Bengal to focus on ayurveda |  |
- Bengal to focus on ayurveda
- Running short, Himachal borrows condoms from Punjab
- New ministry to improve access to drinking water, sanitation
- 7 in 1 blow: Scientists discover DNA regions influencing prostate cancer risk
- South East Asian nations meet on reforms to international environmental governance
- Newly discovered molecule essential to resetting 'body clocks'
| Posted: 13 Jul 2011 09:41 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Kolkata, July 12 - The West Bengal government is planning to revive ayurveda both for medical treatment and development of rural areas of the state, lawmakers said Tuesday. '- Mamata Banerjee has asked us to chalk out plans for the revival of ayurveda. She has asked us to explore ayurveda for its education, treatment, uses and economic purpose,' Shashi Panja, member of the state assembly's standing committee on health, told IANS. Legislator Nirmal Majhi, another member of the committee, said: 'The chief minister has asked us to look into different aspects of ayurveda. She has asked us to look into the prospects of constructing an ayurvedic medical college and hospital in Howrah district.' 'We will start work very soon. She has plans of developing the socio-economic conditions of rural Bengal by the cultivation of herbal plants and manufacture of medicines,' he said. Majhi, also the chairman of West Bengal Medicinal Plants Board, said that the state government plans to set up factories, ayurvedic colleges and hospitals using herbal plants in next five years. http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Running short, Himachal borrows condoms from Punjab Posted: 13 Jul 2011 01:19 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Shimla, July 13 - For six months, Himachal Pradesh has had no condom in its stocks meant for free distribution among AIDS high-risk groups and for ensuring birth control. So, it is borrowing some from Punjab for the time being. Officials in the Himachal AIDS Control Society say the state is facing a scarcity of nearly 30 lakh condoms. They said the state has not received its annual share of condoms - usually 35-40 lakh - from the central pool this year. Health Minister Rajeev Bindal said the state has not received its quota from the National AIDS Control Organisation - for the past six months. 'We are in regular touch with NACO for early supply of condoms. But we haven't got any. There is no reason for the supply to be stopped,' Bindal told IANS. 'Since the state is facing a shortage, we have requested Punjab to provide us five lakh condoms from its quota. We will return the borrowed condoms as and when we get the supply from the central pool,' he added. Voluntary organisations said the shortage has badly hit AIDS-control projects in the state. The Himachal AIDS Control Society distributes condoms free through 150 petrol pumps and 50 integrated counselling and testing centres among vulnerable sections of society. It has also tied up with 23 voluntary organisations for condom distribution. The health minister said the consignment of condoms received from Punjab would be disbursed in the state. 'Many people, including truck drivers and even college-going students, are coming daily to ask for condoms. But there has been no stock since January-end,' said a social worker of a prominent voluntary organisation working in Dharamsala slums in Kangra district, requesting anonymity. The state has 5,198 HIV positive people, of whom 1,401 have AIDS. The number of cases is higher in Hamirpur, Mandi and Kangra districts. Bindal said due to awareness campaigns, the HIV-positive infected rate has declined in the state from 2.4 percent in... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New ministry to improve access to drinking water, sanitation Posted: 12 Jul 2011 08:23 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, July 12 - Lagging behind in some of its targets relating to rural drinking water and sanitation, the government Tuesday created a new ministry to improve access of people to potable water and toilets. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday appointed Gurudas Kamat as the Minister of State - of the newly created Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry. However, sources said Kamat was not satisfied with the work assigned to him. He could not be reached for comments. Drinking Water and Sanitation was earlier a department in the Ministry of Rural Development. The creation of new ministry has come in the backdrop of the government falling behind its target to achieve total rural sanitation. Rural Development officials said that rural sanitation coverage was 27.35 percent in 2004 and had gone up to 70.37 percent in 2010-11. They said that though the country had set itself the goal of 100 percent rural coverage by 2012, the target may not be achieved as some states were lagging behind. India's first nationwide programme of rural sanitation, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme - was launched in 1986. Another programme Total Sanitation Campaign - was launched in 1999 with the aim of ending open defacation. Rural drinking water is one of the six components of Bharat Nirman, a major initiative of the government to build rural infrastructure since 2005. The programme aims to cover rural habitations not having drinking water facilities and addressing problems related to water quality such as contamination of arsenic, flouride and iron. There is problem of water availability and quality in country's urban areas also. The Habitation Survey 2003 carried out by states said that the 6.37 lakh habitations in the country had drinking water problems. Non government organisations working in the water and sanitation sectors expressed happiness over government's decision Tuesday to create a new ministry. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| 7 in 1 blow: Scientists discover DNA regions influencing prostate cancer risk Posted: 12 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Doctors have known for a long time that prostate cancer runs in the family. Men with relatives who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer have an elevated risk of also developing this type of cancer. It was only last year that DKFZ scientists calculated that this risk rises with the number of affected direct family members and also depends on the relatives' age at outbreak of the disease (DKFZ Press Release 18/2010). The exact DNA variants that contribute to prostate cancer risk have now been published by an international research consortium with participation of scientists from the German Cancer Research Center. In a multi-stage study, the collaborators systematically searched the whole genome of cancer patients and healthy controls for specific gene variants. Then they calculated whether specific variants are found more often in patients than in healthy people. Professor Dr. Hermann Brenner, one of the DKFZ researchers participating in the consortium, explains: Each of these gene variants taken on its own is associated with only a slight increase in prostate cancer risk by a few percent. However, by taking account of the different variants at the same time it becomes possible to identify groups of persons who have a significantly elevated risk. Examining the genetic material for such risk variants might therefore improve medical consultation on the prevention and early detection of prostate cancer in the future. Such DNA variants are scientifically called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). They are defined as a single variation of a nucleotide which occurs with varying frequency in the whole population. If a relationship in numbers is found between a particular SNP and cancer incidence, researchers conclude that a gene within the affected DNA region plays a role in cancer. The first two study stages conducted by the consortium had already identified 16 SNPs in 16 different DNA regions to be associated with an... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| South East Asian nations meet on reforms to international environmental governance Posted: 12 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amid growing concerns about the inadequacy of today's inter-governmental structures for effective global environmental co-operation, member states of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will convene in Kuala Lumpur July 14-15 to recommend needed reforms. Convened by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the ASEAN Secretariat, Office of the Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Centre for Global Sustainability Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia (CGSS@USM), the deliberations form part of preparations for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, 4-6 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Says Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia: ASEAN countries increasingly recognize that their medium to long-term economic interests will be jeopardized unless environmental protection is linked with economic development. A green economy, however, relies on a functioning governance framework. The international environmental governance framework currently in place no longer serves the interests of governments. Developed over the course of 40 years, since the establishment of UNEP in 1972, the challenges have outgrown the system, says Dr. Zakri. The system in place has evolved piecemeal, with governments responding to individual environmental challenges with a plethora of multilateral environmental agreements, including the Convention on Biodiversity, the Climate Change Convention, conventions dealing with hazardous waste and chemicals, and others. The result is unnecessarily high overhead cost, as each convention maintains its own administrative system, scientific committees and holds meetings separately. Adds Dr. Zakri: Countries mostly affected by environmental change, such as developing countries in Africa and Asia and other small countries with constrained resources, suffer most and become disenfranchised within the system. ... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Newly discovered molecule essential to resetting 'body clocks' Posted: 12 Jul 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Research has shown that light is the key to getting our 'body clocks' back in sync and now a new study exploring the resynchronisation mechanism in insects has discovered a molecule essential to the process. Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London looked at the impact of light on the circadian clocks (commonly known as 'body clocks') of fruit flies. They identified a novel molecule, QUASIMODO (QSM), which was intrinsically involved in relaying light-information to the flies' inner clocks. Ralf Stanewsky, Professor of Neurobiology at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences who led the research, explained: Circadian clocks regulate rhythmic biological processes in many organisms. A famous example is our sleep/wake cycle. It is regulated by our internal clock, which tells us when to go to bed and when to wake up. If you bring your clock out of sync with the external time, for example when you fly from London to New York, your internal clock still sends you to sleep according to London time. This shows that we indeed have a timer in us and that this timer needs to be reset like a normal wrist watch when you move to a different time zone or if you're a shift worker and need to adjust your sleep/wake cycles accordingly. Professor Stanewsky had previously isolated a specialised circadian photoreceptor named CRYPTOCHROME (CRY) which is active directly within the clock neurones of flies' brains. Both insects and mammals use visual photoreceptors [i.e. those responsible for the ability to see] and specialised circadian photoreceptors, to synchronise the inner body clock, he said. In analysing the CRY receptor we realised there must be additional ways how light is transmitted to the circadian clock. When we investigated further we found that the novel molecule QSM is involved. We isolated the quasimodo gene in a genetic screen for novel timing genes, and found that the amount of QSM protein drastically... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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