International Tiger Day 2016

Data say that the number of tigers the world have now, is the lowest of all time. The bright side of the study is that India is now home to half of the tiger population now and comprises 1706 tigers in its jungles. The total number of tigers now barely reaches 4000, which used to be 10,000 a century ago without reservation, roaming free in the wild, data released by World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature.

During the last century, the world has seen slaughtering, poaching, killing and the circumstances of weather and lifestyle changes into them, eliminating 97 percent of tigers. Also, between 2000 and 2014, authorities seized around 1590 parts of tigers across Asia, killed for several reasons, including medicinal purposes.

Reports are that among the nine species of tigers only six exist now. The extinct three species are, Bali Tigers, Caspian Tigers and Javan Tigers. The remaining species- Siberian Tigers, Bengal tigers, Indochinese tigers, Malayan tigers, Sumatran tigers, South China tigers are struggling hard to live.  

The Bengal tigers’ population is largest in the Sunderbans, the huge mangrove jungle, recently victim to several natural circumstances, leading trouble to the tigers too. Human interference is coupled with natural calamities, as both of the species are dependent on the jungle for their food and livelihood. According to WWF, the daily conflict, could result into extinction and wipe all the tigers in the next five years.

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In 2010, July 29 was first celebrated as the International Tiger Day in an international summit. The aim was to bring back the attention that the world is not left with much of the members of the species. The objective was set of this day to ‘protect and expand’ tigers with organizations like WWF, IFAW and Smithsonian Institute join hands to raise awareness.

On the International Tiger Day, conservationists urged tourists across the world not to click selfie with the captivated animals. Thailand's Tiger Temple has seen the maximum obsession of it, which was recently closed after ‘authorities found 40 dead tiger cubs in a freezer on-site.’

Organizations across the world have shared inspiring quotes and slogans, arranged awareness programs and body painting events today. Photography and collage exhibition are also made part of the initiative in parts of India to mark the day, sources said.

New Drug May Serve As A Boon In Treating Both Diabetes And Bone Loss

In what could serve as a boon to millions of people across the globe, researchers have developed a new class of compound that has shown promise in treating both diabetes and bone disease.

In addition to its more obvious ills, Type-2 diabetes is a condition closely associated with bone fractures, increasing the risk of fractures twofold. To make matters worse, certain anti-diabetic drugs further increase this risk, particularly in postmenopausal women, severely limiting their treatment options.

But the new dual-targeting drug candidate, referenced as “SR10171”, could treat both diabetes and bone disease. “SR10171 improves bone mass regardless of body mass index, normal to obese,” said co-lead researcher Patrick Griffin, professor at the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in the US.

The compound increases bone mass by protecting and increasing the activity of bone cells in various stages of normal bone maintenance, utilizing mechanisms that overlap those that regulate whole-body energy metabolism.

Over the past decade, Griffin and his colleague, TSRI Associate Professor Theodore Kamenecka, have focused on the details of molecules that increase sensitivity to insulin (a hormone that regulates blood sugar). Using newly discovered information, the researchers made significant advances in developing a family of drug candidates that target a receptor known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors gamma (PPARγ), a key regulator of stem cells controlling bone formation and bone resorption and a master regulator of fat.

“So you could use such a drug to treat osteoporosis whether patients are diabetic or not,” Griffin added. The drug increases bone mass by expanding bone formation (deposition of new bone) and bone turnover (a normal process of replacement of old bone).

A proper balance of these two processes is critical to healthy bone maintenance, and this balance is frequently negatively affected in diabetic patients. In animal models treated with the compound, fat formation in the bone marrow was successfully blocked independent of their metabolic state (healthy or diabetic), showed the study published online in the journal EbioMedicine.

Dalit Writer Amrutlal Makwana Returns Award After Una Incident

Ahmedabad:  As a mark of protest against the thrashing of Dalit youths at Una, Dalit writer Amrutlal Makwana on Wednesday returned an award given by the Gujarat government.

The 44-year-old writer had received the Dasi Jeevan Shreshth Dalit Sahitya Kruti Award for 2012-13 for his work Kharapat Nu Dalit Lok Sahitya. Makwana returned the award, including Rs 25,000 cash, at Ahmedabad District Collector’s office. “I have also given a short letter to the authorities saying that I am returning this award out of grief and pain due to the treatment meted out to Dalit youths in Una,” he said. The letter is addressed to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.

Makwana, a resident of Wadhwan town of Surendranagar district, further said, “Such incidents are occurring in Gujarat on a regular basis but the government is not doing enough to ensure that Dalits get justice.What happened at Mota Samadhiyala village of Gir-Somnath district was ghastly and barbaric. Such atrocities on Dalits are condemnable and it shook me to the core. Sadly, such incidents are happening around us regularly,” he said.

On July 11, some Dalit youths from Mota Samadhiyala who were skinning a dead cow were flogged by cow vigilantes, alleging that they had killed the cow. After a video of the incident went viral, it sparked off violent protests across Gujarat.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, “Dalits and indigenous peoples (known as Scheduled Tribes or adivasis) continue to face discrimination, exclusion, and acts of communal violence. Laws and policies adopted by the Indian government provide a strong basis for protection, but are not being faithfully implemented by local authorities.”

Gaza to Introduce Short Term Jobs Program, Unemployment Rate Likely to Drop

Gaza City: Ahead of its disastrous employment rate, Palestinian Labor Minister Mamoun Abu Shahla has announced that the first phase of registration process of a short-term employment project will start soon. He had declared the initiative earlier this month and promised to hire more than 4000 university graduates and blue-collared laborers for positions suitable with their qualifications.

“The project’s first phase provides 4,000 jobs for graduates, blue-collar workers and technicians equally, each 2,000, in the health and education sectors and municipalities, as well as economic facilities affected by the 2014 Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” said the Labor Minister. He also clarified that the process of employment will be done by August 2016 after assessing the ministry’s employment priorities.

In May 2016, Shahla had vowed to fund the employment program every six month with 60 million shekels, i.e. equivalent to $23 million.  Reports are that the Palestine government will look for foreign funds in between, especially by Arab countries, to run the employment program in case of emergency and in order to development of the initiative.

Gaza has been announced to have the highest unemployment rate in the world by the World Bank last year. The economy of the small coastal country was even termed ‘on verge of collapse’ by them too. A data released by World Bank, it was said that 43% of Gaza's 1.8 million residents are unemployed. Number of child labor had equally elevated, with around 10,000 kids, aged between 10 and 17, have dropped schools and works to earn bread for the family.

According to sources, youth unemployment is likely to drop down with this initiative; as job seekers and university graduates will be introduced to job market with the initiative.

On the other hand, many see the initiative as a temporary solution and will not facilitate the country in long run. “The employment projects announced by the government are temporary. They do not achieve sustainable development, nor do they contribute effectively to resolving the unemployment problem. Yet, in light of the economic conditions and high unemployment rates, they temporarily contribute to finding jobs, which may give the graduates and unemployed a glimpse of hope to provide for themselves, if just for a limited time, “ said Maher Tabbah, media manager and public relations officer at Gaza Chamber of Commerce.  

Dengue Fever Grips Delhi: One Dead, 40 Cases In Last One Week

New Delhi: The dengue fever seems to be taking the national capital into its grip. A 17-year-old girl, Farheen, a resident of East Delhi has become the first victim of dengue in the state this year. Farheen reportedly succumbed to the vector-borne disease on June 21 after she was diagnosed of severe form of dengue called acute dengue syndrome. She died at the Lok Nayak Hospital, Delhi.

The dengue cases in Delhi have seen an 80 percent increase in the last week, which has put the health and municipal authorities on high alert. The national capital reported 40 dengue cases last week alone and the total number of such cases in the city now stands at 90, according to a Press Trust of India report. In July alone, 62 cases were reported, which has alarmed both the central and state governments.

The state government has decided to open dengue clinics on the lines of Mohalla clinics in the city, where the patients who show symptoms of dengue fever could be diagnosed and treated. According to Delhi municipality reports, the city witnessed a staggering 15,867 dengue cases in 2015, which was the highest incidence in 20 years. Nearly 60 people lost their lives due to the vector-borne disease.

The official figures stated that in 2015, the number of dengue cases in the months of June and July in Delhi stood at six and 36 respectively.

Dengue usually causes flu-like symptoms, including high fever (40°C/104°F) accompanied by severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains, nausea, vomiting, swollen glands or rash. These symptoms last anywhere between two and seven days.

The union health ministry has called for demarcation of dengue patients from Delhi and those from the National Capital Region (NCR) by admitting them to separate wards in the hospitals.

Maharashtra Govt. Issued Notice to Totally Stop Offline Admission Process in Colleges

Mumbai: After the 16-year old Pushpa Suryavanshi killed herself for not getting a seat in her preferred college in spite of spending money, the Maharashtra state education ministry on Monday ‘has warned’ principals to stop offline admissions in colleges. The direction also urged the students to not accept admissions made through offline procedures.

The order also said that colleges still running an offline admission procedure, will be held questionable and principals will be held responsible for the entire process. Also, students who were not admitted through online admission process, will later be ‘barred’ from all the board examinations, said the notice, issued by the office of the deputy director of education (DYDE), Mumbai division.

In case of the already conducted offline admissions, according to DYDE, the colleges now have to return original documents, fees and photographs already collected from the students.

Reports are that Suryavanshi had secured 84 percent marks in the board examinations. “She hanged herself last Thursday for being denied admission into a college of her preference despite paying the ‘fees’,” said an investigating officer. Pushpa was a student of Sudhagad Education Society (SES) and wanted to continue higher studies from there. Following her death, Principal Iqbal Inamdar, who had promised Pushpa a seat in SES and has taken money from her, was arrested.

“The DYDE has now opened the admission process again for those who had not reported for admission after seat allocation. Thereafter, three special rounds will be conducted for students who had not applied, had filled in forms incorrectly and those who want to change their college or stream,” as a DYDE official has noted.

Following the direction, students continued to lodge their complaints in the DYDE office. While many complained about misleading information about preferences of colleges and admission procedure, the officials said that the students missed to fill their form properly, filling the criterions. “I had filled in the first five preferences properly as advised by the officials. But because we couldn’t submit an incomplete list, I filled in the rest of my preferences at random,” said a student. 

Marni Nixon – The Invisible Voice Behind My Fair Lady And West Side Story — Dies At 86

Los Angeles: On Sunday, American soprano and playback singer Margaret Nixon McEathron, commonly known as Marni Nixon died of breast cancer at the age of 86.

The singer appeared, uncredited, in many of the biggest movie musicals of all time — dubbing the voices for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

She also sang the high notes for Marilyn Monroe in Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend; and “ghosted” Natalie Wood's vocals on West Side Story.

For most of her career, the classically-trained musician remained unknown. Twentieth Century Fox made her sign a contract saying she would never reveal the ghost-singing on The King and I. The story only came out later, when Kerr herself credited Nixon’s work in a press interview.

The clandestine nature of her work led Time Magazine to dub Nixon “the ghostess with the moistest”.

The singer likened her work to that of a stuntman, and collaborated closely with the stars to perfect the screen illusion.

Kerr “wanted to look like she was really singing” Nixon told Washington Post “and wanted to be using the same muscles and the same stretches you do in expressions”.

Born in southern California, Margaret Nixon McEathron was an acclaimed musician both before and after her work in Hollywood.

She started playing violin at the age of four and began playing with Karl Moldrem’s Hollywood Baby Orchestra six months later. At 11, she won a singing contest at the LA County Fair and decided there and then to abandon the violin.

In 1947, the same year she dubbed her first film, she made her Hollywood Bowl solo debut in Carmina Burana under the baton of Leopold Stokowski.

By this stage, she had also dropped her “hard to pronounce” surname. “Kids at school called me Mac-Earthworm,” she said.

Her first job dubbing the voice of a film actress arrived when she was working in the post room at MGM film studios, as a way of covering the cost of her singing lessons. Nixon’s career in film started in 1948 when she sang the voices of the angels heard by Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc (1948). The same year, she did her first dubbing work when she provided Margaret O’Brien singing voice in 1948’s Big City and then 1949’s The Secret Garden.

Composer Bronislaw Kaper, who was working on the score for the film The Secret Garden, stopped her in the corridor and challenged her to sing a song in Hindi. The youngster obliged and her career was born.

But, despite appearing on more than 50 soundtracks, she only sang on screen once — as Sister Sophia, one of the nuns performing How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria? in The Sound Of Music.

In later years, Nixon appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, performed on Broadway and in opera houses and hosted the Emmy Award-winning children’s television show Boomerang.

She also taught at the California Institute of the Arts, and toured for many years with Liberace.

Nixon first had breast cancer in 1985, and wrote in her autobiography of the trauma of appearing on Broadway as chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out when the disease returned in 2000.

She was married three times — first to Ernest Gold, the film composer behind Exodus and On The Beach, with whom she had a son, Andrew Gold, who went on to compose the Golden Girls theme Thank You For Being A Friend.

Her second marriage, to Lajos Frederick Fenster, ended in divorce, while her third husband, Albert Block, died last year.

She is survived by three sisters, two daughters from her first marriage, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.