The Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) witnessed a rare surgery treating the dilation of the blood vessel from the heart. Mani, a 55-year-old farmer who was admitted to the GH a month ago with complaints of difficulties in swallowing, was later diagnosed with thoraco abdominal aortic aneurysm (abnormal dilation of blood vessel).
“This is the first time we have saved a person with the blood vessel bursting, especially when the aorta, which is the major blood vessel, ruptures,” said Dr Kanagasabai, dean, MMC. “Only 50 or 60 patients a year get admitted with complaints of blood vessel enlargement, but this was the most risky surgery so far.”
“It was a matter of seconds to save the life, when the blood starts to pump out at a high pressure after the blood vessel breaks off,” he added. The patient was immediately moved to the operation theatre, after he vomited blood.
A graft, which was 8 inches long, was stitched along the ruptured blood vessel. A team of surgeons from the cardio thoracic surgical and vascular surgical team performed the surgery, which lasted more than six hours.
In a corporate hospital, the medical bill would be around Rs 3 lakh. “ More than 10 units of blood were transfused to the patient,” Dr Raja Venkatesh, HoD, cardio thoracic department, said noting that the patient’s life could not have been saved if he had not been admitted.
BP and cholesterol could also be a risk factor for such a complication, the doctor warned, adding, “but such a disorder could even occur without any risk factors involved and surgery is the only way to save the life.”
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / May 16th, 2013
Workers in action during the task of relocating the house on Mettupalayam Road in Coimbatore | EPS
In a mammoth task, a 400-tonne house with a ground plus one structure, is being lifted and relocated from its original location at Saibaba Koil in Coimbatore. So far, engineers have been able to shift it to a location 35 feet away from the site where the house stood. The structure will be moved further away by five feet.
The house owner A Thangavelu, who wanted to construct a commercial complex at the site where the building was located, faced a dilemma on whether to demolish his ancestral home or to retain it. “We were planning to construct a commercial building on the plot, which is located in one of the prime areas on Mettupalayam Road. However, it required demolishing the house spread over 2400 sq.ft, which was constructed in 1950,” he said.
That’s when a Haryana-based engineering company came to his help, which successfully ‘lifted’ the house in a bid to reinstall it 40 feet away. He has not only saved the money on building a new house, but managed to retain the house where he grew up.
“This would have required a huge investment as the house had to be first demolished and another structure built after getting the approval.
When we heard about the innovative concept of shifting the house by lifting it, we were optimistic of keeping the ancestral house intact by investing about Rs 20 lakh. Building a similar house would have cost nearly Rs 80 lakh,” Thangavelu added.
TDBD Engineering Works Pvt Ltd, involved in lifting and shifting building structures, claims it to be the heaviest building they have shifted anywhere in India.
TDBD Engineering Works Pvt Ltd, involved in lifting and shifting building structures, claims it to be the heaviest building they have shifted anywhere in India. | EPS
“The company has shifted many buildings, where the maximum weight of the building was approximately 150 tonnes. This is first time we moved a house weighing around 400 tonnes. For this purpose, we utilised 300 rollers and 300 jacks,” Gurdeep Singh, chief engineer of the company said at a press conference here.
“A team of 12-15 workers over the past 60 days lifted the house by one-and-a-half feet and moved the house by 35 feet as on Monday,” Singh explained.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service – Coimbatore / May 14th, 2013
The work to establish cable cars for the renowned hill temple of Sri Dhandayuthapani Swamy, Palani, the famous Sri Lakshminarasimha Swamy temple, Sholinghur, and Sri Rathnagireeshwarar temple, Ayyarmalai in Karur, is underway. These projects will be executed by internationally reputed firms soon.
According to sources, cable car projects will facilitate an aerial view of the scenic pilgrim spots besides drawing large number of tourists to the temples. “A cable car was first introduced at the Sri Dhandayuthapani Swamy temple for the benefit of devotees in 2004 by chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. Following appreciation from devotees, it has been decided to provide one more international standard cable car for Palani,” said Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Minister M.S.M. Anandan.
The Palani temple attracts a large number of tourists from across India and the cable car is a major attraction. Though the volume of devotees heading for Sri Lakshminarasimha Swamy temple and Sri Rathnagireeshwarar temple is increasing by the year, the lack of a cable car has been dampening the spirit of the pilgrims. The local residents have been insisting on a cable car to facilitate quicker access to the shrine.
Referring to the issue in the Assembly, recently, Anandan said the government was actively considering the projects and an expert committee has been formed to ensure the project materialises.
According to HR & CE commissioner P. Dhanapal, the government has sought expression of interest from global firms for executing the projects.
“The government will not compromise on the safety of the pilgrims and hence international standards would be followed while executing the cable cars,” he said.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / by J.V. Siva Prasanna Kumar, DC / May 13th, 2013
Every morning, state government employee Aruna Devi dreads changing buses at Adyar depot to get to Chepauk, where her office, Ezhilagam, is located. Being visually challenged, Aruna prefers putting her life on the line and waiting on the road rather than getting on to an uneven pavement and risking a fall.
Adyar depot on LB Road is the main transfer point for thousands of residents of East Coast Road and Thiruvanmiyur like Aruna, who have to reach various parts of the city. People, share autos, autos and buses share space in the congested depot. The pavements are uneven, narrow and have a number of obstacles and breaks.
“When the bus does turn up, we have to rush to get in,” says Devi, treasurer of the State Forum for Rights of Women with Disability. “I can’t risk tripping on the broken pavement or bumping into an electricity box. I prefer waiting on the road,” she says.
Taking into account complaints from the disabled and other residents, the corporation has started laying disabled-friendly pavements. “The new pavements are designed by architects taking into account different needs of commuters and the road’s length and width,” said mayor Saidai Duraisamy . “Disabled people can get on and off the pavements using slopes. They will be 1.8m to 4m wide to allow a wheelchair,” he said.
The pavements, built of granite, will not have barriers. “I have asked them to move all barriers like streetlights, transformers and junction boxes to a lane parallel to the foot path,” said Duraisamy.
The pavements, which have been designed for 71 bus route roads, will be even and of uniform width. “They will extend evenly from the beginning to the end of the road,” said a corporation official. “They will not be more than six inches high, making it easy for old people to get on and off,” said the official.
For a city with 448 bus route roads, which run for 353km, and more than 8,000km of interior roads, pavement lengths are dismal. “A bus route road needs to have uninterrupted footpaths on both sides,” says Raj Cherubal of Chennai City Connect. Bus route roads such as Nungambakkam High Road have tea shops on pavements. MG Road in Besant Nagar does not have a pavement on one side.
In response to an Right to Information Act application filed by nonprofit organization Transparent Chennai last year, the corporation said only 829km of the 2,149km of roads in the city have pavements. This was based on the data collected from the erstwhile 10 zones.
The corporation laid new pavements with anti-skid tiles on Santhome High Road, Kamaraj Avenue, C P Ramaswamy Road, Wallajah Road and TTK Road. However, they are too narrow for two people to walk side by side and have been dug up often for civic work.
Experts say cities like Singapore and London have pavements on either side of interior roads. Every inch of road space however narrow needs to have space for people to walk.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Pratiksha Ramkumar, TNN / May 03rd, 2013
The Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), Adyar, founded on April 24, 1948 and the world’s largest leather research institute, celebrated its 66th foundation day here on Thursday. The foundation day events were marked by the participation of industry, universities and R&D institutions. “The Institute has over the years grown in stature and played a pivotal role in the cause of the leather sector on a global platform. The recent success in executing consultancy projects for the benefit of the Ethiopian leather sector is an example in this regard,” said A B Mandal, director, CSIR-CLRI.
“It has been a year of accomplishments for the Institute, especially in reaching industrial beneficiaries with appropriate technological intervention,” he pointed out. “There has not only been an extension of outreach on the international platform but has also been further reinforced, thereby sharing technical capabilities as well as expertise with the global leather sector.”
Delivering the CLRI foundation day lecture on ‘Innovation: An important tool in science’, D Balasubramanian, former director of CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and current director of research of L V Prasad Eye Institute, both in Hyderabad, stressed the need for technological innovation in every sector to usher in development and progress.
In a conscious effort to motivate researchers to protect intellectual properties, the Institute honoured staff members whose patent applications had been filed during 2012-13 with a ‘Certificate of Appreciation.’
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service – Chennai / April 27th, 2013
Touching Lives: Run by the students of M.O.P Vaishnav College for Women, M.O.P FM accords priority to issues affecting underprivileged women. / Special Arrangement / The Hindu
FM radio stations at three colleges spread hope, cheer and awareness in neighbourhoods across the city. Vasudha Venugopal tunes in
A few years ago, many city colleges were swept up on a wave of enthusiasm for community radio. While most of these campus initiatives flickered weakly and sputtered out, three are still burning bright. The students-run FM radio stations at Anna University, Loyola College and M.O.P. College have grown into thriving centres of education and entertainment for the neighbourhoods they were targeted at.
M.O.P FM
Run by the students of M.O.P Vaishnav College for Women, this community radio gives priority to issues plaguing underprivileged women. Women in the slums around the M.O.P. campus constitute its major target group. The radio station, launched in 2005, also deals with health care, entrepreneurship and related issues.
There are programmes that specifically target women domestic helpers and their children.
“These women are often unaware of the care they should take during pregnancy. It was only after one of the doctors in our shows asked a listener not to miss her regular scans that she went for a long-pending scan. Fortunately, she discovered she was going to have twins then,” said a volunteer.
Volunteers take the trouble to get off air and connect with these women in a more real manner.
“Our primary focus is to encourage these women into entrepreneurial roles,” said a student. So, while these women are trained over the radio in vocations such as beauty care, money management, catering and fashion designing by experts, they are engaged in interaction with college principal Nirmala Prasad in an attempt at helping them.
Interviewing achievers from the community is another key area. Said a student serving at M.O.P FM, “We interviewed this girl when she topped her school in Class X exams. Her parents were pavement dwellers. She came back for an interview when she again topped her school, this time in Class XII exams. Now she studies with us, in our college.”
LOYOLA FM
This community radio, started by the students of Loyola College in 2005, has 20 programmes designed to serve 23 slums in Nungambakkam and Chetpet. The effort to reach out to these slum residents in this manner has brought the issues plaguing them into sharper focus.
“Every student in Loyola has to spend at least 120 hours every year in social service activities, and the radio station enables them to reach people they have to assist,” says Rex Babu Jaysingh, project manager at Loyola FM.
Loyola FM is also a big-hearted promoter of efforts at creativity. It lends its air waves to music created by student bands.
ANNA FM
After grueling work involving three houses, domestic help Shanthi settles down to listen to Magalir Neram every day on Anna FM. This 32-year-old mother of two does not stop with lapping up advice from doctors and experts drawn from a variety of fields. She sometimes dons the cap of an active participant, sending in recipes or getting involved in other ways.
“We started with the women in the slums of Kannigapuram. With a view to making them feel comfortable, we encouraged participant only from women,” said Christie, who manages the station. A graduate of electronic media, Christie got in on the ground floor. From 2004, when Anna FM was launched, she has seen this community radio touch numerous lives. “For a short period, I worked with other organizations. I came back to Anna FM when I realized nothing else I do could be more fulfilling.” The possibility of sustained engagement with neighbourhoods appealed to Christie and eventually brought her back to the world of community radio. Christie says the reward of community radio is two-fold. “There is so much to learn from people. And there is so much more to give back to people.”
Anna FM is on air for nearly 11 hours a day and seeks to engage women from subaltern sections. Social awareness programmes are a hallmark of this station. And interestingly, the listeners are sometimes roped in as resource persons. As part of orientation drives, people in surrounding neighbourhoods are taken on a tour of the station. They are encouraged to go on air, after which they are allotted slots. In an effort to involve the community, radio sets have been distributed to people in nearby slum.
“Our programmes are largely related to health, hygiene, education, setting up an enterprise, developing new skills and yoga. Almost everything geared to developing people into better and happier citizens,” said Christie. “True empowerment is possible only when you impart skills to the community and let them take charge of their lives.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Vasudha Venugopal / Chennai, April 29th, 2013
Innovative: Ramanathan in his sugarcane nursery. / Photo: L. Balachandar / The Hindu
Sugarcane nursery boasts low overheads and high yield
P. Ramanathan, a 42-year-old farmer, sits beside a heap of seed sugarcane in his coconut grove, chipping buds from the cane stalks.
The farmer from Akramesi, a remote village near Pandiyur in Nainarkoil block, is all smiles. He is the first farmer in the district to raise a single bud chip sugarcane nursery, a cost-effective alternative to conventional cultivation.
Optimistic
It has been just two months since he started raising the nursery with the help of Sakthi Sugars, a private sugar mill, but Mr. Ramanathan is optimistic. The single bud sugarcane growing system is gaining popularity among the farmers as a low-cost option.
In the conventional system of sugarcane cultivation, four tonnes of seed cane are cut into pieces with two to three buds and the stalks planted in the furrows. This has posed problems for the farmers in transporting, handling and storing of the seed sugarcane.
In the process, the seed sugarcane undergoes rapid deterioration, reducing the viability of the buds and sprouts. To overcome the snags, reduce the overheads and increase the yield, the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI), inspired by the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), had been developed and is fast catching on in Dharmapuri and Erode districts, B. Ilangovan, Deputy Director, Horticulture said.
Shade net house
Mr. Ramanathan is raising the nursery in a shade net house, with a capacity to grow three tonnes of seed sugarcane, and with two hand lever machines for chipping buds provided free of cost by Sakthi Sugars.
“From one tonne of seed sugarcane, we can chip 80,000 buds, which means we can raise as many seedlings in the nursery,” the farmer points out. If he bought one tonne of seed sugarcane for Rs.2,400, he would spend another Rs.2,000 to chip the buds, soak them in a solution of calcium chloride, urea and a fungicide before placing them in trays for sprouting.
Still, he makes a profit of nearly Rs.4,000 per tonne, selling the seedlings each at Rs.1.30 and reselling the budless sugarcane for crushing. After soaking for 10 minutes, the buds are covered in a wet gunny bag and kept indoors for five days before they are placed in sprouting trays filled with manure and stored in the shade net house for the next 15 days.
After sprouting, the seedlings are exposed to sunlight for another 10 days before being removed for planting, he said. He started raising the nursery two months ago, and has already sold 30,000 seedlings. Currently, he has an order for supplying 1.5 lakh seedlings. In 40 days, he expects to chip buds from seven tonnes of sugarcane and raise 5.6 lakh seedlings. This could increase manifold, if he uses an electric powered machine.
Gets a boost
Mr. Ramanathan got a boost recently when Collector K. Nanthakumar, along with a retinue of officials, visited his nursery and was all praise for his venture. Under the system, 100 per cent germination is assured, Mr. Ilangovan assures sugarcane farmers. He said the incidence of pest attack and disease was also reduced significantly.
The National Agriculture Mission helps farmers set up shade net houses and provides a subsidy of Rs.600 per square metre. For wooden shade net houses, the subsidy is Rs.410 per square metre. Nurseries for tomato and chilli could also be raised in shade net houses. At the moment, there are few takers among the local farming community. But with Mr. Ramanathan blazing a new trail, hopefully innovative methods of farming will be the wave of the future.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Tamil Nadu / by D.J> Walter Scott / Ramanathapuram – April 30th, 2013
Visitors at the Maurice Lev & Saroja Bharati Cardiac Museum at Frontier Mediville at Gummidipoondi on Saturday. / Photo: V. Ganesan / The Hindu
In the vast room guarded by a solid ornate wooden door are about 8,000 hearts. None of them beat. Jostling against the translucent fluid in glass jars, the hearts sit, in all sizes, shapes, colours, and stages of disease. Welcome to the Maurice Lev and Saroja Bharati Cardiac Museum at Frontier Mediville in Gummidipoondi, about 50 km from the city.
The museum has not only hearts – most of them human, with some animal specimens – but also heart components. “If we put every specimen we have in a jar of formalin, we’ll need 10,000 containers,” says K.M.Cherian, chairman and CEO, Frontier Lifeline Hospital and Frontier Mediville. “It is the largest collection of cardiac pathology hearts anywhere in the country, possibly even the world,” he claims.
Pathology is the branch of medicine that studies the altered anatomy of an organ. A surgeon corrects the structure or functionality of an organ, and so, unless he or she gets the pathology and biochemistry right, he or she is likely to be just a person with a scalpel.
The museum gets its name from the primary contributors to the heart section, Maurice Lev and Saroja Bharati, from the Maurice Lev Congenital Heart and Conduction Systems Centre, Chicago. It cost about $1,00,000 to ship the specimens, and a further $1.5 million in insurance, Dr. Cherian says.
“I had not even imagined that these hearts we collected since the 1970s would be in India one day. But, here they are,” Dr. Bharati explains. “Every heart is different. When you look under the microscope, even the hearts of identical twins are not identical.” As someone who has written the pathology reports of over 9,000 hearts, she should know.
In the museum, inaugurated by Governor K.Rosaiah on Saturday, are hearts at various stages of disease, and repair, diaphanous valves which put you in awe of a cardiac surgeon’s skills, pacemaker probes nesting in hearts split wide open.
“This has been my dream. I visited Prof. Lev and Bharati in Chicago when they were just setting up the museum to spend months studying the anatomy of the heart,” he explains, giving us a personal guided-tour of the museum on its inaugural day. “I want students to benefit from this wealth of information, completely free of cost. Some professors of pathology from other countries have also expressed interest in visiting the museum.” And what is the favourite specimen in the hall? Dr. Cherian doesn’t bat an eyelid, “Mine.” It probably is happiest ticking in the good doctor’s chest cavity at the moment, but is it to be available for display sometime in the future? “For sure!” he says, “I don’t believe either in burying or burning the body.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Ramya Kannan / Tiruvallur – April 28th, 2013
The district administration has taken measures to provide electricity and water connection to the tribal villagers in Melvalasai, Kezhilvasai and Akkarapatti.
The administration had also directed the village panchayat to constitute the Forest Rights Committee, to speed up the process of making these basic amenities available to the villagers. District Collector Dr Vijay Pingale, who visited the tribal villages on Wednesday, by walking nearly 8 kms on the steep Kalvaranyan hills, told Express,“We are taking steps to provide electricity to the tribal villages within a month. Power now is available in Kodaram, two-kms from the villages, in Villupuram district.”
After electricity connections are provided, the villagers would get drinking water too. “We will also make efforts to repair the solar lighting facility, which had not been functioning for the last two years,” he said. Further, Pingale said, “We are also planning to bring the tribals to the plains, if they are interested in accepting the house pattas and agriculture lands on the foothills.”
The village panchayat has been directed to form the Forest Rights Committee, comprising two-thirds of women, to avail the basic amenities.
“The committee is entitled to pass a resolution to avail 13 basic needs such as establishing ration shops, formation of roads, health centres and creating water sources,” District Forest Officer, Tiruvannamalai (South), V Naganathan said.
“We have asked the tribals to pass a resolution seeking drinking water and electricity facilities after forming the Committee. It will be taken into consideration and suitable action will be taken to fulfil their demands,” the Collector added.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by J. Shanmugha Sundaram / ENS – Tiruvannamalai / April 19th, 2013
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) on Friday entered into a MOU with Bio Control Research Lab (BCRL), the R and D division of Pest Control of India, for a cooperative work in the field of biological control of crop pests and diseases.
BCRL, as part of this Public-priavate Partnership, will help in accomodating TNAU UG students for internships and PG Students to do part aof their research in their lab on topics like Pheromone technology and urban pest management in both education and research, a university release said here.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Education / by PTI / April 27th, 2013
