Tissue bank to come up soon in Ahmedabad Friday, November 30, 2001
SOURCE - TIMES NEWS NETWORK
AHMEDABAD: A bit of skin from a donor or a piece of bone could make that crucial difference to a third-degree burns patient or accident victim with multiple bone breaks. But ask any patient and they'll tell you just how hard it is to get such components in an emergency.
Not anymore. On the lines of eye and blood banking, the country is all set to have its first tissue bank where one can buy bone, skin, tendon and fascia (both sheets or band of connective tissue separating or binding muscles with organs). What's more, the bank will come up in Ahmedabad!
Thanks to donations by a Non-Resident Gujarati from Vadodara Kiran Patel, the University of South Florida (USF) has decided to team up with Indu Health Research Foundation (IHRF) to set up this tissue bank in Ahmedabad under its Centre for HIV-AIDS Research and Training (CHART) programme. The bank would be operational in six months, the promoters claimed.
Beata Herman of the USF has been camping here for the past three days, training microbiologists and technicians the nuances of procuring body components from donors and processing the same to remove histological markers so that the donated components are imbibed by patients with zero infection or rejection rate.
Explaining the operation, Herman said they would follow a stringent three-step procedure in procuring the tissue from the dead. "Consent of the dying person and also that of the next of the kin will be obtained and reconfirmed for donation. On the pathology front, it entails having the total the medical history of the patient. If at any stage the patient is found to carry infection, all the tissues will be discarded to ensure 100 per cent quality assurance", she said.
USF will provide specific technical help like the state-of-art equipment and training. The IHRF on its part will provide infrastructure; the foundation people are scouting the city for a site.
Outlining the potential category of beneficiaries IHRF chief Vijay Shah said they included patients with chronic back injuries (that has no prosthetic device replacement so far), trauma patients with multiple-bone injuries, third degree burns patients and even cancer patients who have suffered major loss of bone or skin.
About cost, Shah said the details were being worked out. Giving an instance nevertheless, he said that a donor bone graft could cost Rs 2000. "The same when taken from the other bones of the patient would also cost the same considering the surgery and the increase in the hospital stay", he reasoned.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Eco aspects of Bt cotton need separate focus Friday, November 30, 2001
SOURCE - TIMES NEWS NETWORK
VADODARA: As the Centre's decision to crack down on use of Bt cotton has raised a major hue and cry, especially in Gujarat, bio-technology experts feel there is a need to address the two core issues - the issue of bio-safety and that of the economic consequences of using or not using Bt cotton - independently.
"We have been mixing the two issues and the scenario at present seems a bit muddled," says head of MS University's Bio-technology Centre Bharat Chattoo.
Chattoo, who has also had a stint in the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, and is working on the concept of building incubators for development of new ideas in the field, feels that the two issues "need to be dealt with separately."
"As far as bio-safety is concerned, a number of field trials have been conducted and the government has put into place a whole series of controls to ensure safety," says Chattoo, who cites the example of any such product going through numerous channels before being certified.
"At the development or laboratory level, the project goes through the department of bio-technology of the government of India, then to the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, the Institutional Bio-safety Committee and the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation," he says.
"At the next stage, it goes through the department of environment, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, the State Bio-technology Co-ordination Committee, the funding agency and a principal investigator. There is nothing clandestine about the whole process," he adds.
He feels that the economic aspect needs to be looked into independently of the safety aspect. "India has the largest area covering cotton yet contributes only about 13 to 15 per cent of the world's produce. The production per hectare of land is also the lowest. We use about $700 million on pesticides, roughly 50 per cent of which is used on cotton fields, with about 10 to 15 sprays being made every season," he says.
"Data collected from field trials in various locations have proved that there could be a 30 to 40 increase in yield and at the same time the spraying frequency will go down considerably, easing the load on both environment and the economy," informs Chattoo.
He says that China has used Bt cotton in a big way and 1.5 million small farmers are being covered. "When a new technology is adopted, the society has to learn to deal with it in a new way. We should not be making laws so cumbersome that the whole revolution passes us by," says Chattoo.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Uproar at VMC meet over mayor's Germany visit Friday, November 30, 2001
SOURCE - TIMES NEWS NETWORK
VADODARA: Visit of Mayor Bharati Vyas to Germany for attending an environment conference raked up a major controversy at the general board meeting of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) here on Thursday.
Opposition leaders belonging to the Congress party said the visit was not justified at a time when the corporation was passing through a financial crisis. At the other hand, some ruling members tried to defend the trio saying that the corporation would spend only Rs 15,000 on it. The rest of the amount is to be sponsored by the organisers.
Notably, the trip had run into controversy even before the opposition became critical of it. Corporators of the ruling BJP and standing committee chairman Bharat Shah had also expressed their reservations regarding the trip. So much so that Vyas wrote a letter to the party president, co-ordinator and Shah himself expressing her displeasure at the way the issue was being looked at.
BJP members also raked up the issue of slapping of an engineer by Congress councillor Meenaxi Fand. A ruling party member demanded that the board must condemn the act. The Congress party, meanwhile, is yet to take any action against fund.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
IMFL worth Rs 2 cr roadrolled Friday, November 30, 2001
SOURCE - TIMES NEWS NETWORK
BHAT (Gandhinagar): The Ahmedabad police on Wednesday plied two road rollers and one JCB over Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), worth Rs 1.93 crore they seized over the years, near the Narmada canal in Bhat village. This is the third such operation in the state in the past six months.
The stock from 25 police stations unloaded here included vague brands like 'Bullet' and 'Black Velvet' beer, 'Contessa' and 'Black Stallion' whisky. Spouts of liquor shot up as the iron wheels rolled over 64,569 bottles of the intoxicant, raising a stink in the area.
Some attractive cases even had 'free gifts inside' stickers on them, but there were no gifts inside. One had a slogan, 'Do everything, but overdo nothing!' According to prohibition officials, free gifts are banned even on official sale of liquor in Gujarat as it amounted to 'brand promotion', but one Royal Challenge whisky carton came with a free gift: an expensive pen!
The maximum quantum came from Shaherkotda police station (22,591 bottles) followed by Dariapur (11,005) and Madhavpura (10,856). The smallest stock of 86 bottles came from Danilimda.
According to senior police inspector SD Sharma of Shaherkotda station, "I have now seven rooms cleared where I can station my men who were huddled on tables in a single room".
"The administrative cost of managing this seized liquor was high since this is an attractive muddamal and even policemen can get tempted!", quipped a senior officer.
The operation was carried out in the presence of the 'Committee for Disposal of Seized IMFL', chaired by prohibition commissioner SK Saikia. Beginning with unloading of cartons and gunny bags from the trucks onto the road, to clearing off the debris and setting the residue on fire to ward off stench, the operation lasted five hours.
This same stretch of road that has become defunct after the construction of the Narmada canal, was first used for such operation a few months back. Then followed a similar operation in Kheda district.
BOX Zadaphia raises a stink Minister of state for home Gordhan Zadaphia got a rude shock on Wednesday morning when he saw two cartons of liquor from a truck driving in front of his car, slip away and crash onto the road, when he was on his way to work.
Frantic calls were made to prohibition officials demanding to know what was going on, and he was told that the truck was on its way to Bhat from the police station to take part in the 'operation destruction'. Apparently, the truck was negotiating an incline when the 'accident' happened, destroying 24 precious bottles before their time, and the incident found an entry in the police station diary 'just for the records' like they say.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
PF smart-card for easy access to account Friday, November 30, 2001
BY SANJAY PANDEY, TIMES NEWS NETWORK
AHMEDABAD: Worried about your Provident Fund update? Not sure whether deductions from your last month salary were actually deposited in your PF account?
Solution to your worries is just a swipecard away. Gaining access to your PF account would be simpler than getting coffee from a dispenser. 'Re-inventing EPF India' a strategic plan drawn up by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) says so.
In order to reposition itself as a 'customer focussed' organisation EPFO plans to keep itself just a touch away from its subscribers.
Under it subscribers can view their individual accounts through a smart unique identity card, social security card, at electronic kiosks to be installed at 260 EPFO offices in the country.
Armed with a smart card bearing a permanent Social Security Number (SSN), just like PAN number, one can walk into one such kiosk and get details within seconds.
The subscriber can also get a print-out of the balance for the last completed month by inserting a coin in the kiosk at pre-decided fee.
It would be a welcome relief for 2.4 crore subscribers nationwide and some 18 lakhs in the state if the plan gets implemented. "Providing smart cards to subscribers is definitely on our agenda and its preliminary work is underway," says regional provident fund commissioner-I, Ahmedabad A K Chandok.
Taking a cue from income-tax department, credit card companies and ATM service of various banks, the EPFO devised the concept of permanent SSN.
Obviously, the SSN allotted to every subscriber would be a unique identification number and would help to achieve the service norm. Unlike in the prevailing system, change of jobs and location will not involve transfer of account from the previous office or employer to the new one.
Regardless of who the employer or where the worker is posted, including the highly mobile migratory construction workers, the individual running ledger account of each worker carrying the social security number will remain constant and accessible to such subscribers from any location or EPF kiosk.
Once the subscriber-oriented information is posted on an IT-enabled system interlinked across the country to EPFO offices the plan would be implemented. "The whole project is being handled by our central office and the system would be operational by 2003," adds Chandok.
While the subscriber could get an easy access to the account through smart card the employers can electronically file monthly returns with employee-wise particulars. The new system would also help to drastically lessen the number of returns to be filed by the employer from present 48 to 12 in a year.
The process of receipt of contributions by employers and confirmation of contributions by banks would be integrated and computerised to eliminate missing credits and delays. In another significant move EPF will also issue a unique business number to every employer under the system to be integrated with the PAN issued by the income-tax department. The step is aimed at developing a regime where businesses and trade use a common business number for economic transactions as followed in the many developed countries.
Computer-assisted system will automatically detect and flag every case of default and delinquency every month and kick in action for recovery of contributions along with the interest and penalty, the plan says.
The completely IT-driven programme will also address the issue of unpaid arrears by employers and help special teams in designated EPF call centres which will chase all delinquent accounts on a day-to -day basis.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
