Eluru illness: Unanswered questions abound

Eluru illness: Unanswered questions abound

U.Sudhakarreddy@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:  13.12.2020

Despite Friday’s meeting of Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy with multiple national institutions confirmed the presence of lead, nickel and organophosphates in the blood samples of patients, the mystery illness in Eluru continues to baffle the authorities.

Though AIIMS New Delhi, Indian Institute of Chemical technology (IICT) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) have found and confirmed the presence of lead and nickel in the blood samples of residents, there is still no clarity as to how these metals have entered the human body.

Joint collector of West Godavari district Himanshu Shukla said the NIN has also found presence of organophosphate in the blood samples and sought more time to carry out the investigations. “AIIMS Delhi has tied up with other institutions to study the presence of organochlorine and organophosphates in blood,” Shukla said.

He, however, said that out of 40 urine samples sent to AIIMS Delhi, only two samples had shown the presence of lead and nickel.

He said NIN has found the presence of herbicides in vegetables. “But, the test results relating to vegetables, rice, fish, meat and soil are likely to be made available on Dec 16,” he said.

On the other hand, the TDP alleged that chlorine and bleaching powder were present in large quantities in the drinking water supplied by the government to some of the colonies. TDP president and former CM N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that the authorities have not cleaned the drinking water sources for the last one-and-a-half years. “That is why people of Eluru have taken ill after consuming the contaminated water,” he said.

Reacting to social media posts linking him to the Eluru mystery illness, Kamalapuram MLA and CM’s uncle P Ravindranath Reddy refuted the speculations and called them baseless. “I have no connection to the supply of chlorine,” he said. He accused the TDP’s social media wing of spreading misinformation and said he had already lodged a complaint with the state intelligence wing on the posts.

Meanwhile, the authorities have maintained that the water supplied to various colonies in Eluru is treated and clean. They said even the APPCB had given a clean chit to the water samples it had collected and tested.

Officials said AIIMS Delhi and the IICT have not found anything adverse in the water samples and added that water was unlikely to be the source for the mystery illness. “The water supplied in Eluru is potable and fit for human consumption. The NIN is also analysing the water samples and has requested time till Dec 14,” an official said.

STILL A MYSTERY: Patients undergoing treatment at the Eluru district hospital

PhD scholar arrested for illegally manufacturing mephedrone

PhD scholar arrested for illegally manufacturing mephedrone

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Hyderabad: 13.12.2020

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths busted major interstate a mephedrone manufacturing racket and arrested a PhD holder in Chemistry for manufacturing the narcotic substance. The accused has been working for a Mumbai-based cartel for the past year and he has already supplied them with 100 kilos of contraband.

The arrested accused are Srinivasa Rao, 45, a Phd holder in Chemistry and Mohammed Ashraf, an associate of Mumbai-based drug supply gang. Srinivasa Rao has been operating a small drug manufacturing unit independently for the past year based on the directions of the Mumbai-based gang.

Acting on a tip-off, sleuths of DRI’s Hyderabad Zonal Unit raided at the manufacturing unit in Jeedimetla industrial area and arrested both Srinivasa Rao and Mohammed Ashraf on Friday. The DRI team seized 3.1 kilograms of mephedrone worth ₹63.1lakh from their possession. During the subsequent searches conducted at Srinivasa Rao’s house, DRI sleuths seized ₹12.4 lakh cash and 112 grams of mephedrone samples of different purities.

Apart from mephedrone, the law enforcement agency also seized 210.5 kilos of raw materials procured by Rao from the Mumbai gang to manufacture more mephedrone at Jeedimetla lab.

“From the raw material seized, the accused could have manufactured 15-20 kilos of mephedrone,” said a DRI official. During interrogation, Srinivasa Rao confessed that he has a PhD in Chemistry and worked in the pharma sector before ‘breaking bad’. Rao also told the DRI team that he supplied over 100 kilos of mephedrone in the past year.

The DRI believes the gang is exporting the drug, apart from selling some of it in Mumbai, Goa and Delhi. The accused were produced before the court and sent to judicial remand.

State govt not accountable to Union home minister: TMC

State govt not accountable to Union home minister: TMC

Kolkata:  13.12.2020

Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) lawmaker Kalyan Banerjee wrote to Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla on Saturday, saying that West Bengal’s chief secretary and director-general of police (DGP) were summoned to Delhi over the attack on BJP chief JP Nadda’s convoy with “political motive”, asserting that law and order is a state subject.

Banerjee, chief whip of TMC in the Lok Sabha, alleged that the Centre was resorting to coercive means to intimidate the state administration, and the top officials were summoned at the instance of the Union home minister.

BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, however, said that everyone saw how Nadda’s convoy was attacked by alleged TMC workers on December 10 and Banerjee’s letter to Bhalla has “little merit”.

“We want to inform you that law and order is within the domain of the state under 7th Schedule of the State list.... How in respect of the law and order situation you can call both the officers for any sorts of discussion?” the MP wrote. He said that in respect of law and order, the state government is accountable to the legislative assembly “but not to you or to your home minister”. PTI

BJP worker killed, 7 hurt in political clash

A BJP booth committee president, Saikat Bhawal, was killed and at least seven others were injured in an alleged Trinamool-BJP clash during the latter’s Griha Samparka Abhiyan in Halishahahr, about 25 km from Barrackpore, on Saturday, reports Sanjib Chakraborty. Three of the injured are in critical state.

Court tells AI to give £13m to Irish co over non-payment of rent on 5 leased aircraft

Court tells AI to give £13m to Irish co over non-payment of rent on 5 leased aircraft

Naomi Canton

London: 13.12.2020

Air India was on Friday ordered to pay £13 million (Rs 130 crore) to an aircraft leasing company in Dublin for non-payment of rent and related charges on five Airbus A320-200 aircraft it had leased.

India’s national flag carrier has until January 11, 2021 to make the full payment to Aircraft Limited or else it could face enforcement action.

Simon Salzedo QC, sitting as a judge of the high court, entered summary judgment against the airline for the full debt that Aircraft Limited in Dublin is claiming — $17.6 million (£13.4 million). Salzedo criticised Air India for its “unsatisfactory and discourteous conduct” by failing to respond to the application for summary judgment until after the time the skeleton arguments were due to be filed. Air India did not contest the application for summary judgment.

Full report on www.toi.in

Housewife’s road death ‘loss of future prospects’, kin to get ₹17L

Housewife’s road death ‘loss of future prospects’, kin to get ₹17L

Rebecca.Samervel@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:  13.12.2020

Ruling that compensation for “loss of future prospects” can also be granted in the case of a housewife’s death, a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) last week ordered the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) to pay around Rs 17 lakh to the husband and two minor children of a 33-year-old woman who was killed after a bus rammed into their bike at Mankhurd in 2014. “Loss of future prospects” is among the heads covered while awarding compensations in motor accident cases.

The tribunal fixed the deceased housewife’s notional salary at Rs 5,000 per month. A possible future increase in this notional monthly income was pegged at 40%, bringing the loss of future prospects to Rs 7,000 per month.

The tribunal cited a recent Supreme Court judgment and said, “The housewife who contributes for the welfare of the family and upbringing for the children must be given future prospects in as much as with the passage of time, the utility of her services increases in the family.” It stated that a housewife’s services to the family are invaluable. “The housewife renders very important duty. She looks after her husband and children passionately round the clock and creates the comfort zone in the house. In the absence of her in a house for a single day realises her importance (sic) to the other family members,” the tribunal said.

The tribunal refuted the defence that only when the housewife renders skilled services to the family does the question of future prospects come. It said that judgement does not make any distinction between a skilled and unskilled housewife. “In fact housewife is a housewife and with the passage of time her skill in tackling and handling household affairs increases,” the tribunal said, quoting the Supreme Court judgement.

While the victim’s husband and older son will each receive 30% of the compensation amount, the younger son will receive the remaining 40%.It however rejected Archana’s parentsin-law as claimants.

The motor claims tribunal fixed the housewife’s notional salary at Rs 5,000 per month. A future increase in this income was pegged at 40%, bringing the loss of future prospects to Rs 7,000 per month

In laptop age, these writers still love longhand

In laptop age, these writers still love longhand

Did you know that Obama drafted his 700-page-plus memoir with pen and paper? And he’s not the only author who feels that when words matter, machines don’t cut it

Ketaki.Desai@timesgroup.com

13.12.2020

Handwritten manuscripts hold many secrets and insights. Take Marcel Proust’s lined notebooks that contained absent-minded doodles, surrealist artworks and his dogged revisions. Or the notebooks in which Virginia Woolf drafted Mrs Dalloway, writing on the margins an affirmation of sorts: “A delicious idea comes to me that I will write anything I want to write”. Ernest Hemingway’s handwriting was described as boyish, reflecting a disdain for punctuation and capital letters, with his sentences often ending with an X.

In an age where keyboards are mightier than the pen, literary texts written in longhand might seem like relics of the past but many writers still swear by the process. Barack Obama’s The Promised Land — all 751 pages — was written entirely in longhand because as he says, “a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mark of tidiness.” Many Indian writers have also cultivated this habit, not because they’re Luddites, but because they prefer it.

Novelist Anita Nair says her thoughts flow better in longhand. “I write using a fountain pen, so my standard process is that I fill the ink in the morning and I write until it dries out,” says Nair, who has written all of her novels, as well as poetry and non-fiction works in longhand. “It’s more fluid and I think that has to do with the action itself. When you’re keying it in or even using a touchscreen, there’s a staccato motion, which is jerky,” she says, adding that writing with pen and paper takes away the ability to just erase the words one typed, and fosters careful thought.

This aspect of greater deliberation is also important for poet and author Jerry Pinto, whose habit of writing in longhand soon became a conscious choice. “In the beginning it was because I would get ideas at inopportune places and times like bus-rides, and late at night. At that time, one would then have to type them up with carbon copies and hand the stories in. It was almost as much labour to type as to handwrite,” he says. “When the computer came along I was frightened at the speed at which I could type. I felt this was not a good thing because I was using unnecessary words and long sentences. So I started working with paper and pen.” Pinto calls it his version of the Slow Cooking movement — “I want my thoughts simmered; I want my ideas marinated.”

Oral historian and author Aanchal Malhotra only began to write in longhand in 2017 when she began working on her first novel. At first, it was a way to differentiate her fiction from her non-fiction, yet now much of her writing is being shaped in her Moleskine notebooks. “I find it a lot more comfortable writing things down, like it’s closer to my brain somehow,” says the 30-year-old Delhi-based author.

Writer Anil Dharker never learnt to type. “My first job in journalism was as an editor. Before that, I was doing various things like engineering and heading the National Film Development Corporation where I always had a secretary to type for me,” he says. The ritual persists — Dharker writes down the novel or column and his assistant types it in. Editing takes place on a computer when a deadline looms, or he prints out the typed version and makes revisions by hand. This process, including the choice of pen used, is shared by Jeffrey Archer whom Dharker was recently in conversation with at the Tata Lit Live litfest.

Meanwhile, Amit Chaudhuri writes his novels and poems in a generic student’s notebook which he has used for years because the spacing and density of words on the page are just right. “I write it down longhand and after I’ve written down a paragraph, I return to it. For me, the basic unit of writing isn’t even a sentence, it’s a paragraph. I have to take out sentences, maybe add something until I find this paragraph is working and has come to some kind of life.” It’s only after this that the author and poet keys it in on a computer. When writing poems, however, he has the unusual habit of starting with the last page “as if it’s an afterthought”.

Dharkar doesn’t like the impersonality of a keyboard. “This laptop may belong to you but this keyboard is the same as every other keyboard,” he says. “With pen and paper, it is your own very individual handwriting that is not replicable. There is something so personal about it.”

Oral historian and author Aanchal Malhotra has written her upcoming novel in longhand. She feels that it’s more personal “like it’s closer to my brain somehow”

I write using a fountain pen, so my standard process is that I fill the ink in the morning and I write until it dries out

— ANITA NAIR

Novelist

‘No one can speed up vaccine trials, and their evaluation’

INTERVIEW

13.12.2020

‘No one can speed up vaccine trials, and their evaluation’

As the founder of Shantha Biotechnics, one of the first Indian companies to develop vaccines indigenously and the only one to develop a vaccine independently, K I Varaprasad Reddy has a unique insight into the ongoing global race to launch a Covid-19 vaccine. In an interview with Swati Bharadwaj, the Padma Bhushan awardee talks about the challenges ahead

It takes years to develop a vaccine but now the process is being fast-tracked. Are you worried that safety is being compromised?

Everyone knows that no vaccine was ever developed this fast. TB vaccine took 28 years, Ebola took 5.5 years. AIDS, though known for 40 years, does not have a vaccine as yet. Yes, technological advancement in virology and experiments with repurposed vaccines speeded up the development of this vaccine but no one can speed up clinical trials and their evaluation. A car can be designed to go at 300 km/hr speed. Still we fix a 100/120 speed limit on Indian roads because our road tests say so. Similarly, tests alone can testify to the safety of this vaccine. Also, risks involved will be different for each vaccine and will be known once mass vaccination starts.

Vaccine makers are facing tremendous public and political pressure to deliver a vaccine. Are basic aspects of vaccine development being ignored in this haste?

Pressure from governments is obvious. A scientist does not compromise on quality or ignore basic aspects of development of vaccine but he cannot be sure of the efficacy and immunogenicity of his invention unless it is analysed and observed on a reasonable time basis and peer-reviewed. But governments are eager to put the stamp of approval under the head ‘Emergency Authorisation of Use’, even without this essential process. I am afraid vaccine makers are running the risk in these circumstances as their image is at stake.

Do you think there is enough scientific data on Covid-19 vaccine candidates?

We get only press reports. Data is revealed only to a committee of experts in the regulatory authority’s office. They are neither crosschecked nor peer-reviewed nor published in international scientific journals as much as they should be.

The world is looking to India and vaccine capital Hyderabad to churn out Covid vaccines. What challenges do Indian vaccine makers face?

Let us be clear on one point. India has not produced any original vaccine so far, except for cholera by Shantha Biotechnics. What we have here is robust infrastructure to manufacture vaccines in bulk. If someone hands us over a good vaccine, we can produce them in large quantities at an affordable cost so that even third world countries can buy it. The challenge Indian vaccine makers face is how to keep producing other ongoing vaccines with the same infrastructure, while trying to produce billions of doses of Covid vaccines in a short span of time.

Once Covid-19 vaccines are approved for use, what is the way forward?

As of now, we are far from having a viable vaccine, whatever it means. Normally, after a vaccine has been approved, we manufacture five consistent batches of vaccine and send them for testing to the National Testing Laboratory for sterility, potency tests, etc and start mass production only after getting clearance. In the case of the Covid vaccine, large-scale manufacturing started even before third-stage clinical trials were concluded. In these circumstances, every step poses a challenge, right from determining shelf-life to the period it takes for developing immunogenicity in the body. The biggest challenge is to see that the public does not lose faith in the whole process of vaccination, in case there are any adverse effects.

How prepared are we for the mammoth task of vaccinating 1.3 billion Indians?

Delivery system poses a number of problems especially since our primary health centres (PHCs) are in poor condition. Government should use this as an opportunity to develop logistics to strengthen the healthcare system.

Many developed nations have already cornered a chunk of Covid-19 vaccines? What are its implications for developing nations?

Here production capacity does not matter. What matters is who funded the research and had modern technology. Successive Indian governments did not encourage R&D in the country and, now, we are depending upon others’ innovations. Developed nations paid huge amounts to block the production for them. India did no such thing and we cannot grumble. Indian government allowed 100% FDI in the healthcare industry. So even socially conscious entrepreneurs like me are hand-tied to do our bit in this matter.