. "However if everything goes smoothly it will finish much quicker," he said. Dr Patil said he heard about "this little girl in the state of Bihar that she needed particular help and I did reach out and went to this small village near the border with Nepal. "It was appalling to find her with an infected sore and suffering from continuous fever without any medical help." Dr Patil added that the girl's parents were eager for the operation to be performed. "The villagers and some of the relations were not so keen about going ahead with the surgery but the parents are looking to the future and they were very, very keen and motivated to have medical intervention," he said. The child has been hailed by some in her village in the northern state of Bihar as the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi. Conjoined twins are rare, occurring in about one in every 200,000 births. They originate from a single fertilised egg, so they are always identical and of the same sex. The overall survival rate of conjoined twins is somewhere between 5% and 25%. Historical records over the past 500 years detail about 600 surviving sets of conjoined twins - more than 70% of which have been female twins.

Courtesy: http://news.bbc.co.uk, November 06, 2007

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India is recognised as one of the world's largest repositories of medicinal herbs and herbal drugs. Yet the country accounts for a meagre 2 per cent of the world's organised herbal drugs market, which is reckoned to be as much as $ 63 billion and growing annually by 7 per cent. The country's share in the global exports of herbal medicines is also low, at around 10 per cent, and takes place largely in the form of herbs or their extracts and not as value-added products. As a result, the herbal drugs sector, including the 'nutraceutical' sector, remains a poor cousin of the thriving pharmaceutical industry. This state of affairs prevails notwithstanding the documentation of nearly one lakh plant-based medicinal formulations in the country's 'traditional knowledge digital library', created to provide intellectual property protection to this valuable wealth. It is evident that most of the formulations developed under the ancient medicinal systems of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, and described in classical texts, remain outside the purview of the organised drug manufacturing sector. If one looks for the reasons for this state of affairs, the starting point is that, against some 5,000 species of herbs traded globally, no more than 800 or so are actively traded in India. Most of these grow in the wild and not on dedicated farms. Much of the vast herbal wealth is also handled by tribal people and other local communities, and is utilised by Vaids and other practitioners of conventional systems of medicines using crude methods of drug formulation. Such dependence on the natural growth of herbs has led predictably to over-exploitation of these resources, pushing some of them towards extinction. Also, the herbs are picked up from the forests by people who are unaware of the Good Collection Practices prescribed by the World Health Organisation for this purpose. Thus, there is every danger that the ecological and socio-economic purposes served by the country's natural herbal resources may soon be in jeopardy. Equally worrisome is the apathy of the herbal pharmaceutical sector to standardisation of the quality of herbs and herbal formulations as also to standardised methods of preparing these drugs to ensure their efficacy. It is no wonder then that Indian herbal exports often face rejection on the grounds of high heavy metal content and the presence of other unwanted ingredients. This is the context in which to view the move by the National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) to promote the cultivation of herbs as commercial crops on farmland, as part of the diversification of agriculture. The nearly four-fold hike in the outlay for the development of alternative medicines in the 11th Plan should come in handy for this purpose. On the anvil is the setting up of herbal farm clusters with supportive facilities, including processing units. Though the proposals include training tribals in collecting herbs in a sustainable manner, this is likely to be an uphill task, considering how widely dispersed this activity is.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, November 01, 2007

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