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| Exhibition on
adultery takes Malaysia by storm KUALA LUMPUR,
Nov 8: Amidst
scandals of adultery galore, Malaysians throng a unique
two-year long exhibition that surveys 5000 yeas of
adulterous behaviour all over the globe......more NEW
DELHI, Nov 8:
Cardiologists are now increasingly using nuclear medicine
to avoid needless or futile bypass surgery which can be
both risky and costly for their patients.. ...more MOGA,
Nov 8: Union
Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has emphasised the need for
setting up agriculture intelligence centres to provide
weather related information to farmers.....more NEW
DELHI, Nov 8: The
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
leadership should revive its Islamabad resolution of 1993
on disabled people to make the ongoing SAARC decade for
the ‘disabled’ meaningful, Dr Salma Maqbool,
first chairperson of ‘SAARC forum for blind
women’, an NGO body, has said.... more GUWAHATI, Nov 8: The All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and Bodo People Action Committee (BPAC) have threatened not to participate in the coming Tripartite talk unless the Bodo issue is handled politically....more |
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‘Karunanidhi
betrayed interests of people on Cauvery issue’ CHENNAI, Nov 8: All India Anna DMK (AIADMK)
Deputy General Secretary K Kalimuthu today alleged that
Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had betrayed the interests
of the people on the....more NEW
DELHI, Nov 8:
There has been no significant increase in the number of
women in the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)
and its advisory panels in eight cities after the recent
reconstitution, despite ....more BHOPAL,
Nov 8: Madhya
Pradesh has recorded a sharp decline in the filing of
nominations as the number of papers filed by candidates
for the ....more NEW
DELHI, Nov 8: Enforcement
Directorate (ED) has launched investigation into
suspected Dawood Ibrahim frontman Romesh Sharma’s
alleged involvement in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam....more NEW
DELHI, Nov 8: Even
as the Government blames the rain-for sky-rocketing
prices of essentials, experts say the problem has been
compounded by the traders greed for a fast buck and
failure .......more NEW DELHI, Nov 8: Panun Kashmir, a group representing Kashmiri migrants, today accused the Centre of adopting double standard in solving the problems faced by the community....more |
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Exhibition on adultery takes Malaysia by storm KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8: Amidst scandals of adultery galore, Malaysians throng a unique two-year long exhibition that surveys 5000 yeas of adulterous behaviour all over the globe. Despite economic recession and political uncertainty, Malaysia boasts of not only having managed successful Commonwealth Games but organised the world’s first known exhibition on adultery. The exhibition on marital infidelity through ages is titled Infidelity-violation of family values and has 25 sections covering anti-adultery devices like chastity belts, an infamous means of curbing infidelity, punishments for infidelity and even culturally acceptable peccadilloes. Approved by Malaysian Parliament, the exhibition is organised by Department of Museum and Antiquity, Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism under the supervision of curator Shahrum Yub, former director of Malyasia’s national museum. The exhibition inaugurated last year and scheduled for closure in March 1999, has drawn crowds from all walks of life eager to know more about adultery with sex scandals disturbing the political scenario at home or abroad. It took two years of research for Shahrum, a British trained curator to complete the project which surveys 5,000 years of adulterous behaviour from all over the globe. adultery. (PTI) |
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NEW DELHI, Nov 8: Cardiologists are now increasingly using nuclear medicine to avoid needless or futile bypass surgery which can be both risky and costly for their patients. "The Thallium-201 test is a non-invasive procedure which can help cardiologists and their patients to finally decide whether or when to go in for a bypass," says Dr P Dougall, radiologist at the Sitaram Bhartia Institute which has facilities for it. There is no way that coronary blockage can be diagnosed short of performing an angiography which is an invasive procedure with its own hazards and drawbacks including the possibility of infection. "Very often patients face a situation where different cardiologists have different opinions on bypass after looking at the same angiogram," Dr Dougall said. Conventional methods of assessing blockage include stress-ECG, stress-echo, involving either physical exertion on medicines but none of them are as accurate as Thallium-201 stress-testing, says Dr Bembey, a radiologist at the Diwan Chand Hospital which also has a nuclear medicine facility, now increasingly used by cardiologists. Demonstrating that an artery is blocked using angiography does not necessarily mean that that patient needs a bypass surgery or even treatment says Dr Dougall. "It has to be demonstrated beyond doubt that that the degree of blockage is severe enough to cause a fall in blood supply to the heart muscle." Some cardiologists say that Thallium stress testing is indicated only when there is doubt and ought not be used as a routine diagnostic tool. "Conventional tests are good enough, readily available and are fear cheaper than Thallium tests," says Dr K K Aggarwal, leading cardiologist and vice-president of the Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI). The stress-echo for example shows up viable myocardium just as well as Thallium imaging while angiograms have to be done in every case, he said. But radiologists like Dr Dougall and Dr Bembey say that the future lies clearly with nuclear medicine not only for cardiology but for the diagnosis of diseases involving the liver, kidney and even the bones. For testing the patient is put on a treadmill or a stationary bicycle and the resistance gradually increased so that heart rate and blood pressure rises. At a given point Thallium-201, injected intravenously, seeps into the heart muscle and its progress can be visualised on a gamma camera, showing up which portions of the heart muscle is receiving sufficient blood and which is not. Two kinds of procedure are used—planar imaging in which single images are taken at different angles and Single Photon Emission Computer Topography (SPECT) where the camera rotates around the chest in an ARC and produces ‘sliced’ images. Myocardial viability or the potential of heart muscle to recover is an important issue for cardiologists following a heart attack and despite the blockage which caused the attack there may be surviving tissue. "Only patients who show viable tissue are likely to benefit from bypass surgery or even from angiography and conventional tests such as tread-mill and the angiogram cannot provide enough information," Dr Dougall said. "In fact, there is enough medical literature to show that nearly fifty per cent of the patients may be falsely classified as having viable tissue or not having viable tissue resulting in wrong indication for bypass surgery," he said. Data gathered at the Sitaram Bhatia Institute covering 300 patients who underwent angiography corroborate the view that fifty per cent of them were probably incorrectly assessed for bypass either way. "Nuclear techniques are time-tested for assessing blood flow to damaged heart muscle and also assess the metabolism with the cell-both of which are essential for settling the question of viability," Dr Dougall said. With newer and better isotopes appearing in the market such as tc 99m the future of nuclear medicine in assessing myocardial viability is assured, he said. (UNI) Badal for agri intelligence centres MOGA, Nov 8: Union Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has emphasised the need for setting up agriculture intelligence centres to provide weather related information to farmers. Such centres by making available details about weather forecast and other information pertaining to natural calamities would be beneficial for farmers who sufferes due to vagaries of nature, Badal, Minister of State for Industries, told reporters here last night. Badal said he
would take up the matter for creation of such centres
with the Union Agriculture Ministry soon. (PTI) NEW DELHI, Nov 8: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leadership should revive its Islamabad resolution of 1993 on disabled people to make the ongoing SAARC decade for the ‘disabled’ meaningful, Dr Salma Maqbool, first chairperson of ‘SAARC forum for blind women’, an NGO body, has said. The resolution in 1993 reaffirming the member nations’ commitment to the welfare of disabled people in general and blind people in particular has been forgotten, Maqbool told yesterday after her nomination to the post at the end of a two-day conference of blind women. South Asian countries jointly constitute about one billion of disabled people among which an estimated two per cent are blind, said Maqbool, who herself lost eye sight after graduating in medicine from Punjab University (Lahore). Pointing out the problems in the SAARC countries were of similar nature like different social environment and lukewarm official response, she reiterated the forum’s vow to ensure a ‘collective action’ from all the member nations to improve the condition of disabled and blind women in particular. Empowerment of women from this large but talented disadvantaged sections should be taken up on priority, she said regretting that in countries like India and Pakistan even universal education programme failed to involve disabled girl child. The meet was attended by delegates from member states like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka besides India. There were guest participants from Sweden also. (PTI) |
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ABSU, BPAC not to participate in Tripartite talks GUWAHATI, Nov 8: The All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and Bodo People Action Committee (BPAC) have threatened not to participate in the coming Tripartite talk unless the Bodo issue is handled politically. A joint meeting held by two organisation last night concluded that the Union Government was allegedly hatching a conspiracy with the Assam Government to crush the Bodo mass movement. "We make it clear once again that unless our three basic demands are not not addressed we are not not in a position to participate in the talks" Mr U G Brahma said. The Union Home Ministry has convened the Tripartite talk on November 12 next at New Delhi. The ABSU’s three main demands are creation of a separate state of Bodoland, creation of autonomous district councils in the South Bank of Brahmaputra river and inclusion of Bodo Kacharis living in the district of Karbi anglong in the sixth schedule. It demanded that talks on the Bodo issue be held at the political level involving the Union Home Minister. "Several rounds of talks at the bureaucratic level had been held on the Bodo issue so far but these talks miserably failed to give the desired result. Hence we demand political issues be dealt politically. If the bill in regard to the creation of a separate state of Bodoland is not introduced in the coming session of Parliament, the ABSU-BPAC will be compelled to strike in a big way to achieve it’s ultimate goal of Bodoland’’ Mr Brahma cautioned. (UNI) |
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‘Karunanidhi betrayed
interests of people on CHENNAI, Nov 8: All India Anna DMK (AIADMK) Deputy General Secretary K Kalimuthu today alleged that Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had betrayed the interests of the people on the Cauvery issue for the sake of remaining in power. In a rejoinder to Tamil Nadu Public Works Minister Durai Murugan’s statement, refuting party supreme J Jayalalitha’s allegation that Mr Karunanidhi had signed the Cauvery accord following an assurance from the Prime Minister that the DMK Government would not be dismissed, Mr Kalimuthu said: "Even one thousand Durai Murugans would not succeed if they attempt to cover up Mr Karunanidhi’s betrayal". When Mr Karunanidhi was in a position to review the Cauvery agreement between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, he had surrendered the rights of the state before the then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi to protect his self-interest, he alleged and challenged Mr Durai Murugan to deny this. Reitrating Ms Jayalalitha’s charge that Mr Karunanidhi had struck a secret deal with the Prime Minsiter to sign the accord, he said this was amply clear as Mr Karunanidhi, who had castigated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders ealier, was now showering praises on them. Mr Kalimuthu said even before the constitution of the Cauvery River Water Authority (CRWA), headed by the Prime Minister, Ms Jayalalitha had rightly warned that it would go against move interests of the farmers of the state. He also recalled the reported remarks of Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel on August 15, after the CRWA was set up, that it could not function without his consent and not a single drop of water would be released to Tamil Nadu. He also quoted Mr Patel as having said that the Prime Minister could not compel him to release water to Tamil Nadu and asked why Mr Durai Murugan did not yet reply to Mr Patel’s remarks. (UNI) |
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NEW DELHI, Nov 8: There has been no significant increase in the number of women in the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and its advisory panels in eight cities after the recent reconstitution, despite promises by successive Governments that at least half of the members would be from the fair sex. Following the announcement of elections, the ninth advisory panel in Delhi will be reconstituted only after the polls to avoid accusations of violation of the code of conduct. The advisory panels which have been reconstituted are those in Chennai, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Cuttack, Guwahati, Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The only other city with an advisory panel is Delhi. (Advisory panels were set up about two decades ago following demands from filmmakers in different parts of the country and in view of increasing pressure on the CBFC in Mumbai). The assurances by successive ministers for including more women were given primarily following complaints about the overdose of violence and sex on the silver screen. The only major change after the coming in of the present BJP-led Government has been that a woman now heads the CBFC — actress Asha Parekh. The CBFC has 25 other members including thirteen women members. The members include actresses Saroja Devi, S. Janaki, and Sulabha Deshpande, filmmaker Hemen Das, character actor Arvind Trivedi (Ravana of ‘Ramayana’ teleserial), and commercial films producer and dubbing artiste Vinod Sharma. (incidentally, Saroja Devi is the only member who was also there in the board constituted in March 1996 which has been superseded with the latest reconstitution). Thirty of the fiftyfour members on the Chennai panel are women. They include several film personalities like Revathy, P. Susheela, Jamuna, Manjula Ramesh, and Sowmithra. Other film personalities are Dr S. Krishnaswamy, Edida Nageshwara Rao, Darakeesh, T. Shanmugham, and K. Balaje. In sharp contrast, the Mumbai panel has only thirtythree women members among its 110 members. The women include character actress Shammi, film critic Rinki Bhattacharya, and actress Ratna Pathak Shah. The male members include critic Rauf Ahmed, actor Ram Mohan, lyricist Ved Rahi, filmmakers Nasir Hussain and Devendra Khandelwal, and publisher Ram S. Tarneja. The fortytwo-member Bangalore panel, which has eighteen women, includes veteran filmmakers T. S. Narasimhan and G.V. Iyer, apart from several actors and actresses of the Kannada screen. Six of the fifteen-member Thiruvananthapuram panel are women, while the nineteen women members of the 56-member Hyderabad panel include Mrs Aparajita Roy Sinha (daughter of the late Bimal Yoy) and Mrs Amala Akkineni. Fourteen of the twentythree members on the Calcutta panel are women, while ten of the twelve Guwahati members are also women. The Cuttack panel which has nine women among its 25 members includes senior actor-filmmaker Govind Chandra Tej. (UNI) |
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