| Everybody loves receiving gifts – For their birthday, for Christmas or randomly. There’s nothing more thrilling, but deep down the real treasured gifts are intangible. These gifts are priceless and everybody deserves receiving them at some point in their lives.
Source…www.ba-bamail.com Natarajan |
Photography
15 must-do road trips in India…….
Here, the journey is your destination…
Most of us have been bitten by the travel bug, or so we assume. These 15 road trips across India, are a must if you are one of those who believe, “To travel is to live.” Bad roads, hiccups en route and unknown terrain, only add beauty to our travels. So go ahead and put these road trips on your bucket list.
Rediscover your love for travelling. Experience the warmth of people you have never met before. Explore the country. Make memories. Get inspired.
Let the adventures begin…
1. Manali to Leh
Photographs: Stephane Viau/Creative Commons
From June to September, the 450+ km stretch, invites you to enjoy a picturesque drive. With panoramic views of the Himalayas, driving thousands of feet above the sea level, it is one unforgettable journey.
2. Mumbai to Goa
Photographs: abcdz2000/Creative Commons
Leaving early in the wee hours of morning, driving through the Western Ghats and later along the Arabian Sea coast — reaching Goa in time for a late night party! Can it get any better?
3. Chennai to Pondicherry
Photographs: Sanyam Bahga/Creative Commons
Great roads (a blessing in India), scenic view and the sea breeze invites you for a long drive to a destination that is a photographer’s paradise and a foodie’s haven.
4. Ahmedabad to Kutch
Photographs: Superfast1111/Creative Commons
Explore 400 kms of untamed roads and get a taste of wildlife in the land of contrasts. Get lost in the barren yet fascinating landscape of the Rann of Kutch. A drive to Kutch is incomplete without a visit to a few handicraft villages and the sight of the full moon in the Great Rann of Kutch.
5. Jaipur to Jaisalmer
Photographs: Adrian Sulc/Creative Commons
Visit the numerous forts, local attractions and eat at roadside dhabas as you embrace the warmth of the Rajasthani heritage.
6. Mangalore to Gokarna
Photographs: Jacob Abraham/Creative Commons
One beach destination to another. This four-hour long scenic drive along the Konkan coast, is for the beach lovers. With quaint unpopulated beaches and local sea food haunts along the way, pit stops are a must.
7. Guwahati to Shillong
Photographs: Sandydessert/Creative Commons
Spanning two of India’s beautiful states — Assam and Meghalaya, this road trip entices you with amazing views of green valleys, little villages and rich sights.
8. Visakhapatnam to Araku Valley
Photographs: Adityamadhav83/Creative Commons
The gentle elevation, greenery and away from the hustle bustle of cities, makes it another destination for a road trip. Don’t miss a visit to the Borra caves and Katiki Watefalls.
9. Cochin to Munnar
Photographs: Ben3john/Creative Commons
Manoeuvre through the twisty and curvy roads, as you enjoy the greenery of the vast tea plantations of Munnar. Once the summer resort of the British, Munnar welcomes you with fog, mist and lovely small waterfalls.
10. Darjeeling to Pelling
Photographs: Shahnoor Habib Munmun/Creative Commons
Driving through scenic valleys and mountains, you will wish that this journey doesn’t come to an end. Get spell-bound by the spectacular view of the Himalayan range, stop by the little village bazaars and sip a cup of locally brewed tea and get lost in the abode of the gods.
11. Mysore to Ooty
Photographs: Adam Jones/Creative Commons
Cutting through Bandipur, a national park, you will get to see wildlife in its natural habitat. While it’s beautiful, be careful not to drive fast — small wild animals tend to cross the roads suddenly. Also, there’s ban on driving this route in the night. Nevertheless, the journey is as beautiful as its destination.
12. Mumbai to Mahabaleshwar
Photographs: Rishabh Tatiraju/Creative Commons
After passing through the beautiful Lonavala, as you inch closer to Mahabaleshwar, the hill presents some amazing views. Also stop by a strawberry farm on the way. Driving during the monsoon, the experience is adventurous and something that should feature on your bucket list.
13. Dharamshala to Bharmour
Photographs: John Hill/Creative Commons
The journey laced with the beauty terraced fields reminds you a little of the Inca landscape in Peru. The pretty pined forest, dramatic now-capped mountains and the greenery extending to infinity, will mesmerise you.
14. Bangalore to Coorg
Photographs: Leelavathy B.M/Creative Commons
Beat the humdrum of the IT city, drive through coffee estates, hues of greenery, and enjoy the sounds of crickets coupled with some awesome Coorgi cuisine.
15. Chandigarh to Kaza
Photographs: nikkul/Creative Commons
Listed among the ‘world’s deadliest roads,’ this road trip is only for the adventurous traveller. Driving the dangerous and bad roads, you are gifted with spectacular landscape, rugged moonscape of Spiti and lush mountains.
This is not the end of the list, just the beginning. The rest is for you to discover.
This Ernest Hemingway quote just summarises, everything: It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Source…Sindhu.M.V….www.rediff.com
Natarajan
How to spot the International Space Station….?
Every so often, the International Space Station (ISS) becomes visible in your night sky. Here’s how you can spot it.
A composite photograph of the International Space Station taken from Earth. Image Credit: Dave Walker.
Is it a meteor? Is it a plane? It might be the International Space Station (ISS).Every so often, the ISS becomes visible in the night sky. To us on Earth, it looks like a bright star moving quickly above the horizon. The ISS is so bright, it can even been seen from the center of a city. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappears. How do you know when you can see the ISS in your night sky?
NASA’s Spot the Station program lets you sign up to receive alerts to let you know when the ISS will be visible from your location – anywhere in the world. You can get alerts via email or text message. Typically, alerts are sent out a few times each month when the station’s orbit is near your location. Visit the Spot the Station website here to sign up, and view a list of upcoming sighting opportunities.
If you sign up for NASA’s new service, notices will be sent to you only when the ISS will be clearly visible from your location for at least a couple of minutes. If you live north of 51.6 degrees latitude (for example, in Alaska), you will likely have to visit the website to find sighting opportunities because notifications in this region would be rare.
The notices contain information on where to look for the ISS in the night sky. Just note where the sun sets and you can easily find the direction where the station will appear (for example, in the southwest or in the northwest). The height at which the station will appear is given in degrees. Just remember that 90 degrees is directly over your head. Any number less than 90 degrees will mean that the station will appear somewhere between the horizon and the 90 degree mark. The station is so bright that it is really hard to miss if you’re looking in the correct direction. Alternatively, you can stretch out your fist at arm’s length toward the horizon, which is equivalent to about 10 degrees. Then, just use the appropriate number of fist-lengths to find the location marker, e.g., four fist-lengths from the horizon would be equivalent to about 40 degrees.
NASA’s Spot the Station program is great. I’ve seen the station fly over twice now and it’s a pretty amazing experience—gets you thinking about how far our technology has advanced.
The first module of the ISS was launched into space in 1998 and the initial construction of the station took about two years to complete. Human occupation of the station began on November 2, 2000. Since that time, the ISS has been continuously occupied. The ISS serves as both an orbiting laboratory and a port for international spacecraft. The primary partnering countries involved in operating the ISS include the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia.
The ISS orbits at approximately 220 miles above the Earth and it travels at an average speed of27,724 kilometers (17,227 miles) per hour. The ISS makes multiple orbits around the Earth every day.
Photograph of the International Space Station taken from the space shuttle Endeavour on May 30, 2011. Image Credit: NASA.
Astronauts Robert Curbeam, Jr. and Christer Fuglesang working on the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.
Bottom line: Check out the ISS in the night sky the next time it flies over your location. You can sign up to receive alerts with NASA’s Spot the Station program or visit that website to view a list of viewing opportunities.
Source….
Deanna Conners
Natarajan
Dashrath Manjhi Aka Mountain Man’s Story Is The Most Inspiring Thing You’ll Read Today…
Dashrath Manjhi, a poor landless labor moved a mountain in his lifetime, quiet literally! It took him 22 years but Manjhi shortened the travel between the Atri and Wazirganj of Gaya town from 55 km to 15 km. Not many are aware of this man’s greatness but thanks to Bollywood for converting his life story into a film. The film by Ketan Mehta is called Manjhi- The Mountain Man and is slated to release this Friday starring ace actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte in lead roles. The story of a brave man who took the challenge of gifting accessibility to his remote village will inspire you beyond limit.
If you still haven’t heard of the man who fought with a mountain for more than two decades, his real story will move you!
1. Gehlour Ganj, Atri: A 300-foot tall mountain loomed between Atri block of Gaya, Bihar civilization in Wazirganj made commuting a difficult task for the locals
2. Manjhi, a landless labourer worked in the fields on the other side of the mountain and lived with his wife, Falguni.
Manjhi belonged to a cast which was regarded the lowest of the low in a caste-ridden society. They were kept aloof from basic necessities like- water supply, electricity, a school and a medical centre.
3. Like everyday, Manjhi eagerly waited for his beloved wife Falguni who would bring lunch for him. She did come to him that one eventful day, but her body had bruises and blood all over.
The treacherous trek up and around the mountain took hours. This led to frequent accidents and death of locals who lost their lives purely because reaching for medical facilities took hours. The nearest doctor was at Wazirganj, which was more than 70 kilometers over the mountain. Locals of the area cursed the inaccessibility but no one ever bothered to do anything about it. However, one man could wait no longer but that too alerted him after a tragedy. However, one day, Falguni tripped on loose rock, shattering her water pot. Not only she slid down several feet, she injured her leg. Manjhi could not save his wife and then he took a pledge.
4. “Jab Tak todenge nahi, tab tak chodenge nahi”- After losing his wife in 1959, Manjhi took up a challenge against the mountain and sold his goats to buy a hammer, chisel and crowbar.
“That mountain had shattered so many pots; claimed lives. I could not bear that it hurt my wife. If it took all my life now, I would carve us a road through the mountain.”- He said.
5. People called him a ‘lunatic’ but that did not deter him from his journey. After a struggle of 22 years (1960-1982), a tiny cleft across a rock wall opened up one day!
He then went on to widen the cleft. Some several years later, he managed to carve out a passage 360 feet long and 30 feet wide.
Even though he lost his battle of life to cancer in 2007, thanks to Bollywood for converting his life into a film. Even when he was alive, people were totally awed by his will power and determination. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agreed that once he had stood up and vacated his chair when Manjhi visited him in Janata Durbar in Patna.
Source…..Isha Sharma… http://www.indiatimes.com
Natarajan
Two Indians Have Designed A Garbage Bin That Will Reward Users With Free WiFi…
Realising the need of the Internet in everyday life, two commerce graduates decided to give free WiFi to people in exchange of a cleaner surrounding with an unique initiative — a ‘WiFi Trash Bin’.
“When somebody dumps trash into a dustbin the bin flashes a unique code, which can be used to gain access to free WiFi, says Prateek Agarwal, one of the two founders of the initiative.
Mumbai-based Agarwal and his partner Raj Desai, a self taught programmer, travelled extensively to countries like Denmark, Finland, Singapore etc and realised that keeping surroundings clean needed apart from a difference in structure, a change in the attitude of people.
“We took a lot of help from countries like Finland, Denmark, Singapore etc and decided to build a system similar to that,” says Prateek Agarwal.
The duo hit upon the idea while visiting the NH7 Weekender a music festival which is spread around a large area and as music festivals go is home to music food drinks and of course a lot of garbage.
” …It took us six hours to find our friends. Since there was no network, we could not reach them through a phone call.
It was the trigger for the idea and we thought why not provide free WiFi to people using hotspots,” says Mr Agarwal.
Keeping the place clean and helping to connect with their friends were the driving force behind their innovative project.
The self-funded experiment with support from operator MTS proved to be a success at the various Weekender Festivals held in Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi but is not operative at the moment.
The founders say they have received queries from GAIL and talks are in due process.
“We wanted to change the attitude of the people and how things are structured, thus affecting an individual’s behaviour,” says Raj Desai.
The venture, though not operative now aims to satisfy the need of Internet at every step in the modern day world.
“… We want to work more for it,” says Mr Agarwal.
The duo say they tend to setup a network of WiFi bins thus helping to bring about a behaviourial redesign among people.
The venture was recently showcased at “Networked India”, a unique initiative by Ericsson and CNN-IBN that aims to identify and facilitate clutter-breaking innovations in the field of connectivity and mobility.
Source…..www.huffingtonpost.com
Natarajan
” These Chennai Scientists Are Trying To Solve An Impending Agricultural Crisis…”
VEDARANYAM, Tamil Nadu — On a sun-scorched wasteland near India’s southern tip, an unlikely garden filled with spiky shrubs and spindly greens is growing, seemingly against all odds.
The plants are living on saltwater, coping with drought and possibly offering viable farming alternatives for a future in which rising seas have inundated countless coastal farmlands.
Sea rise, one of the consequences of climate change, now threatens millions of poor subsistence farmers across Asia. As ocean water swamps low-lying plots, experts say many could be forced to flee inland.
“It’s hard to imagine how farmers will live,” said Tapas Paul, who as a World Bank official helped channel about $100,000 to help build the small garden a decade ago in a swampy, seaside town dominated by salt flats in southern Tamil Nadu state. “In the places subject to inundation and sea level rise, there are few options.”
A team of Indian scientists is searching for solutions to what they describe as a fast-approaching agricultural crisis. Their neatly plotted rows of naturally salt-tolerant plants, known as halophytes, could be a part of the answer. The scientists from the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation are also trying other approaches: tweaking genes and cross-breeding plants by conventional means to discover which might grow and even flourish.
“Sea level rise is inevitable, and we are not prepared,” said Swaminathan, who pioneered high-yield wheat and rice varieties for India in the 1960s. “The biggest problem in India is just the very large population. We can say people can relocate, but where could we even accommodate all those who need to move inland?”
Saltwater for a farmer long meant certain crop failure. Wartime foes sowed enemy fields with salt to ensure social collapse. Natural disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami left countless plots unproductive for years.
Asia’s coastal farmers, including millions impoverished in India, now face such problems. Climate change will bring stronger storms and warmer temperatures that expand ocean waters and melt ice caps and glaciers. As a result, seas are set to rise up to 1 meter (3.2 feet) in this century, according to the latest scientific forecasts.
Chellammal, a graceful, 65-year-old farming housewife in the Tamil Nadu village of Tetakudi, knows the nightmare of farming on salt-contaminated land too well.
“I struggled so long to get things to grow, but nothing worked,” said Chellammal, who goes by one name. “Every year just got worse until there was nothing left,” she said, crouched in a bright pink sari by her fields.
The land her family had saved for decades to buy went completely barren about five years ago, after a neighboring village took up shrimp farming when flooding from a nearby ocean canal salted their lands. The shrimp ponds were never lined properly, so their saltwater seeped into surrounding soils.
The farmland lost by Tetakudi’s 200 households now supports little more than a vast expanse of salt-tolerant shrubs called Suaeda maritime along with succulents called Salicornia brachiata, known to locals as “chicken feet.”
To the villagers, the bright green bushes are no better than weeds. Already, 12 families have boarded up their homes and left.
But scientists say suaeda is good for firewood. And salicornia species, which can tolerate nearly twice the salinity of seawater, have enormous potential as a biofuel crop, with seeds containing high concentrations of oil.
The problem, however, lies in realizing profits. For any crop to work on a large scale, inexpensive methods and machinery for harvesting will have to be developed. Then processing plants, production lines and markets would need to be built. As of now, none of that exists.
Chellammal is dubious, but interested.
“If we can make money from what we grow, we’ll try it. Why not?” she said. “Maybe all is not lost.”
In this June 16, 2015 photo, a wild-growing Salicornia brachiata, a halophyte known to locals as ‘chicken feet’, thrives on fields tainted by saltwater from a neighbouring shrimp farm near Velankanni, India.
The timing for an agricultural crisis due to sea rise couldn’t be worse. India’s poor farmers already struggle with frequent flooding, drought and soils degraded by agrochemical overuse. Those on the coast are also hit by storms, with at least 27 of the 35 deadliest cyclones in history barreling through the Bay of Bengal before slamming into either India or Bangladesh.
India’s freshwater sources are also in peril, with over-tapped groundwater reserves so low the country is expected to have only half the water it needs by 2030. Grain production, meanwhile, has stalled around 260 million tons in recent years, despite global pressure for India to boost yields, eliminate waste and eradicate widespread poverty and malnutrition.
To feed its growing 1.26 billion population, India must increase food production 45 percent by 2050, for which experts say it may need to cultivate more land. Instead, about 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of its coastal farmland has been degraded by salt, according to India’s Central Soil Salinity Research Institute.
Inland, India has lost another 5.5 million hectares of arable farmland, out of its nationwide total of 163 million hectares, though India’s soil salinity troubles are exacerbated by industrial salt flats, a growing number of shrimp farms and the depletion of groundwater reserves. The trend will only continue as seawater creeps onto low-lying lands along the 7,500-kilometer (4,700-mile) coast that outlines the country along the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.
“Saltwater agriculture is considered a futuristic area. But it really shouldn’t be,” said marine biologist V. Selvam, the M.S. Swaminathan foundation’s mustachioed director of coastal research. “Very soon there won’t be enough land and water to meet our needs.”
And India is not alone. Countries including Egypt, Bangladesh and much of Southeast Asia also face heavy saltwater intrusion and loss of farmland. Already, 62 million hectares, or 20 percent, of the world’s total 300 million hectares of irrigated farmland has been salinized to some extent. Another 50 centimeters (1.6 feet) of sea rise, which is just half of what’s expected by 2100, would swamp up to 1.9 million more hectares, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said.
That will undermine the world’s ability to find the additional 120 million hectares of farmland it needs for a staggering 70 percent increase in food production to feed the world by 2050, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization.
Experts say there will be little choice but to grow some non-food crops along the coasts.
The world’s irrigated acreage could be increased by about 50 percent by reusing saline water and salinized crop fields for halophytes, said University of Arizona environmental sciences professor Edward Glenn.
“As with aquaculture replacing wild fisheries, it is inevitable that halophytes will have their day,” he said.
Sesuvium portulacastrum. Paspalum vaginatum. Prosopis juliflora.
These are just a few of the 350 known species of salt-tolerant plants that are candidates to become crops for the future. Saltwater plants are unlikely to become staple foods, because while often high in nutrients they’re also very salty and so should be eaten in moderation.
Species such as Salicornia europaea, also known as glasswort or samphire, are already sold in European markets as a fancy salad addition or side dish. The bright purple-and-white blossoms of Limonium are a florist’s delight, while another species called Atriplex or saltbush is eaten by sheep.
Supporters note a host of potential uses to make harvests profitable, including firewood, decorative flowers, kitty litter, nutritional supplements, cooking oil and biofuel. Cattle fodder is another possibility, and Indian herders already graze their cattle on thorny shrubbery by the sea.
Despite the potential, saltwater agriculture is still seen as a fringe topic, even after decades of research by universities worldwide along with studies and pilot projects in countries including Mexico, Pakistan, Jordan and Eritrea. The aviation company Boeing is also researching biofuels from saltwater plants.
India’s scientists aren’t waiting for markets to develop. Nor are they relying on just the halophyte garden to offer up new options.
They’re scouring coasts for wild grain species that might naturally tolerate some salinity, and using arduous breeding methods to create new salt-tolerant strains.
The foundation has also developed genetically modified rice using genes from mangrove trees. It says the resulting plant can tolerate salt concentrations of 12-15 grams per liter. Seawater is typically two to three times saltier, but that’s still a major improvement from currently cultivated rice varieties, which can handle only up to 3 grams per liter.
Genetic modification is considered the most difficult approach, because salt tolerance is a trait that involves numerous genes. But the molecular biologist leading the development of GM halophytic rice believes it’s essential.
“Conventional breeding just takes too long, and this problem is urgent,” said Ajay Parida, the foundation’s executive director. His work stalled in 2007 under an effective moratorium on field testing GMOs, but the Indian government is considering shifting its GM testing policy and Parida now expects his trials to start soon.
“We could eventually be cultivating wastelands and places considered entirely unsuitable,” he said. “But it’s only after crisis hits that people realize the magnitude of the problem and start pushing for an answer.”
Source…. 
| Katy Daigle….www.huffingtonpost.com
Natarajn
First Digital Map of World Ocean Floor….
This is a still shot of the world’s first digital map of the seafloor’s geology. Image credit: EarthByte Group, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia National ICT Australia (NICTA), Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh, NSW 2015, Australia
Map key.
Scientists have created a digital map of the global seafloor’s geology. It’s the first time the composition of our planet’s seafloor has been mapped in 40 years; the most recent map was hand drawn in the 1970s.
Published in the latest edition of Geology, the map will help scientists better understand how our oceans have responded, and will respond, to environmental change. It also reveals the deep ocean basins to be much more complex than previously thought. Adriana Dutkiewicz from the University of Sydney is the lead researcher. She said:
In order to understand environmental change in the oceans we need to better understand what is preserved in the geological record in the seabed.
The deep ocean floor is a graveyard with much of it made up of the remains of microscopic sea creatures called phytoplankton, which thrive in sunlit surface waters. The composition of these remains can help decipher how oceans have responded in the past to climate change.
A special group of phytoplankton called diatoms produce about a quarter of the oxygen we breathe and make a bigger contribution to fighting global warming than most plants on land. Their dead remains sink to the bottom of the ocean, locking away their carbon.
The new seafloor geology map demonstrates that diatom accumulations on the seafloor are nearly entirely independent of diatom blooms in surface waters in the Southern Ocean. Professor Dietmar Muller from the University of Sydney, is a study co-author. Muller said:
This disconnect demonstrates that we understand the carbon source, but not the sink.
Some of the most significant changes to the seafloor map are in the oceans surrounding Australia. Dutkiewicz said:
The old map suggests much of the Southern Ocean around Australia is mainly covered by clay blown off the continent, whereas our map shows this area is actually a complex patchwork of microfossil remains. Life in the Southern Ocean is much richer than previously thought.
The scientists analyzed and categorized around 15,000 seafloor samples – taken over half a century on research cruise ships to generate the data for the map. They teamed with the National ICT Australia (NICTA) big data experts to find the best way to use algorithms to turn this multitude of point observations into a continuous digital map. Simon O’Callaghan from NICTA is a study co-author. He said:
Recent images of Pluto’s icy plains are spectacular, but the process of unveiling the hidden geological secrets of the abyssal plains of our own planet was equally full of surprises!
Bottom line: Scientists have created a new digital map of the geology of Earth’s seafloor.
Source….www.earthsky.org
Natarajan
Image of the Day…Balanced Rocks…
Balanced rocks
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony ” – Thomas Merton
Jeff Berkes provided the quote above along with this photo, which he captured in Rhode island. He wrote:
If you dig this photo or think it could inspire someone, please share and like! Thanks in advance!
Rhode Island, USA
Camera | Nikon D4
Lens | Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 @ 17mm
Thank you, Jeff!
Source…www.earthsky.org
Natarajan
India’s Mars Orbiter sends back stunning 3-D images of the largest known canyon in the solar system
While the rest of India was tasting patriotic waters on the account of the 69th Independence Day, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan, sent us pictures which made us proud yet another time.
The Mars Orbiter Mission sent some beautiful images of the largest known canyon from the Red planet – Mars.
These are the images of Valles Marineris, a largest known canyon complex in the solar system. This picture was taken from a height of nearly 2000 km from Mars colored camera.
A 62 km wide valley named Opir Chasma can be seen bordered by high cliffs.
Mangalyaan reached Mars on September 2014. It was an ecstatic moment for the whole country as ISRO was successful in its maiden attempt. Many countries like the USA, Russia, and Europe have accomplished successful Mars missions.
And what’s more, this is not the first time that an image has been sent. Earlier, they sent images of Martian landmarks – Aurorae Chaos.
It’s a long terrain with irregular blocks.
What this image proved?
It showed signs of fluvial activity which means showing signs of water or similar substances which could have flowed there sometime in the past.
You can see more pictures taken by Mangalyaan here.
Well, there is no doubt that this image proved the mettle of Mangalyaan another time, but it also proved to be a perfect Independence Day present for everyone especially because many studies have been undertaken to know about any signs of life on Mars. May many more pictures come our way!
Built at the cost of just Rs 450 crores, the orbiter still has 39 kilograms of fuel it still has left in the tanks – which could mean a few more years of breathtaking pictures, among other things.
Well done!
News Source: Aparajita Mishra in Hindustan Times…. http://www.storypick.com and www.scroll.in
Natarajan
The Doctor Who Makes the Difference… Meet Dr. M.R. Rajagopal Kerala…
On August 10, the Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organisation that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, announced that Dr M R Rajagopal was one of the recipients of the prestigious Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism (external link).
Announcing the award, the NGO said that Dr M R Rajagopal was being honoured for ‘his efforts to defend the rights of patients with severe pain to live and die with dignity’.
On this occasion, Rediff.com digs into its archives, tracking down Dr M R Rajagopal’s sincere efforts of changing lives and changing the way India looks at palliative care.
‘Even if there is only one day left for a person, I find it very satisfying to have made a difference. That is because I believe life matters. If I can bring a smile to the face of a person who has seen only pain and suffering, I feel satisfied.”
Rediff.com’s Shobha Warrier meets Dr M R Rajagopal who has made such a difference to the lives of the terminally ill.
Dr M R Rajagopal attends to a terminally ill patient. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
“I haven’t slept for months. I can’t lie down in any position. The pain is killing me. I want to sleep for just one day without the pain bothering me. Please do something, doctor,” Sasidharan Nair breaks down. He has very advanced cancer in the spinal cord and many other bones.
“No, you need not suffer any pain. You have every right to feel better,” says Dr M R Rajagopal, prescribing morphine.
A few days ago, I travelled with Dr Rajagopal and the Pallium India team on home visits to some of the remotest areas outside Thiruvananthapuram; places where no vehicle could go. We climbed hills and walked through rubber plantations to visit terminally ill cancer patients.
The doctor was patience personified, listening keenly to all the complaints the patients had, and consoling them with compassionate words. The visits continued until late in the evening, but Dr Rajagopal’s energy and commitment didn’t wane in the slightest. The nurses on his team changed diapers and catheters, and dispensed the medicines prescribed by the doctor for free.
If you are one of those who has faced the frustration of dealing with doctors in corporate hospitals, who have no time to even talk to you, you will find Dr Rajagopal an aberration.
He picks up his phone when you call, calls you back if he can’t, and listens to all of your concerned questions, answering them honestly and patiently. You don’t find doctors like him anymore.
Pallium India wants to take care of those in terrible pain and isolation due to cancer, AIDS, paralysis, or other prolonged, debilitating, diseases. ‘No one,’ the organisation believes, ‘should be left to face all of this without support and proper medical care.’
A Pallium India van sets out to reach out to terminally ill patients. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
Dr Rajagopal set up the country’s first palliative care unit, the Institute of Palliative Medicine, in Kozhikode, Kerala, in 1993, at a time when few in India had heard of palliative care.
The World Health Organisation only passed a resolution integrating palliative care as a part of healthcare on January 23, 2014.
“I was then working in the KozhikodeMedicalCollege as an anaesthetist,” recalls Dr Rajagopal, “I was also treating patients in pain, mainly cancer patients. It was a 42-year-old college professor with two small children who taught me a lesson. He had cancer of the tongue spreading to his cheeks. I gave him a nerve block, and the next day, he told me he was pain free.”
“I was very happy. He asked me then, ‘When should I come again?’ I said, ‘You don’t have to come back unless you are in pain’.”
That night, the young professor committed suicide.
“I found out that his oncologist had never discussed the prognosis with him,” remembers Dr Rajagopal. “So, he was expecting a cure. When I told him that he didn’t have to come back again, he understood for the first time that his disease was incurable.”
“I never bothered to find out what his emotions were and how he felt; I just relieved him of his physical pain. That was a turning point in my life. He gave up his life to teach me that a man is not made of just a few nerves and organs.”
Dr M R Rajagopal: You don’t find doctors like him anymore, says Shobha Warrier. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
After the professor’s death, Dr Rajagopal understood that he had to look at disease-related suffering as a whole; the physical, the psychological, social, and spiritual.
Dr Rajagopal came across a book on palliative care by Dr Robert Twycross. He also attended a lecture by a British nurse, Gilly Burn, who travelled around India teaching palliative care, and invited her to his centre in Kozhikode.
After spending half an hour at the centre, she asked him whether he was interested in going to Oxford to take a course in palliative care. The 10-week course served as the doctor’s formal introduction to the precepts of palliative medicine.
When he came back, with a capital of Rs 1,500, he formed a non governmental organisation with six friends, each of whom contributed Rs 250.
At this point, he was sure of one thing — that he was going to offer the treatment for free, as most of the patients who came to the Kozhikode Medical College were very poor.
When he discovered that his patients did not buy the medicines he prescribed, he started dispensing the medication for free, a practice he continues to this day.
“This is possible due to many kind-hearted people,” he says. “There are many such people around us, contrary to our belief.”
The small unit he started in Kozhikode in 1993 became Pallium India in 2006, aiming to care for all terminally ill people in the country.
Pallium India has palliative care facilities in 11 states, mostly in the north and north-east. The Thiruvananthapuram unit, a WHO collaborating centre for four years, is a demonstration project that works with 12 link centres in the interiors of the Kerala capital.
Eighty two per cent of the patients Pallium India sees are from the poorest sections of society. People like Sasidharan Nair, Yunus, Shiji and Esther.
Dr Rajagopal and his team walk down the hill to Shiji’s home. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
Yunus, who suffers from lung cancer, is angry.
“We went to the TrivandrumMedicalCollege for treatment and we were asked to take a CT scan at a private centre. We went to the centre with all the money we had. We had just Rs 1,900, and they wanted Rs 10,000. Where are we supposed to find Rs 10,000?” he asks angrily.
He was the family’s only earner till he fell ill two years ago. His family is now dependent on his 18-year-old son.
A narrow path through a rubber plantation leads us to a small unfinished house, where 20-year-old Shiji lives. He lies on the bed, paralysed from the waist down.
From the time the sun comes out, he lies on his bed, staring at the huge trees and the blue sky, thinking of the days he and his father had built the house brick by brick.
The house was not finished when Shiji was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. Today, his world is confined to the tiny room he built.
Hope is what makes this young man smile. He believes he will get better one day and go out. Raveendran, his father, has hopes for his only son, and it is that which has driven him to pledge the house and borrow money from wherever he could.
His debt has now run up to Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million), but he is hopeful that Shiji will get better and the two of them will work hard and pay off all the debts.
Raveendran has borrowed money again to take Shiji to the VelloreMedicalCollege. “I feel my son will get better…” he says.
As we walk back to the car, Dr Rajagopal speaks of a healthcare system that ignores the psycho-social aspect of suffering.
“It is this kind of unnecessary treatment and lack of information that has resulted in people like Raveendran building up huge debt burdens from which he may never escape,” he says.
“This kind of destruction of families in the name of healthcare is cruel and almost criminal. The so-called healthcare industry is exploiting the ignorance of people for financial gain. Palliative care is making a difference to such people, and it will transform healthcare.”
Dr M R Rajagopal interacts with his patient, Sasidharan Nair. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
“It is sad that people have to go through years of treatment without psycho-social support just because they are undergoing curative treatment,” says Dr Rajagopal, stressing that palliative care should start at the time of diagnosis and go hand in hand with curative treatment.
Pallium India doesn’t just take care of the terminally ill, though up to half of all its patients suffer from terminal cancers.
“It is very worthwhile working with even the terminally ill, because even if there is only one day left for a person, I find it very satisfying to have made a difference. That is because I believe life matters. If I can bring a smile to the face of a person who has seen only pain and suffering, I feel satisfied.”
Dr Rajagopal can be described as a crusader in making morphine-based medicines, one of the cheapest and the most effective treatment for chronic pain, available to every patient in pain.
The 15th Lok Sabha recently passed an amendment to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in its last sitting only because of Dr Rajagopal’s efforts.
“It was the culmination of frustrating moments waiting outside government offices and being insulted. But I also saw a lot of goodness in many people.”
Once the amended Act is implemented, the licensing procedure for obtaining and storing morphine becomes very simple.
The amendment essentially scraps the long list of licences, which currently varies from state to state, that drug makers and hospitals are required to obtain in order to produce and store morphine sulphate.
Under the new Act, there will be a uniform regulation across states for issuing licences to manufacture morphine-based drugs.
Similarly, each medical institution that previously needed four to five different licences from different government agencies to store morphine will now have to approach just the state Food and Drug Administration.
Does that mean the amendment to the NDPS Act will transform pain relief?
“No. It needs harder struggle,” says Dr Rajagopal. “But we can consider it a new beginning. Regulatory barriers are not the only barriers to access to pain relief. I would say attitudes and lack of knowledge among medical professionals is the biggest barrier.”
“To make this a success, drug availability, education and strategy are equally important. We now have a government strategy for palliative care; but this is not full-fledged or fully funded.”
“Drug availability can improve with the amendment provided we work with each state government,” Dr Rajagopal adds, “and make sure that the Act is implemented without additional complications.”
“Government hospitals should have doctors and nurses with basic education in pain management and the hospitals should have morphine and other essential narcotic drugs. Then again, pain management is not enough on its own, there also has to be psycho-social support.”
Dr M R Rajagopal and his team walk up an unpaved path to a patient’s home. Photograph: Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
Dr Katherine Irene Pettus of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, who accompanies us on the home visits, is a strong advocate of using morphine to relieve pain.
She became a hospice volunteer after having watched, as a 19-year-old, her mother die in pain in the United States.
Today, she works from Vienna to educate physicians, politicians and lawyers on the purpose of morphine in palliative care. “My work involves educating people on the need to make morphine-based medicines available instead of controlling them. They only care about control, which doesn’t work anyway,” Dr Pettus says. “We have drug addicts, illegal use, and de-addiction centres everywhere, but yet, 80 per cent of the world has no access to morphine.”
Kerala follows a model of palliative care that other Indian states would do well to emulate.
Dr Rajagopal has shaped the Kerala government’s palliative care policy. “Palliative care,” he says, “has to be fully integrated into the healthcare system.”
“For example, when I fall ill, the doctors and nurses treating me will consider me a human being — and not only look at my coronary arteries — but try to understand what I feel. I hope they will care for my family too.”
“I hope that when I go, I will not be shut up in an intensive care unit, but instead have someone who cares for me sitting beside me, and maybe holding my hand. It would be the ultimate cruelty if I have to die in an intensive care unit with tubes in every orifice and masked creatures working around me.”
“If I were to get disoriented and delirious, my hands and feet may be tied up. I am looking for a world where this kind of intensive cruelty does not happen anymore. I hope for a world where healthcare is delivered with compassion and empathy.”
Source…….Shobha Warrier / Rediff.com
Natarajan
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