World Breastfeeding Week - 1 to 7 August 2011

With a goal to boost the health of infants worldwide and encourage mothers to breastfeed, nearly 120 countries around the world celebrate World Breastfeeding Week from 1-7 August every year.

Breastfeeding is the best way to provide newborns with the nutrients they need. World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding until a baby is six months old, and continued breastfeeding with the addition of nutritious complementary foods for up to two years or beyond.

“Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare, especially when it can be avoided. Why let this happen when you can protect the health of your child simply by breastfeeding him or her?” asked Dr RK Agarwal, a paediatrician.

The World Health Organisation declared the first week of August as World Breastfeeding Week in a bid to ensure that children are not denied of the right to live simply because of lack of awareness on the part of the care takers.

Breastfeeding is known to reduce deaths among children aged below 5 by 13%.

According to statistics, out of 27 million babies born in India each year, close to 1.2 million babies do not get past the first one month. This is due to poor neonatal care and malnutrition which are the main reasons for infant mortality in India.

One million infant lives can be saved by just breast feeding in the 1st Hour following the birth of the child. If mothers and families comprehend the benefits of breast feeding for six months, it can save the lives of 250,000 babies annually.

Trojan asteroid detected in the Earth's orbit

Unraveling of the wonders in outer space continues with the latest discovery of an asteroid that is expected to keep company with earth, for several hundred years.

A team of Canadian scientists have discovered a "Trojan" asteroid that is caught in a synchronized orbit with the Earth.

Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet, locked in stable orbits by a gravitational balancing act between a planet and the Sun. Neptune, Mars and Jupiter are known to have Trojans.

Two of Saturn’s moons share orbits with Trojans. Scientists had predicted Earth should also have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because the Trojans are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth’s point of view.

This diminutive asteroid has a diameter of just 300 metres but is called a Trojan because of its particular position in a stable spot — either in front of a planet or behind it. Because the asteroid and planet are constantly on the same orbit, they can never collide.

Currently, it is about 50 million miles away, and should come no closer than about 18 million miles.

WHO report - India named world's most depressed nation

According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization, India has the highest rate of major depression in the world.

The World Health Organization has released the findings of a survey that reveals India has the largest number of people who suffer from depression at some point in their lives.

The study, ‘Cross-national epidemiology of DSM-IV major depressive episode,’ based on interviews of nearly 90,000 subjects across 18 countries with different income levels, was published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Medicine by Biomed Central.

The US, China, Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine and Spain, Germany, Lebanon, Mexico, and South Africa were included in the study.

Major Depressive Episode (MDE) is characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy and poor concentration, besides feeling depressed.

Lowest prevalence of MDE was in China (12%). The average age of depression in India is 31.9 years compared to 18.8 years in China, and 22.7 years in the US.

Test on newborn babies believed to help predict teen trouble

The health test conducted on babies minutes after they are born may help detect whether a child will have trouble in school as a teenager, a new study has claimed.

The study appears in the August issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Babies who get low scores on a test of heart, lung and brain function given just a few minutes after birth may be more likely to need special education as teenagers, suggests this new study from Sweden.

Researchers looked at 877,000 Swedish children and compared their school grades and graduation rates when they were teenagers with their Apgar scores and post-birth health. The Apgar test is a 10-point scale, and much research has shown that it reliably predicts how much medical care a newborn will need.

The researchers found that there is a relationship between having an Apgar score below 7 and having cognitive deficits later in life. They say better understanding the relationship may provide insights into what early problems might cause those deficits.

The Apgar system has been used in the delivery room since it was devised by American Dr Virginia Apgar in 1952.

The test is commonly used as a basis for looking at the long-term implications of a baby's health.

This is largest ever study to look at the link between cognitive ability in teenagers and the Apgar test.

Dadar Blast -- Amateur cellphone video

This video captures the first few seconds after a bomb exploded at Dadar on Wednesday (13-July-2011) evening.



Three explosions have killed 21 people and injured 113, in the biggest attack on the city since the 2008 assault.

Dilson murder case: Retired Army officer detained in Chennai

The CB-CID investigation into the killing of the 13 year old boy Dilshan inside an army residential complex in Chennai on July 3 was cracked in exactly a week's time.

A 50-year-old retired army officer was arrested on Sunday (10-July-2011) for the crime after he confessed that he was irritated by the boy's trespassing, police said.

After the retired Lieutenant Colonel confessed today to killing the 13-year-old inside an Army residential compound in Chennai, the Crime Branch of the Criminal Investigating Department (CB-CID) of the Tamil Nadu Police has said they will now seek capital punishment for the ex-Army man.

The retired Lt Colonel, Kandasamy Ramaraj, has been remanded to 15 days judicial custody, after he was produced in a court this evening.

"We are happy with the arrest of Ramaraj. Ramaraj should be given punishment the way my son has died. He should feel the same pain as my son did. There is nothing to blame anyone, entire nation has struggled for my son, including the police department, press and television media, lawyers, doctors, college students and chief minister Jayalalithaa," Dilshan's mother Kalaivani said.

"I want to thank everyone including political parties who have struggled to bring justice for my son," she added.

CB-CID chief Mr R Sekhar said that though initially police came to know there were only three children at the time of incident it later came to light that there was a fourth boy who informed them about a senior Army man who tried to erase the evidence.

With the help of fourth boy, police could zero in on Ramraj who initially refused to admit that he owned a licensed weapon but later confessed that he had applied for renewal of license with the suburban police, he said.

Dilshan, a Chennai teenager, was killed by a bullet while picking almonds, with his friends, inside the Island Grounds Army Residential complex in Chennai.

After having narrowed down the list of suspects to just two, a serving officer and Ramaraj, the police conducted intensive interrogation. Confronted with discrepancies in his version of the events, Ramaraj, the police said, confessed to having killed the boy and thrown the weapon in the Cooum river near the Napier bridge. After intensive searches, the police recovered the 0.3 mm rifle.

“It is an imported and licensed weapon. Enquiries revealed that the retired Army officer opened fire using the rifle on Dilson after he was seen throwing stones on a tree…he lives in a residential block located close to the scene of firing,” a senior police official said. Ramaraj had retired in April 2011 from the Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Dilshan shooting in Chennai - Army officials questioned by CBCID

The CB-CID on Tuesday (05-July-2011) began questioning military personnel and civilians on the shooting down of 13-year-old K Dilshan at the Army Cantonment in Chennai on July 3.

The Army has said that it is providing full assistance to the local police that is conducting an investigation into the Dilshan shooting case.

Forty-eight hours after Dilshan, 13, died of a gunshot injury inside the army premises in Chennai, a lieutenant-colonel is in the dock.

The boy was shot at in the head on Sunday after he trespassed into the army officer’s enclave. At night he died of his injuries. While the police had ruled out any civilian role in the shooting, the army had maintained that its men were not involved.

Police sources have told media that an initial probe suggests that the shot was fired from a high-velocity weapon indicating the use of a rifle just like one that the Lt Colonel possesses. The police also say that soon after the crime took place, they cordoned the entire area, but the weapon was not found in the premises indicating that the suspect had shifted it to an armory in the vicinity. The movement of the Lt Colonel's vehicle also suggests, sources say, that he had gone out of the place and come back again.

Signals from the mobile tower also confirm the officer's presence at the scene of the crime, sources say, though he denied he was present when questioned. The police sources say all these factors along with some statements being found to be untrue are now adding up to make the Lt Colonel a key suspect.

The Army has reportedly given three names to the investigators, and asked the personnel to cooperate with the probe.

However, identification of the assailant may not be easy as the key witness may not have actually seen the perpetrator of the crime.

Dilshan's mother Kalaivani, a resident of Indira Nagar Colony near the Army enclave, on Tuesday told reporters that the man who killed her son should meet the same end. "He should not be put in prison, but shot like he shot my son," a distraught Kalaivani said.

Indian sailors come home after 10 months of captivity by Somali pirates

After nearly 10 months in captivity, six Indian sailors of MV Suez, owned by an Egyptian company, came home. The cargo ship had been hijacked by Somali pirates in August last year.

The joyful men freed after 11 months saw their return home Friday as a rebirth.

"The pirates would get drunk and beat us. They would use anything they could get their hands on to beat us. We were sure they would kill us," N.K. Sharma, one of the sailors, told reporters.

Tortured by a group of drunk pirates and starved for days together, freedom seemed distant for the six Indian sailors on board MV Suez, who had almost given up hope of meeting their families.

And when freedom dawned upon them after ten months in captivity of Somali pirates, they could not believe their nightmare was over and were going to be reunited with family and friends.

The 22-member crew of Egyptian merchant vessel MV Suez, which included 11 Egyptians, four Pakistanis, six Indians and one Sri Lankan, was taken captive after Somalian pirates attacked them last year. The sailors were freed after Pakistan human rights activist Ansar Burney raised money for their ransom after successfully negotiating their release.

Google can now translate more Indian languages

Internet search engine giant Google on Tuesday (22-June-2011) announced the expansion of its translation services to include five more Indian languages -- Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu -- thus increasing its reach to a potential half a million population.

With the inclusion of new languages, the total number of languages supported by Google Translate has risen to 63. Google says these languages are presently in experimental phase, noting that Indian languages are pretty different from English language. It also highlights that the new languages supported by its online translation service are spoken by over 500 million people in India and Bangladesh.

According to Google research scientist Ashish Venugopal, Indian languages often use the Subject Object Verb (SOV) ordering to form sentences, unlike English, which uses Subject Verb Object (SVO) ordering.

"This difference in sentence structure makes it harder to produce fluent translations; the more words that need to be reordered, the more chance there is to make mistakes when moving them. Tamil, Telugu and Kannada are also highly agglutinative, meaning a single word often includes affixes that represent additional meaning, like tense or number," Venugopal says.

Parents play role in teens drinking

A new report has suggested that parents having a regular gin and tonic or bottle of wine in the home are more likely to see their children becoming binge drinkers.

Children who see their parents drunk are twice as likely to regularly get drunk themselves, a survey of young teenagers has suggested.

A new 91 page report released this week by The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, United Kingdom delves deeper into this issue.

Youths who are left unsupervised are also more likely to drink, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report found.

Researchers for Ipsos Mori questioned 5,700 teenagers in England and found one in four 13- to 14-year-olds had been drunk more than once, compared to just over half of children (52 per cent) aged 15 to 16.

The most common age for a first drink was 12 to 13 and this was usually within the setting of a special occasion and in the company of an adult.

The survey found that in Year 9, students were drinking mainly alcopops, beer or lager. By Year 11, they were also drinking spirits or liqueurs.

Explosive found and defused, 1000 train passengers saved in Assam

A train carrying around 1,000 passengers had a miraculous escape Friday (17-June-2011) with security forces detecting a powerful bomb found inside the train at the Guwahati railway station in Assam, police said.

After the arrival of Kanchenjunga Express at the Guwahati railway station, 4 kg of explosive and detonators were recovered by police during routine search.

According to reports, the explosive device was recovered from an air bag from seat number 22 of S5 coach at around 5.30 a.m.

The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was recovered at around 5.30 am. Then, the police called in the bomb squad which defused the explosive device.

They said after the bomb was found, all 1100 passengers inside the train were deboarded. “The train was checked thoroughly,” the sources said.

Preliminary investigations revealed the bag containing the bomb could have been left inside the coach sometime during the night in the Assam sector.

"We don't know who could be behind the act, but definitely some militant group from Assam who are opposed to the peace talks might have been behind this," a senior police officer said.

Sadhu dies fasting to save Ganga

Even as yoga guru Baba Ramdev vacated the hospital bed on Tuesday and went straight to address media persons, not many realised that another ascetic, who had been admitted to the same hospital, had lost his life after fasting for 114 days.

Swami Nigamananda, the 34-year-old swami died at the same hospital where Ramdev was being treated until his discharge on Tuesday.

Nigamanand had begun his fast on February 19 and was in coma since May 2.

On April 30, the district administration forcibly shifted Nigamanand - a seer at the Matri Sadan Ashram - to the Haridwar District Hospital as his condition started to deteriorate.

But even then, he refused to touch food. On May 2, he entered into a coma. He was then shifted to Dehradun's Himalayan Hospital and put on life support.

After four months of fasting for saving river Ganga, Swami Nigamananda Saraswati died on Monday (13-June-2011) at the Jolly Grant Himalayan Institute Hospital, Dehradun.

R Meenakshisundaram, district magistrate of Haridwar reported that a postmortem of Swami Nigamanand would be conducted in view of the complaints of poisoning to him by his fellow sadhus of the ashram.

When Nigamanand's body was taken from the hospital mortuary on Tuesday morning, there were no ministers, no politicians and hardly any sadhus to accompany him in his final journey.

Sketch of the man who shot J Dey

Mumbai police have released the sketch of the man suspected to have shot dead investigative journalist J Dey (who worked for newspaper Mid-Day) in Mumbai on Saturday (11-June-2011).

The police said the sketch was made based on eyewitness accounts. "We have definite leads in the case," Mumbai police chief Arup Patnaik said.

Counted among the handful of journalists with extensive information networks within the underworld, crime journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, familiarly known as J Dey, established himself among reporters on the working of the Mumbai gangsters.

He wrote two books on the subject, Zero Dial: The Dangerous World of Informers in 2010 and earlier Khallas.

Dey, who was 56, received five bullet injuries on Saturday and then was rushed to Hiranandani Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The alleged killer, whose sketch was released, is in the age group of 20 to 25 years and of medium built, with a height of 5.5 feet. His complexion is black and was wearing a blue raincoat at the time of the incident, police said.

SC adjourns Kanimozhi bail plea

The Supreme Court of India on Monday (13-June-2011) adjourned DMK MP Kanimozhi's bai plea till June 30 in 2G spectrum scam case.

Kanimozhi's application for bail was rejected last Wednesday (08-June-2011) by the Delhi High Court. She then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Terming corruption as the worst form of "human rights violation", the apex court asked the CBI to estimate loss accrued to the exchequer on account of licences issued to telecom operators during the tenure of A Raja as Telecom minister.

A vacation Bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar issued a notice to the CBI, asking it to file its response on the bail pleas in a week. The court granted a week's time to the CBI to file its response.

Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar, named as accused in the second charge sheet for allegedly taking bribe of Rs 200 crore, were arrested on May 20 after the special court dismissed their bail pleas in the case.

Both Kanimozhi and Kumar have 20% each in Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd, which allegedly received Rs. 200 crore through a "circuitous" route from Shahid Balwa promoted DB Realty.

Kanimozhi's lawyers have argued that she was not an active participant in the company's management. She has also said that the money under scrutiny was a loan that was returned with interest. The CBI has rejected this explanation.

Lunar eclipse on June 15 to be visible in India

One of the longest total lunar eclipses will occur on the night of June 15 2011 (Wednesday) and be visible everywhere in India.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth's shadow falls on the moon.

This can only happen on a full moon night when the sun is on one side of the earth and the moon on the opposite side. If these three celestial bodies get aligned in straight line on a single plane, a lunar eclipse occurs.

The sunlight when blocked by the earth will not fall on a full moon, leading to to a lunar eclipse. What will make this particular eclipse appear more sinister and spooky is the intensity of shadow that will be cast on the moon.

Weather permitting, India and certain other parts of the globe will be witnessing the longest total lunar eclipse in more than a decade on the night of June 15. It starts at 12.52 a.m. and will last nearly 100 minutes.

Some scientists are christening it the 'Darkest eclipse of the century'.

The special nature of this eclipse is that as the moon will be passing through almost the central part of the earth's shadow, it will become darker compared to other eclipses, Debiprosad Duari, Director, Research and Academics, M.P. Birla Planetarium, said here on Sunday.

The eclipse will be best visible, almost near the zenith, from everywhere in India. The event will also be seen from the eastern half of Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and west Australia.

Observers throughout Europe will miss the early stages of the eclipse because it will occur before moonrise.

Calcuttans will witness the first total lunar eclipse of the year on the night of June 15. It will also be one of the longest and darkest lunar eclipses in recent times.

The earth will start casting its shadow on the moon around 11.50pm. The total eclipse will begin at 12.52am and last till 2.32am. The partial eclipse will end around 3.50am on June 16.

At 100 minutes, the total eclipse will last longer than the average lunar eclipse.

The next total lunar eclipse, to be visible from India, will be on December 10, 2011. It will last only 25 minutes.

After the December 10 eclipse, the city of Calcutta will next see a total lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018.

J Dey was shot from close range, Postmortem reports say

The postmortem report of senior crime reporter Jyotirmay Dey, who was murdered in broad day light on Saturday (11-June-2011), indicates that he was shot from close range. He was working for Mumbai newspaper Mid-Day.

The report also shows that five bullets hit him, of which, four hit him in the left chest and one was lodged under the right shoulder.

While speculation is rife that it was the work of the underworld, the police for now say that it was the work of professionals.

“We are probing the incident from all angles. But our line of investigation is going towards checking the possible involvement of people associated with the oil mafia. The journalist had extensively written a number of news reports on the oil mafia, which may have triggered them to eliminate him,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity,

Dey had extensively covered crime and underworld over two decades.

Mid Day crime reporter shot dead in Mumbai

A senior investigative journalist working with MiD DAY was today shot dead in broad daylight by unidentified persons in Mumbai. The victim, Jyotirmoy Dey, was rushed to the Hiranandani hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Police say four assailants gunned down the investigative journalist and then escaped on motorcycles in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai.

Maharashtra home minister RR Patil on Saturday (11-June-2011) said the government has taken the killing of senior journalist J Dey 'very seriously' and senior police officials have been asked to immediately nab the culprits.

Asked if the killing could be linked to elements from the underworld or the oil mafia, Mr. Bhujbal, a former Home Minister, said, "Dey was a very honest person. He used to write on underworld. He was not targeting anyone in particular, whether any gang or any (oil) mafia."

Mid-Day Editor Sachin Kalbag said the killing of Dey was a tremendous loss to the newspaper. Mr. Kalbag said Dey was called a 'guru' by budding crime reporters for his expertise in investigative reporting. He said it was too early to ascertain the motive behind the killing.

Fake Anti-Virus Imitates Microsoft Update

Sophos, the IT security and data protection firm, has released a new warning regarding a fake anti-virus attack. The specialty of this is that it masquerades as Microsoft's security update and tricks the user into installing malicious software.

According to Sophos, criminals are looking for increasingly convincible ways to persuade consumers to download fake antivirus and copying Microsoft's own security seems to be their latest trap.

"We are seeing the criminals behind fake antivirus continuing to customise their social engineering attacks to be more believable to users and presumably more successful," said Chester Wisniewski on the Sophos blog.

"This week they've started to imitate Microsoft Update." According to Sophos, the drive-by page is an exact replica of the real Microsoft Update page, but only appears on Firefox.

"It only comes up when surfing from Firefox on Windows," said Wisniewski. "The real Microsoft Update requires Internet Explorer."

The use of high quality graphics and professional interfaces means more users are likely to fall for the scam, says Sophos.

"Users need to be more vigilant than ever before, as bogus security alerts pop-up in their browsers," says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

Just like visiting one's bank one should only trust security alerts in the browser if one initiated a check with Microsoft, Adobe, Sophos or any other vendor for updates to their software.

Fake anti-virus attacks are big business for cybercriminals and they are investing time and effort into making them as convincing as possible, Graham Cluley says.

2G scam: Kanimozhi moves Supreme Court for bail

Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) lawmaker Kanimozhi on Friday (10-June-2011) moved the Supreme Court for her bail in the 2G spectrum scam, even as party patriarch Karunanidhi called a top-brass meeting of the party to review its alliance with the Congress at the Centre.

"We have filed a Special Leave Petition on behalf of both Kanimozhi and Kumar challenging the High Court order," senior advocate V G Pargasm said.

The Delhi High Court had denied her bail on Wednesday in the 2G spectrum scam; she is lodged in the Tihar Jail. The CBI has charged Kanimozhi with accepting Rs 214 crore as bribe along with former telecom minister A Raja who was arrested in February and is in Tihar Jail. Sharad Kumar co-owns a TV channel with Kanimozhi in Chennai.

DMK chief Karunanidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal, who has been left out of the list of accused, owns the remaining 60 per cent shares in the Tamil television channel - Kalaignar TV.

Too much coffee may lead to hallucinations

Coffee may benefit health in some ways, but beware. Drinking too many cups of coffee could bring on hallucinations.

Stressed people who consume five cups of coffee per day to deal with stress can exhibit signs of hallucination, according to a La Trobe University study.

The new study conducted by researchers from La Trobe University in Melbourne suggests that drinking over five cups of coffee a day could lead to hallucinations.

Hallucinations are false perceptions that an individual has that do not exist. For example, a person may hear, see or smell things that are not there.

In an experiment, volunteers who had consumed 'high levels' of caffeine thought they were listening to Bing Crosby singing White Christmas even though the song was not being played.

The researchers described caffeine as 'the most commonly used psychoactive drug'.

The team from the university's School of Psychological Sciences found that five cups of coffee a day was enough to trigger this.

Prof Simon Crowe from the School of Psychological Sciences, who examined the effect of stress and caffeine on 92 participants, found stressed people who had consumed about 200mg of caffeine during the day were more likely to imagine hearing things.

In an office environment, a caffeinated worker would be on edge and not correctly interpret situations, says Crowe.

Professor Crowe added: "Caution needs to be exercised with the use of this overtly 'safe' drug."