India / All Themes
Thousands of devotees visit Ajmer Sharif for 796th Urs ceremony
08.07.2008 03:37
b4uindia.com
Thousands of devotees converged at the revered Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan on Sunday to offer prayers on the occasion of 796th Urs of Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti, the Sufi saint. "Urs"marks the death anniversary of Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti who is popularly called "Garib Nawaz", or the "Messiah of the poor. This year the six-day ceremony started on Friday (June 5). Residents, on this occasion, bedeck the lanes leading to the shrine with colourful decorations. Devotees queue up in front of hundreds of small shops selling the “Chadar” or the holy spread that is laid over the mausoleum of Sufi saint as an offering. Both Hindus and Muslims throng the shrine in large numbers with a belief that all their wishes would be realized by praying at the famous shrine that is also a symbol of communal harmony. "My family has been coming here for past many years. We can experience the presence of some mystic powers at this shrine which draws us to this shrine," said Kalpesh, a Hindu devotee. An estimated a million devotees from India and abroad visit the saint''s shrine during the six-day long Urs. The shrine also attracts devotees from neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh. "Whatever we ask for from our heart is fulfilled, that is why people come here from far off places to get their wishes fulfilled," said Zahid Hussain, a devotee from Bangladesh. Through the fair, devotional music and reciting from the saint Chisti''s own works and other Sufis are presented in traditional Qawali style and sung in chorus. The annual event culminates with readings from the holy Quran and special prayers. The annual gathering is considered to be second largest congregation of Muslims at one place after Mecca. Legend has that in 1236 A.D, the saint had entered his cell to pray in seclusion for six days, at the end of which he died. Since then, Urs is celebrated for six days every year. Chishti, some historian have recorded, came to India after a dream in which the Holy Prophet asked him to do so and eventually settled in the tiny town of Ajmer, where his firm faith in the unity of human beings and equality won him reverence amid the common people. It was in Ajmer that he laid the foundations of the Chishtiyya order, which interprets religion in terms of human services and lays stress of the renunciation of material goods, self-discipline and generosity to others. (ANI)
India
Social Life
Diamonds may have rained down during last Ice Age
08.07.2008 03:36
b4uindia.com
New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in the US has revealed that these precious materials might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. According to a report in Live Science, the new chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana has revealed that the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. “There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada,” said retired geophysicist Allen West, who was involved in the study. The discovery is consistent with a theory proposed by West and colleagues that a 3-mile-wide comet splintered over glaciers and ice sheets in eastern Canada about 12,900 years ago and wiped out man and beast. “These would have been like ten thousand Tunguskas going off at once,” said West, referring to a mid-air explosion over Siberia a century ago possibly caused by a fragmenting meteor. The diamonds, gold and silver could have been ejected into the air during the blasts, or they could have been carried south by rivers formed from the meltwater of liquefied glaciers. The researchers speculate that for several months following the comet strike, the skies rained precious stone and metals. Diamonds drizzled down by the tons. “Some of them you couldn’t see, and animals would’ve been breathing them in,” West told LiveScience. “But other ones would clearly have been visible. They might’ve even hurt if they hit you,” he added. According to West, the larger diamonds were visible to the naked eye and dropped like hail stones within seconds of the blasts. The smallest diamonds, the “size of cold viruses,” would have lingered in the atmosphere for weeks or months, eventually wafting down to Earth like expensive snowflakes, he added. Flaming fragments of the comet crashing to Earth sparked forests fires around the globe, West contends. The intense heat from the blasts set the very air on fire. West and his colleagues have proposed that the comet strike contributed to the extinction of several species of North American megafauna, including mammoths and mastodons, and led to the early demise of the Clovis culture, a Stone Age people who had only recently immigrated to the continent. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Pregnancy can quadruple heart attack risk
08.07.2008 03:36
b4uindia.com
Pregnant women are four times more likely to suffer a heart attack, according to a new study. Though acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is rare in women of child-bearing age, but with more and more women delaying childbirth and advances in advances in reproductive medicine enabling older women to conceive, the incidence of AMI associated with pregnancy is likely to increase. "It''''s extremely important that physicians who take care of women during pregnancy and after delivery be aware of the occasional occurrence of AMI in pregnancy and not overlook symptoms in these young patients," said Dr. Uri Elkayam, who is a professor of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at USC. "Although many of the standard principles for diagnosing and treating AMI in non-pregnant patients also apply to pregnant women, two patients need to be treated—the mother and her baby—and the health status of both should play a major role in the selection of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies," he added. Some of the standard diagnostic tests and medications used to manage AMI can be harmful to the baby, whether in the womb or through breastfeeding; therefore, their use should take into account potential risks and benefits. The researchers analysed 103 women with pregnancy-related AMI and compared them to 125 cases diagnosed prior to that time. Patients'''' ages ranged from 19 to 44 years, and older maternal age was shown to be a risk factor. "The good news is that we''''ve seen a significant drop in maternal deaths related to AMI during and immediately following pregnancy in the last decade," said Dr. Elkayam. "Our initial report indicated a mortality rate of 20 percent, and nearly 40 percent was reported by other studies. In contrast, the new data suggest that only 5 percent to 10 percent of expectant and new mothers who have a heart attack die as a result," he added. The gives credit to increased awareness, more aggressive clinical approaches to treating AMI in general, including standardized hospital protocols for screening and diagnosis, as well as the application of these approaches to pregnant women. "Interestingly, the mechanism of AMI is somewhat different when it occurs in association with pregnancy. One in four women had a weakening and separation of the walls of the coronary arteries (coronary dissection), which is a rare cause of heart attack in the general population," explains Dr. Elkayam. "Another 13 percent had normal coronary arteries. These findings signify the need to establish the cause of AMI in pregnancy in order to decide on appropriate therapy." Dr. Elkayam said that those who experienced AMI within 24 hours before or after delivery are twice as likely to die from heart attack as those who have a cardiac event before labour or postpartum (24 hours to three months after delivery). He hopes that guidelines presented in the paper will further increase awareness about AMI in pregnancy. The study is published in the July 15, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Anti-HIV gels made for women may actually be more beneficial to men
08.07.2008 03:36
b4uindia.com
Anti-HIV gels made to prevent women from acquiring the infection may eventually end up protecting male partners more than females because their repeated use by women may promote drug resistance, say researchers. Biomathematician Sally Blower of the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues modelled drug resistance and HIV transmission in women using microbicide gels, applied once a day by women whose partners refuse to wear condoms. The researchers based the models on data from an ongoing, large-scale clinical trial of a gel containing the antiretroviral drug dapivirine. They varied several parameters, including the likelihood that drugs in the gel would be absorbed into the bloodstream, which may raise the risk of the virus becoming resistant because it is in contact with the drug more often. Studying the models, the researchers came to the conclusion that the gels may be a powerful too in the fight against the disease if they work well to prevent HIV infection. However, just in case the gels promoted drug resistance, men could actually benefit more from the microbicides than women. "Because women are using the microbicides, they’re more likely to acquire drug resistance,” Nature magazine quoted study co-author David Wilson of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, as saying. Given that drug-resistance strains are generally less easily transmissible, "there will be a lower incidence of transmission from women to men than from men to women," Wilson added. Michael Lederman, an HIV researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, said that the threat of drug resistance was a real one. He, however, remains unconvinced that the microbicides will provide better protection for men than women. "I''m not yet persuaded. While this might occur, the assumptions used in the model have to be validated," he said. Meanwhile, Wilson and Blower both said that the gels should continue to be developed. "Microbicides are one of the great hopes at the moment," said Wilson. Blower agreed: "Although there''s good reason to be very cautious, we''ve also shown that there''s great potential to reduce HIV infection." A research article on the study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Early-life nutrition may be linked to adult intellectual functioning
08.07.2008 03:36
b4uindia.com
A new study has shown that adults who had improved nutrition in early childhood may score better on intellectual tests, regardless of the number of years they attended school. The study also suggests that poor nutrition in early life is linked to poor performance on cognitive tests in adulthood. Between 1969 and 1977, Guatemalan children in four villages participated in a trial of nutritional supplementation. Through the trial, some were exposed to atole - a protein-rich enhanced nutritional supplement - while others were exposed to fresco, a sugar-sweetened beverage. Aryeh D. Stein, M.P.H., Ph.D., of the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed data from intellectual testing and interviews conducted between 2002 and 2004, when 1,448 surviving participants (68.4 percent) were an average of 32 years old. Researchers found that individuals exposed to atole between birth and age 24 months scored higher on intellectual tests of reading comprehension and cognitive functioning in adulthood than those not exposed to atole or who were exposed to it at other ages. This link remained significant even when the researchers controlled for other factors associated with intellectual functioning, including years of schooling. "Nutrition in early life is associated with markers of child development in this population, and exposure to atole for most of the first three years of life was associated with an increase of 0.4 years in attained schooling, with the association being stronger for females (1.2 years of schooling)," the authors said. "Thus, schooling might be in the causal pathway between early childhood nutrition and adult intellectual functioning. "Our data, which suggest an effect of exposure to an enhanced nutritional intervention in early life that is independent of any effect of schooling, provide additional evidence in support of intervention strategies that link early investments in children to continued investments in early-life nutrition and in schooling," they added. The study is published in the July issue of Archives of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Natural products derived from marine animals may provide anti-cancer therapies
08.07.2008 03:36
b4uindia.com
A new study suggests that natural products derived from marine animals may have potential use in anti-cancer therapies, and help improve drug delivery. The study led by experts from Aberdeen, Luxembourg, and the South Pacific focussed on finding compounds which interfere with a protein termed NF-kB, which is known to have a critical role in many types of cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, and asthma. "We have tested a large number of marine species to see which can prevent NF-kB from working," said Professor Marcel Jaspars from the University of Aberdeen, who presented the study at the Society for Experimental Biology''s Annual Meeting in Marseille on Monday. "A few animals, including sponges, soft corals and sea lilies, were examined further, and from these we have been able to isolate and characterise the compounds responsible. We have shown that one of these molecules is able to allow normal cell death (which NK-kB switches off in some cancerous cells) to start up again, a property which we will be going onto study in much more detail," the researcher added. The researcher also said that there was another possible application of molecules isolated from marine creatures that had the potential to have just as great an impact on the development of new medicines. "It is an unfortunate reality that currently, many new excellent drugs are discovered that cannot be delivered effectively to the places where they are required," Professor Jaspars said. "However, we have isolated one compound from a Mediterranean sponge that may help to end this trend. This molecule can reversibly create pores in cell membranes, a property for we envisage vast possibilities in the transportation of medicinal drugs. As we can now make this compound in the lab in large quantities, we are now able to investigate possible applications of the molecule, including drug delivery into tumours, gene delivery for cystic fibrosis and delivery of drugs into the eye," the researcher added. (ANI)
India
Health & Beauty
Saudi Arabia: Domestic Workers Face Harsh Abuses
08.07.2008 00:11
humanrightswatch.org
Key Reforms Stalled, Few Remedies for Slavery-Like Conditions Saudi Arabia should implement labor, immigration, and criminal justice reforms to protect domestic workers from serious human rights abuses that in some cases amount to slavery, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Employers often face no punishment for committing abuses including months or years of unpaid wages, forced confinement, and physical and sexual violence, while some domestic workers face imprisonment or lashings for spurious charges of theft, adultery, or "witchcraft."
India
Human Rights Protection
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