BJP pledges to expedite Naga peace process

Kohima: The Nagaland unit of BJP has reaffirmed its commitment to expedite the peace process for a permanent and lasting solution to the Naga problem.

The affirmation was made during the first executive meeting of the BJP Nagaland Unit at Dimapur yesterday, A press release issued by its General Secretary Jame Vizo said here today.



"We envision political settlement of all borders disputes with our neighbouring state/country outside the jurisdiction of the court of law through mutual and bi-lateral relationship and people to people contact," Vizo said.

The party demanded review of the Total Liquor Prohibition Act considering various aspects of its positive and negative impacts on the society, construction of a foothills state highway from Mon to Peren, a thermal power station and more government colleges for poor students.

The party condemned demolition of churches in Manipur and demanded that the Manipur government provide alternative sites to the aggrieved community.

PTI

‘Maha to continue ban on gutkha, pan masala’

Mumbai: The ban on gutkha, pan masala and tobacco related products, which came into effect from July 2012 would continue, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar said here Tuesday.

The state government banned gutkha and pan masala across the state from July 20, 2012.

"The ban on gutkha, tobacco and pan masala will continue in the state," Pawar said, while speaking at a programme on the occasion of the World Anti-Tobacco day.

Calling for a public participation to succeed in the ban on gutkha and pan masala, he said the decision to ban these products was taken with unanimity in a cabinet meeting.

The government had said that initially the ban would be valid for a year, after which it could be extended for another 12 months. Figures show that gutkha was one of the major reasons for oral diseases such as cancer.

The state had attempted to ban gutkha in 2002 and then in 2008, but encountered several legal hurdles.

In 2010, the state banned the sale of gutkha and cigarettes within 100 metres of schools and colleges.

At a public forum in June last year, Pawar had openly pressed for a ban on gutkha and pan masala, saying that it does not matter even if the government faces a loss of Rs 100 crore in taxes on these products.

"Compromising with lives of youth is unacceptable," he had said.

PTI

Pass marks for environmental & computer science courses reduced

AURANGABAD: The management council of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University ( Bamu) in its meeting on Tuesday decided to bring down the passing marks to 40% for students opting for undergraduate courses in environmental science and computer science.

Earlier the students had to achieve 50% marks in order to pass in both the subjects unlike others which required only 40% passing marks, said Sanjay Shinde, public relation officer at the university.

The council members also decided to fine Bharat College of Mass Communication, Jalna, Rs 10,000 as it had caused delay in issuing mark sheets to students. The delay was caused as the internal assessment marks for bachelors of Journalism course were submitted late by the college to the varsity, Shinde said.

The council also decided to appoint a full time single administrative head for all the departments of the school of performing arts. The school comprises drama, music and dance departments, of which music and dance were initiated in the year 2009 and 2010 respectively and had individual head co-ordinators.

A three-member committee was also appointed to take a final decision on whether the Master of Social Work college could continue the course in the university premises. "No academic and financial audit, recruitment or local management committee meeting has taken place since the year 2005 due to shortage of funds with the college," Shinde added.

The council also gave its final approval to the university to start with its vocational courses to begin from academic year 2013-14. The recruitment process for Class I and Class II officers would be conducted on June 6 and June 8 respectively.

Exercise to check quality of water in district’s villages from June

ALLAHABAD: The district authorities have dispatched over 1,000 field testing kits and study materials to 20 blocks to check water quality in 1,425 villages. The district aims to check areas where ground water contains arsenic or fluoride substances.

District Development Officer (DDO) RC Pandey told TOI "after dispatching water field testing kits and holding subsequent training sessions, the exercise to test potable water start in villages from the first week of June."Describing it as an attempt to ensure clean drinking water to villagers, he said that the exercise also aimed at educating them about methods of checking the quality of water resources especially hand-pumps in villages.Pandey further maintained that rural development department has launched the exercise with the help of Jal Nigam. He added that Jal Nigam and block officials would test the water quality in villages and train selected villagers about the same.

The villagers would also be informed about the adverse effects of contaminated water and other preventive measures.Pandey, meanwhile, said under the project, quality of 20 water resources in each of 1,425 villages would be checked on scheduled dates. There people from each block have been nominated for the exercise. The project aims to improve the quality of life by enhancing access to better water supply and sanitation facilities in rural areas ensuring sustainability.The department with the help of block development officer and local panchayat has also identified water resources. He said that handpumps were a major source of potable water in villages. The testing kits would reveal that whether the handpump water is suitable for drinking or not.

Information, education and communication activities are already underway in rural pockets to promote community participation in the exercise of ensuring water safety and security at grass-root level. Officials said other exercises like identifying bacteria in water, rain water conservation & collection, water pollution in terms of biological and chemical, right way of water testing, pipeline supply and sanitation have also been taken to task to ascertain the quality of water resources.

Handpumps that supply water laced with arsenic or fluoride particles have already been identified in hilly region of the district. Such handpumps have been painted with red colour to warn people against using its water.

Villagers would also be apprised of methods to remove fluoride (with the help of fluoride\arsenic removal filters). They would be advised to consume eatables full of vitamins like C, E, Iron calcium and anti-oxidants."If there is fluoride in water, neither its colour nor its taste\smell changes" said an expert adding "boiling hs no impact on fluoride." Prevention is the only key of checking flurosis disease as there is no treatment of the disease, he added.Similarly, villagers are also being advised to use water from deep safe wells as it is devoid of arsenic particles. Besides, eatables full of anti-oxidants like onion, mango, ginger, papaya, carrot, garlic and cucumber should be a regular part of food intake.

On oxygen support for a year, girl clears board exams

NEW DELHI: Students often race against time when taking exams. Neha Mendiratta raced as well. Not against the bell, but against her own lungs. The 18-year-old from Delhi's Jor Bagh area was diagnosed with a lung disease in March last year. The daughter of an autorickshaw driver and a cook, Neha has been on oxygen support from a machine since. Unable to hold herself during her Class XII board exams, she could only stay put for about 90 minutes or so before going into violent cough fits. When the results came out this week, she had passed with an aggregate of 52.6%.

Her parents have put their jobs on hold to tend to her. The machine she uses for respiratory support set them back by Rs 38,000. It works on electricity, so running costs are small. However, it needs to be replaced every two years, which means an expense of up to Rs 1.5 lakh, depending on what her needs are by then, says Neha's father Rajkumar Mendiratta. "We don't even know where we'll get that from now," he says. Fortunately for the family of four, at least the medicines and treatment at Safdarjung Hospital are free.

All of 25 kilos, Neha is curled up in foetal position on the bed in a corner of her oneroom house. Her bony hands cover her face as she coughs from time to time. You'd expect her to whisper bleakly when she talks. Instead, what comes out is a strong, authoritative voice. She does get tired every two to three sentences into a conversation, retreating into foetal position. Yet she calls the shots at home. "Mummy, let it be. You don't know it well enough. Let Papa talk about it," she tells her mother, Leela Mendiratta, who is trying to explain her medical condition.

Neha has Old Pulmonary Koch's disease with bronchieactasis, bronchial hyper-reactivity. Doctors have diagnosed "Type II respiratory failure". "The airways suffer permanent damage in such a case. A patient can recover. But occasionally, not totally. It is a long-standing disease," says Dr Sanjeev Bagai, CEO, Radiant Life Care, New Delhi.

"Without the oxygen supply, I suddenly feel my head pounding. It feels like it will burst any time. My nails turn blue. No matter how hard I try breathing, I feel like nothing is happening," explains the 18-year-old. Her nails are watched closely by family members. A cousin painted them golden for her, a colour Neha just couldn't resist. At her parents' insistence — she left one hand unembellished. "We need to watch her nails very closely," her sister Bhavna, a Class VII student, explains.

She does have to do without oxygen every day for about two hours. "The machine has to be switched off for that much time every day for it to function properly," she says. The Mendirattas moved from a slum close to Lodhi colony to this rented room about two years ago, when Neha's condition began to worsen.

Neha currently spends her time watching TV and sketching a bit. She has taken to the peculiar art form of "coffee painting", where she paints using coffee powder and water. A family friend got her beads and wires to make earrings to pass time as well. Her mother and sister excitedly show off flawless handmade envelopes and wall hangings with mirrors and rhinestones that she has made. Neha hasn't considered monetizing these talents.

For now, Neha is contemplating a correspondence course for her bachelor's degree. "I just want to feel okay again somehow," she says, her eyes drooping. She is sleepy now.

AP fire brigade first in country to install GPS and cameras on tenders

HYDERABAD: The fire brigade in Andhra Pradesh will have Global Positioning System (GPS) and cameras installed in tenders to help them reach a destination quickly and also take prompt action.

Authorities said the move was the first in the country which would help fire fighters pinpoint a location better and save enough time to reach a blaze site.

"The GPS-based system enabled with video cameras will be launched in about a month's time. In the first phase, GPS system and cameras will be installed in 150 fire engines across the state," the official said.

Officials said a main control room in Hyderabad will be connected with the system, and will help in keeping a track of fire tenders; determine the fire accident site and guide fighters to reach the scene quickly.

At the moment, there are 252 fire stations with over 300 fire vehicles in Andhra Pradesh and officials said they need more vehicles to make an impact in terms of quick response.

"The fire fighters will reach the emergency scene quickly, while the officials at the control room will simultaneously keep track of the vehicles," a fire department official said.

Looking at the camera images, senior officials can also guide the fighters in tackling a tricky fire accident carefully.

"Fire spreads too fast and if the fire fighters do not reach the scene in time, not only the property will be totally burned, but several lives will also be lost," the official added.

Asteroid mining company wants to put your face in space

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.: A privately owned asteroid mining firm, backed in part by Google Inc's founders, launched a crowd-funding project on Wednesday to gauge public interest in a small space telescope that could serve as a backdrop for personal photographs, officials said.

Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, plans to build and operate telescopes to hunt for asteroids orbiting near Earth and robotic spacecraft to mine them for precious metals, water and other materials.

It also plans an educational and outreach program to let students, museums, armchair astronomers and virtual travelers share use of a telescope through an initiative on Kickstarter, a website used to raise funds for creative projects.

Planetary Resources aims to raise $1 million by June 30 to assess public appetite for participating in a space project. It expects to launch its first telescope in 2015.

For a pledge of $25, participants can make use of a "space photo booth" by sending a picture to be displayed like a billboard on the side of the telescope with Earth in the background. Its image would then be snapped by a remote camera and transmitted back.

Starting at $200, participants can use the telescope to look at an astronomical object.

The Kickstarter campaign complements the company's ongoing efforts to design and build its first telescope, called ARKYD. Investors include Google Chief Executive Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt, as well as Ross Perot Jr., chairman of the real estate development firm Hillwood and The Perot Group.

"All we are asking is for the public to tell us that they want something," company co-founder Eric Anderson told reporters during a webcast press conference on Wednesday.

"We're not going to spend our time and resources to do something if people don't want it and really the only way to prove that it's something people want is to ask them for money," he said.

Planetary Resources is not the first space startup to turn to crowd-funding. Colorado-based Golden Spike, which plans commercial human expeditions to the moon, has launched two initiatives on Indiegogo, another Internet-based funding platform.

Golden Spike exceeded a $75,000 goal to start a sister firm, called Uwingu, designed to funnel profits into space projects, but fell far short of a $240,000 target for spacesuits for Golden Spike's first moon run.

Hyper-V Technologies of Virginia turned to Kickstarter to raise nearly $73,000 to help develop a plasma jet electric thruster. STAR Systems in Phoenix, Arizona, raised $20,000 for work on a hybrid rocket motor for its suborbital Hermes spaceplane.

Last year, Washington-based LiftPort ended an $8,000 Kickstarter campaign with more than $100,000 to demonstrate how robots could climb a 1.2-mile (2 km) long tether held aloft by a large helium balloon.

The company is working on an alternative space transportation system called a "space elevator" that uses tethers or cables instead of rockets.

"I think crowd-funding is a new kind of bike and people are trying and willing to ride it, some successfully, some not as successfully, but I think it's here to stay," said Golden Spike founder and planetary scientist Alan Stern.

"These companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo and RocketHub, they seem to be some kind of marketing distribution system that lets people with an idea put it out there. Previously people didn't know how to do that except run an ad in a newspaper. It's a capability we just didn't have five years ago," Stern said.