Human Development - Livemint.com

The wrong place at the right time

Samanth Subramanian — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Mumbai: Not everything in the photograph is, at first, immediately clear. The shop in the deserted background has been reduced to a yellow-and-green matrix formed by the hanging packets of potato chips. The advertisement for HDFC Standard Life is too awash with light to read easily. Even the gun is really just an elongated, metallic blur; we infer that it is a gun because we know who is holding it. Only its owner has been caught in sharp relief, his face composed but his stride reeking of the braggadocio of a young man who knows that a city, at least for the moment, is cowering before him.

Iconic image: Sebastian D’Souza’s photo of Ajmal Kasab at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus got a special mention in the Spot News category at the World Press Photo award; and (right) D’Souza.

If every conflict produces one iconic image, 26/11’s is undoubtedly Sebastian D’Souza’s photo of Ajmal Kasab, frozen mid-rampage at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. It is the equivalent of the man in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square, the soldiers planting the flag at Iwo Jima, a tearful, pleading Qutubuddin Ansari during the 2002 Gujarat riots—the default image to accompany any story, published anywhere in the world, about the terror attacks. “And it isn’t even like I’m very proud of that photo, technically,” D’Souza says. “It’s just that nobody had ever photographed a terrorist in action before.”

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D’Souza, a spry 56-year-old, is the photo editor at the Mumbai Mirror, a newspaper housed in The Times of India building—so close to the terminus that last 26 November, he could hear a grenade go off even as he sat in his office. His team was already preparing to leave for the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, from where rumours of a shootout had filtered into the newsroom. When he heard the explosion, D’Souza grabbed his backpack and sprinted towards the terminus, slipping in just before the police cordoned off the area. Another photographer, Rajnish Kakade of Associated Press, recalls that he wasn’t quite as lucky: “My office is a little further off. I was just 15 minutes too late.”

For the next 40 minutes, D’Souza played an intricate game of cat and mouse, hiding behind pillars and in shadows, sneaking through the carriages of stationary trains, chasing after the indistinct figures of Kasab and Abu Ismail. At times, he ran into knots of crouching policemen, all reluctant to open fire. He saw the owner of a bookshop gunned down mere metres away, one hand still clutching onto the stall as he fell. “Kasab heard the sound of my camera, but every time he looked my way, I ducked,” he says. “At some point, I realized I was wearing a light-coloured T-shirt, and that if I moved too much, they would see me. Something told me to run away.”

Cold-minded

In all, D’Souza took at least 100 photos, not once looking down at the viewfinder of his Nikon to see what he’d captured. “I’d been in the riots in Mumbai and Gujarat, but I don’t think this was as dangerous as a riot,” he says. “Here you knew there were two men. In a riot, you don’t know who will come after you to kill you.”

Only after the pair of terrorists left the station and the police crept back in to assess the damage did D’Souza look through his pictures. “The famous photo was the sharpest of the lot,” he says. “But there were other photographers, and I thought they would have gotten some photos too. Later I’d ask them: ‘Where were you guys? You shouldn’t have been afraid.’”

Finding himself barred from the terminus, Kakade had made his way to the Taj, where he spent the night and most of the next two days. “I met Sebastian when he came to the hotel at 5 the next morning, but it was only around 8:30 or 9 that I saw his picture in the paper,” Kakade says. “It was so clear. It showed his presence of mind—it was shot cold-mindedly. Even then I thought it was a candidate for the World Press Photo award.” He was right; it would win a special mention in the Spot News category.

At the Taj, Kakade asked D’Souza if he would license the photo to Associated Press. “I told him that via a wire agency, everybody in the world would see the photo,” Kakade says. “He agreed. He didn’t even ask for any money.” D’Souza, with a wry smile, insists that he did it to take revenge upon a competing wire agency where he used to work. “But if I’d known I could have gotten a crore (of rupees) for it, I would have sold it and quit my job.”

This was live

D’Souza’s photo is particularly gripping as a capsule of incongruity. “We usually have images of a terrorist that conform to a stereotypical idea,” says Devika Daulet-Singh, director of Photoink, a New Delhi-based photo agency. “This guy looks like a college student—he could be anybody. It shakes up all your ideas. More importantly, you actually got an image of the attack. Usually, when something happens, say in Kashmir, you maybe get images of the bodies later, if that. This was live.”

Even before the terrorist assault on Mumbai ended, D’Souza’s photo had appeared in publications around the world, but it would be another seven months before he saw his subject again. In June, D’Souza appeared at the Arthur Road court house to testify against Kasab. “He had lost all his musculature,” he remembers. “Earlier he had looked firm and trim. Now he looked softer.”

Copies of D’Souza’s photos were handed around the courtroom, and as Kasab looked at them over his lawyer’s shoulder, D’Souza remembers, “something happened to him. He looked ill. He put his head down on the desk, and then he told the judge that he wanted to go back to his cell, that he wasn’t feeling well”. The judge disregarded that request. “So Kasab started crying. Seeing those photos, he must have felt something.”

The cross-examination of D’Souza was brief. “Kasab’s lawyer asked me if I knew what ‘morphing’ meant. He was trying to trap me,” he says. “I replied: ‘It’s the first time I’m hearing the word. You tell me what it means.’” But his cheekiest, most pithy response had come at the very beginning of that trial session. Asked, as a matter of formality, if he recognized the defendant, D’Souza looked directly at Kasab and said: “His photo made me famous. How could I forget?”

samanth.s@livemint.com

Their story is the story of Bhopal

Akshai Jain — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:29:00 GMT

Bhopal: The intervening night of 2-3 December 1984 changed life for everyone in Bhopal. But not even in her wildest imagination had Rashida Bee thought that looking back 25 years later, she would find it difficult to recognize herself.

“If it hadn’t been for that night,” she says, “the world could have come and gone, and I’d still be sitting at home in purdah, rolling beedis by night and doing housework by day.” Her colleague Champa Devi Shukla nods in silent agreement. She, too, would have been just another housewife in a basti in Bhopal.

Leadership qualities: Champa Devi Shukla (left) and Rashida Bee are managing trustees of the Chingari Trust that works with children with congenital defects born to survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Madhu Kapparath / Mint

Instead, they now represent the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy at conferences and demonstrations across the world. In 2004, they received the Goldman Environmental Prize, given to grass roots activists, for the work they have done with Bhopal’s poor. And they’re managing trustees of the Chingari Trust that works with children with congenital defects born to survivors of the disaster.

Rashida Bee hadn’t heard of Union Carbide Corp. till the night she woke up with a burning sensation in her eyes. For a while she thought someone in the neighbourhood was burning chillies, but then she heard the sounds of people running. “That night,” says Champa Devi, completing Rashida Bee’s sentence, “we all prayed for death.”

Also Read 25 yrs on, a walk through the Carbide plant

She doesn’t remember much of what happened next, but when she finally managed to open her eyes, she found most members of her family missing. After a frantic search, a few were tracked down at a hospital 150km from Bhopal. Seven were found in the morgue.

Champa Devi was luckier; none of her family died that night. She fled with her husband, three sons and one daughter, clambering over bodies of the dead to escape the spreading gas leak from the Union Carbide pesticides plant.

In the middle of that month, Rashida Bee’s family went away to Hoshangabad for six months, and Champa Devi’s stayed with relatives in different parts of the country.

Both remember the months after they came back to Bhopal as being the worst. Every member of their families was suffering from effects of exposure to the gas leak. Some found it difficult to breathe while others couldn’t summon the energy to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. There was no money and no work to be had.

Only chance

Then, on 15 November 1985, a few government inspectors came to their neighbourhoods. They were offering women training at a stationery centre that the government was starting as part of its rehabilitation programme for victims of the disaster.

Neither woman had ever worked outside her house. They had no idea what to expect, but they knew that this was their only chance.

Fifty Muslim women and 50 Hindu women were selected for three months of training. They were to be paid a stipend of all of Rs5 per day.

That is where Rashida Bee met Champa Devi. They sat in adjoining lines. “When I first saw her, I noticed the bindi, and assumed she was Bengali,” says Rashida Bee laughing at the memory. “And judging by her salwar kameez, I assumed she was Punjabi,” giggles Champa Devi.

Over the next few months, they became the voices of the women working there. Three months after they had joined the centre, the women were told that their training period was over and that they should now try to find employment.

“We were working at a stationery centre, but in those three months we hadn’t touched a sheet of paper,” says Rashida Bee, the anger still evident in her voice. That’s when they decided they would have to fight.

They were chosen by the women to speak to the collector—a top civil servant—when he visited the centre on the last day of training. The collector brushed them off, saying he could only give them work if the chief minister said so.

“I didn’t even know who the chief minister was,” sighs Rashida Bee. But the next morning they set out at 6.30am towards the chief minister’s residence. They didn’t have money for the bus fare, so they walked for 2 hours to get there.

After waiting for the better part of the morning, they managed to meet the chief minister, Motilal Vora. The best he could do for them, he said, was to get them jobs on a “piece rate” basis with Raj Udyog Nigam—a government-sponsored small-scale industry that said it would pay them for every piece of stationery they produced.

Collective action

For the next month, the 100 women went to work every day, but were only given work on one. “On 1 April 1986, a month after we’d started, all of us were paid Rs6 for that single day of work,” says Champa Devi, recollecting the date without a moment’s pause. “The price of a kilo of potatoes was Rs8.”

The women decided they would rather work for free. For the next three months, they refused any money. And for the first time their voices were heard. At the end of that period, they were promised a minimum of Rs150 of work every month.

Their first victory also made them realize the importance of collective action. On 17 March 1987, the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh, an organization set up to help victims of the gas tragedy, was born.

Had their family members been supportive? “Yes,” both reply.

“For a while my uncles were a little upset that I was not wearing purdah, but then they saw how important my work was,” says Rashida Bee.

The formation of the union was the first step in a long struggle for fair wages. One of its first demands was that the women be paid “factory rates” that applied to manufacturing set-ups with more than 20 employees.

The next was that they be paid the same wages as other employees at the Central Government Press where they had been shifted to. The lower wages, Rs535 as opposed to Rs2,400, that were reserved for the “gas affected” because of their lower productivity were unfair and demeaning, they contended.

The fight took them on a one-month-and-three-day road journey from Bhopal to New Delhi in 1989, during which they camped out in the open, lived on the charity of villagers and wore sandals made of leaves when their slippers broke.

It was around this time that the women got involved with communities in the slums around the Union Carbide factory. Most of these people were drinking water contaminated by the chemicals dumped in the factory. As a result, the incidence of birth defects in children there was alarmingly high.

Health collapse

The compensation given to the slum-dwellers had been exhausted long ago on medical care, and a few of the other benefits that the government had supposedly doled out never reached them.

While she was busy with her work, the health of Champa Devi’s family members had started collapsing. Her husband was diagnosed with bladder cancer and died after three years of treatment. Her older son, who had suffered particularly badly from the effects of the disaster, committed suicide. Her youngest son had three children of which one was born with a cleft lip, the second died soon after being born and the third had stunted growth.

Despite the trauma, Champa Devi continued working with the stationery karamchari sangh. The sangh had finally taken the case for back wages to the courts. It made its arduous way from the labour court to the high court and then the Supreme Court, where it remains to this day.

In 2004, the world changed once again for Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla when they were given the Goldman Environmental Prize for the work they had done with gas-affected communities.

The prize money was used to create Chingari, a rehabilitation centre for disabled children. Today, it has registered with it 300 children up to 12 years old. Space constraints, however, only allow them to accommodate 60 children a day. The centre has a speech therapist, physiotherapist, special educators and doctors. Its aim, according to Champa Devi, “is to try to give the children the tools to go to a regular school”.

Champa Devi and Rashida Bee still work at the Central Government Press, where they’re junior binders. The wages have increased over the years to Rs4,000. They spend the morning there and can be found at Chingari in the afternoon.

Of the three goals they set themselves when they got the award in 2004, they’ve achieved two. They’ve started a school for disabled children and they’ve instituted an award called the Chingari trophy for women who’re doing exemplary social work. A vocational training centre for women from the gas-affected neighbourhoods remains to be set up.

Getting this far

Even though things have changed for the women, the struggle has otherwise been painfully slow. The Chingari Trust is just off Berasia Road, one of the areas most affected by the gas tragedy. Rehabilitation and development still elude the area. The roads here are rutted with deep potholes, and there are swarms of mosquitoes everywhere.

But just getting this far has been an achievement. Sitting in their tiny office, Champa Devi and Rashida Bee look like happy sisters—giving interviews together, completing each other’s sentences, taking over when the other pauses and nodding together over shared memories.

Their greatest achievement, they feel, has been to prove they have it in them to fight and to lead other women in the struggle. “Once we felt like we were frogs in a well,” says Rashida Bee, “but now the whole world is with us.”

This year, they’ve decided to change the format of the Chingari trophy. Instead of giving it to one woman, they’re going to give it to 25 from across the country. One for each year of the past 25 years.

This is the second of a series. Tomorrow: The attractions and occupations of the tragedy.

akshai.j@livemint.com

Stem cell therapy ‘for blindness’ on the anvil

PTI — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:18:00 GMT

London: In what’s claimed to be a ground -breaking research, scientists are to use embryonic stem cell therapy “to cure blindness” in people.

Clinical trials of the treatment for Stargardt’s disease — a rare, incurable eye disease that causes blindness early in adulthood — are expected to begin next year, British newspaper The Times reported.

And if the research is cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, 12 patients with Stargardt’s disease, involved in the trial, could become the world’s first to receive such treatment based on embryonic stem cells.

Lead scientist Robert Lanza of the Advanced Cell Technology described the application as an important advance.

“After years of research and political debate, we’re finally on the verge of showing the potential clinical value of embryonic stem cells.

“Our research clearly shows that stem cell-derived retinal cells can rescue visual function in animals that otherwise would have gone blind. We are hopeful that the cells will be similarly efficacious in patients.”

Embryonic stem cells are master cells found in embryos that can form any of the specialised tissue types in the adult human body. They’ve great potential as a source of replacement tissue for treating disease or injury.

Advanced cell technology has used a line of embryonic stem cells grown from an embryo to create retinal pigment epithelial cells, a type of eye tissue that malfunctions in Stargardt’s disease and age-related mascular degeneration.

In studies of rats with Stargardt’s, implanting these cells led to a substantial improvement in eyesight. The animals showed no adverse effects.

Dr Lanza said that the trial would involve 12 patients at three centres in the US, and is designed first to assess safety and tolerability.

And, if this is successful, a larger study to examine effectiveness will follow, and if all goes well a treatment could be approved for wider use within three to five years.

Researchers find defective gene that impairs insulin secretion

Seema Singh — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Bangalore: Have we finally found the diabetes gene?

An international team of researchers reports in Friday’s issue of Science that they have discovered a new gene as well as pinned down, for the first time, the mechanism by which its defect impairs insulin secretion, leading to type 2 diabetes. More importantly, the researchers treated the genetic defect with drugs that are approved for treating hypertension and erectile dysfunction, suggesting that the new genes are potential candidates for developing therapies in future.

The discovery is significant because even though nine genes have been identified so far to be instrumental in the adult onset diabetes, a metabolic disorder reaching epidemic levels, particularly in India, none has been linked to the precise mechanism by which the disease develops.

“The authors have presented a very significant finding in type 2 diabetes; it’s a complete study in the sense that it maps out the gene as well as shows the molecular function apart from verifying the disease causing locus in human patients,” says Avadhesha Surolia, director of the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi.

This is an important finding especially when we do not have a clear idea as to why some people or families are more predisposed to develop diabetes, says Anoop Misra, director and head, department of diabetes and metabolic diseases, Fortis Hospitals, in the Capital.

One of the highlights of the research is the use of inbred rats with inherited susceptibility to the disease. The culprit gene, Adra2a, helps to suppress insulin secretion, and the researchers found it was significantly overexpressed in the inbred rats. They also found that a particular genetic sequence in the human version of the Adra2a gene is associated with reduced insulin secretion and increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Since environmental and population variability affect the genetic make-up, lead authors of the study—Erik Renstrom and Anders Rosengren from Lund University Diabetes Centre in Sweden—say but for the inbred rats, it would have been difficult to identify Adra2a using only human genetics.

Till date, one of the strongest diabetic associations has been found in TCF7L2 gene, which also links through reduced insulin secretion. Mutation in any of these nine genes might lead to type 2 diabetes and the age of onset will decrease if more than one such mutation coexists, says Surolia.

“It is unlikely that any single gene can explain all type 2 diabetes, as it is a polygenic disease with multiple genes with rather modest effect sizes being involved,” says V. Mohan, chairman and chief diabetologist at Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre in Chennai, also a WHO collaborating centre for non communicable diseases prevention and control.

And even though Renstrom and colleagues showed that the drugs can counteract the adverse effects of this genetic defect, Dr Mohan says extrapolating this to large human studies isn’t easy.

In a country that currently has 50.8 million diabetics, going up to about 9% of the population by 2030, according to the International Diabetic Federation, studies to pinpoint any particular gene having a dominant role in the development of this disease haven’t been quite successful. So, Fortis’ Misra believes these findings may be important for Indian population. “Investigations are needed to see whether this defect may partly explain heightened tendency of Asian Indians to develop diabetes.”

Renstrom and Rosengren say their study of the Caucasian sample shows that Adra2a gene is involved in about 40% of type 2 diabetes cases. “So, clearly Adra2a is not the sole explanation for the disease. Further studies in other populations would be important,” they wrote in an email.

Currently, type 2 diabetes treatment pretty much follows the one-size-fits-all approach—the same therapy is being given to everyone with increased plasma glucose. But in reality, say experts, the molecular disease mechanism varies between individuals.

Through this study, says Surolia, authors have opened the door to personalized medicine. In future, patients may be checked for this particular defect and treated specifically with approved drugs.

Till that happens, says Misra, diet and lifestyle factors can largely overcome genetic advantage or disadvantage. In October, the medical journal Lancet published an extensive study showing that lifestyle intervention can delay type 2 diabetes by up to 10 years.

Education | Education Bills to be tabled in winter session

Pallavi Singh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:06:00 GMT

New Delhi: The human resource development ministry, which oversees education, is likely to table three key education reform Bills in the winter session of Parliament to be held between 19 November and 12 December.

The ministry is planning to table three proposed laws to curb educational malpractices, to set up a tribunal for education disputes redressal and establish a new higher education accreditation regime.

The laws need cabinet approval before they are introduced in Parliament. The ministry may first seek approval for at least two Bills first—the Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill and the Education Tribunals Bill—at the cabinet meeting on 23 November. The third Bill—the National Authority for Regulation of Accreditation in Higher Education Bill — could be tabled before cabinet after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US on 24 November.

Executive MBAs get a second chance

Aparna Kalra — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:27:00 GMT

New Delhi: After Mohit Mahajan gave the 2007 Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), his score of 750 ensured he won a seat in INSEAD, a prestigious business school in Paris. But by the time Mahajan approached banks for a Rs40 lakh loan to fund the course, the subprime crises had surfaced and banks had become wary of lending.

On track: The launch class of IIM-B’s executive MBA programme. Around 20% of this batch have a job offer.

So Mahajan had to let the offer go.

“In retrospection (it) was a good decision,” said Mahajan, 29, who applied last year on the basis of his GMAT score for admission to the launch class of the one-year executive MBA programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B).

Now, four months away from graduation, Mahajan said the number of companies which have visited campus for recruitment surprises him. “Six to seven months ago, was I expecting these kind of offers, these kind of designations? The answer is: No,” said Mahajan, who has eight years of work experience and quit a job in Oracle Corp. to join the programme.

As recruiters return to business schools to hire, it is not just the core two-year MBA programmes that are gaining. Executive MBA programmes, shorter but more expensive, which struggled to place students amid the global economic downturn, are also looking up.

Students of the 80-seat executive MBA programme at IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) said that companies are hiring again.

“(The) interest we are getting (is) from people who we approached last year”, said Manoj Khare, a student of the executive MBA programme at IIM-A responsible for job placements. The school has seen a doubling from last year in the number of pre-placement talks (PPTs) where companies pitch or explain their businesses to candidates, said another student.

“Yes, the response has been very good,” said Sapna Agarwal, a graduate of IIM-B’s Class of 1993 who returned to her alma mater a few months ago to manage careers for students in the core MBA programme as well as the new executive MBA course.

Agarwal said 20% of the 75-strong class in IIM-B’s executive MBA programme has a job offer in hand.

Recruiters turned up in force during the recently concluded summer placement season at IIMs, where students from the core two-year MBA programme meet employers to get internships for the next summer. Goldman Sachs doubled its hires from IIMs; the Royal Bank of Scotland made 12 offers at IIM-A alone.

Those who manage executive MBA programmes say finding a fit for their experienced graduates, who tend to be picky, and know exactly what they are looking for in terms of jobs, can be difficult.

“Questions of fit and career progression become larger,” said IIM-A’s Khare.

Khare, 43, quit an 18-year career progression, which included seven years in the Indian Railways, and ended with a job in an oil and gas advisory company. He said his decision to leave his job and join the programme with a fee tag of Rs18.5 lakh was made easier by the support of a wife who continues with her job in Pune. Khare also took an education loan of Rs11 lakh.

Most candidates look for shifts in career through an executive MBA programme. Hemant Tirthani, 30, who is enrolled in IIM-A’s executive MBA programme, for instance, has worked for five years in sales and marketing, and brand management. He wants to move to a position that is “more than marketing”, and has “profit and loss responsibility in terms of how the company performs”.

On Children’s Day: the reality

Saabira Chaudhuri — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:36:00 GMT

New Delhi: All through childhood, I associated Children’s Day with something special. At school, we’d be given sweets and allowed a longer lunch break, and all our teachers seemed to make at least a marginal effort to give us less homework.

My passage out of childhood however, has been marked by an evolving recognition of the many strata that comprise the “children” celebrated on Children’s Day. While sweets may have been the order of the day for my friends and I, for many of the children in the country I call home, Children’s Day is yet another day to survive — rather than celebrate.

This Children’s Day is particularly significant because it marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Child Rights Convention. We talk to Angela Walker, spokesperson for Unicef India; Deepa Bajaj, chief executive of Child Survival India; and Thomas Chandy, CEO of Save the Children in India, to get their thoughts on Children’s Day.

What are the three biggest issues affecting children in India today?

Walker: Child labour, obstacles to the enrollment and attendance of children in schools, and child marriage. Ending child marriage is very important because a girl who stays in school when she has children is far more likely to send her own children to school, to get them immunized and to practice better health and hygiene.

Bajaj: Malnourishment, illiteracy and the compulsion to be gainfully employed at a young age in order to support their families.

Chandy: Death from easily preventable and treatable diseases and conditions — two million children below the age of five die every year from these, while over four lakh children die within the first 24 hours of life every year in India. Child labour — officially there are approximately 13 million children below the age of 14 engaged in child labour. Finally, there is a lack of education in a country where education is a fundamental right. Approximately 53% of children drop out at the elementary level and 20% of children drop out by the second grade.

Click here to view slideshow of photographs taken of children in India by Raghu Rai

How can a regular individual help?

Walker: Every individual is a voter and can make a difference. People need to bring these issues to the attention of lawmakers. The capability of this country is enormous: there are rockets being sent to the moon, luxury hotels, Bollywood stars, engineers, teachers — the list goes on. If Indian society as a whole stood up against these issues, they would end.

Bajaj: They can support needy children in their own environment. They can help their maid’s children, their driver’s children, their peon’s children to get a quality education and basic health and nutrition. They can volunteer their time. They should not employ children to work as maids.

Chandy: They can show their support for a campaign through offering funds, signing up to volunteer, writing letters to newspapers, etc. With the EVERY ONE campaign that Save the Children has just launched to prevent children under 5 dying needlessly, we are collecting thumbprints from the public that we will then present to the government. This is not only to show public support for the cause but also to build pressure on the government to deliver on its promise to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Massive public support is critical for policy change to take effect. Again, while the law can act as a deterrent, the social and cultural acceptance must end if we are to eliminate this scourge of child labour. Do not employ children.

What is the one issue children face that you think is most easily or immediately solvable?

Walker: Proper neo-natal care makes a huge difference to an infant’s chance of survival. Of infants who die, 73% are in first 4 weeks. There are no-cost solutions to this such as breast feeding in the first 2 hours, or washing of hands with soap to avoid infection. Many children die of hypothermia due to traditional practices like not putting clothes on the baby right away. If we can make people aware of these simple, no-cost interventions it could make a huge difference.

Bajaj: Every child should have the right to live a healthy life. The state should provide basic health facilities.

Chandy: There are no easy solutions unfortunately. However, if I were to pick one area that needs to be worked on immediately, it is the government’s commitment to the UN Child Rights Convention guaranteeing its children the Right to life as enshrined under Article 6 of the UNCRC. India is also committed to the Millennium Development Goals. There are several low-cost home-based interventions that can reduce the number of children dying by up to 70% if provided universally.

What is the one piece of legislation you would like to see enacted?

Walker: The proper legislation is already in place. I would like to see it implemented. Although the Right to Education bill has been passed, millions of children are still not in school.

Bajaj: The implementation of the Right to Education bill and child labour laws.

Chandy: The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act is a flawed pieced of legislation and must be scrapped and replaced by new legislation that bans all forms of child labour.

On the 20 year anniversary of the Child Rights Convention, what score would you give India on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of the rights and quality of life its children enjoys?

Walker: I am not a numbers person. I’m not comfortable rating the country. What I can tell you is that at Unicef, we are very happy with many of the laws enacted — like the right to education, and laws against child labour and marriage.

Bajaj: Four out of 10. We have made some improvements but we still have miles to go.

Chandy: Four out of 10 since India’s growth has not been inclusive and does not address the needs of millions of marginalised children in the country.

Delhi Metro enters Noida, thousands to benefit

PTI — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:00:00 GMT

New Delhi: Delhi Metro on Thursday achieved another milestone when a brand-new train chugged into the satellite city of Noida for the first time paving the way for thousands of commuters in east Delhi and adjoining areas to enjoy the new age transport system.

Click here to view slideshow

The 13.1 km Yamuna Bank-Noida line was inaugurated by Union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy in the presence of chief minister Sheila Dikshit at the newly-built Akshardham station here.

Reddy flagged off the first train with destination to Noida City Centre (Sector-32). This is the first time a Metro train formally enters Noida.

The line, which will be opened for public from 6 am Friday, is expected to bring a paradigm shift in the travelling habits of thousands of people in east Delhi and trans-Yamuna areas.

The Noida corridor, built at a cost of Rs630 crore, is completely elevated and will be integrated with the existing 34.3 km Yamuna Bank-Dwarka Sector-9 segment,extending total length of the Line-3 to 47.4 km.

The line is also the first where the DMRC missed its deadline. The corridor was scheduled for opening in October.

DMRC has projected that about 53,000 passengers daily are expected to join the new age transport system after the opening of the Noida corridor.

The DMRC will run eight brand-new broad gauge trains, procured from Bombardier, on the line presently.

Decks were cleared for the DMRC to cross Delhi and enter NCR in July when Parliament passed a Bill to give legal cover for construction, operation and maintenance of the metro rail system in the NCR and other metro cities.

The Metro stations on the Noida corridor will have a completely new and modern look. Parking facility has been provided at all stations till New Ashok Nagar and in Noida at Botanical Garden and Noida City Centre stations.

Akshardham station on the section will be one of the most aesthetic stations so far as it has been designed to match the look of the Akshardham Temple located nearby.

The station will also be the tallest Metro station built so far, having six levels and standing 16.5 m above the ground and 21 m from the basement. Earlier, the Kashmere Gate station at 15 m above the ground was the tallest.

In order to make sure that the station blends well with the locale which houses the sprawling Akshardham Temple, DMRC decided to use Dholpur stone on the exterior of the station structure as has been done in the temple too.

Provision has also been made at the upper ground and concourse levels of the station for commuters to enjoy the magnificent view of the temple.

The station will be connected to the Commonwealth Games Village by a road being constructed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) from the front entrance of the station. The DDA is also constructing a bus shelter near the front entrance of the station for the convenience of commuters using the public transport.

After flagging off the train, Reddy said it marks the extension of “legendary” Delhi Metro into UP and all the projects of the Phase-II will be completed before the Commonwealth Games.

“(DMRC managing director) Sreedharan is confident that DMRC will fulfill all promises absolutely,” Reddy told reporters.

Noting that the DMRC is “one of the greatest achievements” in India in the recent years, he said, “we have decided that Metro facilities can be introduced in all cities which have the population of more than two million.”

The minister said Haryana and UP demanded during Wednesday’s meeting of NCR Planning Board that the Metro services should be extended to Ghaziabad, Faridabad and other places.

“We would like to go as far as possible provided the routes are economically viable. Economic viability is an important criteria and these demands will be taken up as soon as possible,” Reddy said.

“We will repeat the performance of Delhi Metro in other cities. Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai Metro projects have already started and such a facility in Kochi is in the pipeline,” he added.

Dikshit said it was an “exciting day as the Delhi Metro will step out of the capital and enter the state of UP”.

You can study while you work, companies tell their employees

Archana Rai — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:57:00 GMT

Back in 1996, when Suchitra Raghuraman joined Wipro Technologies, the information technology arm of Wipro Ltd, India’s third largest software services firm by revenue, as a fresh graduate, she knew that her no-frills BSc degree would not take her far. So she simultaneously signed up for the integrated master’s of science (MS) programme in computer science offered by her employer.

On-the-job training: (from left) Wipro Technologies’ senior VP Selvan D. with Anjana Laxmi Rajendra and Suchitra Raghuraman, who have benefited from the company’s programme at the Bangalore campus. Jagadeesh NV / Mint

“When I juggled both study and my work successfully, it sent out a signal that I was capable of doing both well,” said Raghuraman, now a delivery manager at the company who frequently travels overseas to meet clients. “It makes an impression.”

It isn’t just Raghuraman. At Wipro Technologies, around 5,000 employees are balancing work and study in a bid to bolster their careers. Termed the work-integrated learning programme, it offers graduates with a basic degree in science an opportunity to earn a master’s degree in engineering and equip themselves with the necessary qualifications in an industry dominated by engineers.

Similar strategies are being adopted by employees elsewhere and companies are making efforts to help upgrade their skills. Texas Instruments (India) Pvt. Ltd, or TI India, encourages employees who have put in two years of service at the company to register for an MS (microelectronics) programme, offered by the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani (Bangalore extension centre).

“For those who do not have a BE (bachelor of engineering) degree, the five-year course work offers an integrated bachelor’s and master’s programme,” said C.P. Ravikumar, director, university programmes, TI India.

He said the company has worked out a similar arrangement with the Manipal Institute of Technology. TI India executives “often conduct classes for the employee-students on request from the institute”, said Ravikumar.

At the Indian arm of International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), which offers employees a chance to acquire a four-year programme in software engineering from a slew of institutes, such as the University of Mysore and Vasavi College of Engineering in Hyderabad, “the curriculum of the course was designed and developed jointly by the universities and IBM”, said Madana Kumar, learning leader, IBM India, South Asia.

For the online learning programmes, the employee students collectively take a decision on exam dates and attend faculty-led sessions on weekends at company premises.

“This programme plays a significant role in helping IBM tap a fresh talent pool and in retaining employees for a longer period,” said Kumar.

It is a strategy that is seen as a response to a critical gap in the executive talent pool across Indian companies.

“There is a serious shortage in middle management talent; this segment is close to absent in India currently,” said Yeshasvini Ramaswamy, managing director, e2e People Practices Pvt. Ltd, an education management consultancy.

She feels that as the average age of senior executives across Indian companies drops from the earlier median age of 50 to 35, there is not enough being done to prepare managers adequately. “Work-integrated learning is an attempt to bridge this gap and offers companies an excellent return on investment.”

Typically, companies either fully fund or partially fund such learning programmes. “Any academic programme which is in line with the current or future job role of an IBMer is part-funded by IBM. Before enrolling, the aspiring IBMer has to take approvals and the course fee is budgeted within the department funds,” said Kumar.

In the case of Wipro Technologies, the programme is wholly funded by the company, but participants are evaluated closely. Failing in even one course means a move to a performance monitoring programme. “We have so far seen a failure rate of just 1% amongst all participants,” said Selvan D., senior vice-president, talent transformation, Wipro Technologies, who says the attrition rate among this set of employees is a low 5% compared with a companywide average of 12%.

Companies are also working towards helping senior executives enhance their skills. For senior executives, information technology-enabled services firm IBM Daksh Business Process Services Pvt. Ltd has a self-paced online MBA programme in partnership with Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, Boston. Senior managers at the middle management level can enrol for an accelerated management programme conducted in partnership with Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon.

“These initiatives are unique in the sense that they have been developed as collaborative efforts between IBM and leading institutes and organizations in India and abroad,” said D.P. Singh, director, human resources (HR), IBM Daksh.

Mid-tier companies in the information technology sector are following this model of talent development. For instance, Nucleus Software Exports Ltd, a software product firm, offers an on-campus MBA programme for senior executives in collaboration with the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.

“As a product management group head, studying for a formal MBA course has provided me with a solid theoretical framework for decisions otherwise taken based on experience,” said Kamal Nayyar, assistant vice-president, product management group, Nucleus Software.

At IBM India, an ongoing partnership with top global universities such as Cornell University and Duke University in the US and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is aimed at developing top leadership talent such as potential directors and vice-presidents.

“This branded programme called Bright Blue helps IBM enhance its top leadership pipeline and prepares many from India for global leadership roles,” said Kumar.

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Tapping best talents for premier institutes a problem: PM

PTI — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:07:00 GMT

New Delhi: As the country embarked upon setting up new IITs, IIMs and central universities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said attracting best talents for these premier institutions remains a problem.

“We must find ways of attracting the best talents as faculty in our premier institutions. We today face difficulty in finding top level professors and lecturers in the newly created IITs, IISERs and other such institutions,” he said.

Addressing the National Education Day function here to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India’s first education minister, Singh said, “this state of affairs cannot be allowed to prevail.”

The government has started major expansion of higher education by opening eight new IITs and 15 central universities.

It has also been decided to set up six IIMs, 10 NITs, 20 IIITs and 6,000 model schools during the 11th Plan (2007-12).

Observing that efforts should be made to find ways to improve the quality of teachers, the Prime Minister asked the academics and planners to address this problem of deficiency in the quality of teaching in schools, colleges and universities.

Singh also said the country needed an additional ten lakh teachers to implement the Right To Education Act, which seeks to provide free and compulsory education in the 6-14 age group.

IIMs in Bangalore, Kolkata close summer placements

Poornima Mohandas and Aveek Datta — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:26:00 GMT

Bangalore / Kolkata: Employers’ response to the 2010 summer internship placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) and IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) surpassed the expectations of both business schools, dispelling the gloom cast by this year’s recruitment season after the global financial crisis.

The summer placements process concluded at IIM-B and IIM-C on Tuesday, four days after India’s most prestigious B-school, IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), said it had placed the “largest batch size in the shortest time in recent history”.

At IIM-B, some 180 companies hired 348 students as interns over five days. “Our performance is a reflection of the support we have received from our recruiters,” said associate professor P.D. Jose, head of placements at IIM-B.

At IIM-C, around 140 companies gave internships to 408 students in seven days. “Summer placements have exceeded our expectations,” said Prafulla Agnihotri, chairman of placements at IIM-C.

A good summer placements season is seen as the harbinger of a good final placement season in February-March, when students land permanent jobs. Job and salary offers were fewer and the placements process dragged on for the class of 2009 after the global financial crisis peaked in September last year with the demise of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

IIM-A said on 6 November that 310 students had got internships in four days. “While we expected the pendulum to swing, we did not expect it to swing back so fast, or so far,” the institution had said in a statement.

The summer placements reflect a revival in the financial sector. At IIM-A, 44% of students got finance jobs, up from 32% last year. While exact numbers were not available from IIM-B and IIM-C, the finance sector seemed to be the biggest draw at both the institutions

At IIM Lucknow, half the recruiters have been from the financial sector so far and more are expected.

This year, there are even first-time recruiters from the finance space. The Indian arm of Singapore bank, DBS Bank Ltd, which hitherto focused on lateral recruitment, went to IIM-A, B, C, Indore and Lucknow and picked up 10 students. “We are on a growth trajectory... Going forward we will look at (going for) final placements as well,” says Sumit Sharma, head of human resources at DBS Bank India. Over the last few years the bank has grown; it employs at least 370 people and has eight branches.

“The financial sector is coming back,” said professor R.L Raina, chairman of placements at IIM-Lucknow, which drew to its campus banks such as Deutsche Bank AG, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., Standard Chartered Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc and ICICI Bank Ltd.

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Girl empowerment is a vital part of an economy

Sanjiv Shankaran — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:07:00 GMT

New Delhi: Michael Hastings, global head of citizenship and diversity with consultancy firm KPMG, is a passionate advocate of inclusiveness. In New Delhi this week to speak at the India Economic Summit, Hastings spoke about the moral and pragmatic imperatives of inclusiveness. Edited excerpts:

Also See Mint’s coverage of the WEF India Summit

There is always a cost associated with diversity at the workplace. What would make entrepreneurs want to incur the upfront cost and what has the international experience been?

Well, all good business processes cost money and you don’t get an effective business arrangement for nothing. So, the person who says there is a cost associated with it is absolutely right and cost should be paid. Real value in business comes from being prepared to invest in things that tranformationally matter.

When it comes to diversity, here at the India Economic Summit we are focused on women’s empowerment. What is the cost and the upside?

View of the future: Michael Hastings of KPMG says we need to follow the best examples of recent campaigns of the last generation such as those on environment and debt reduction to break barriers that women face. Rajkumar / Mint

The cost is a values and responsibility one, but it’s also a talent and market one. If you think of the proportion of women in the developing world who are achieving higher levels of educational outcomes, that is creating whole new entrepreneurial mix of capacity and skills which is going to be the drivers of innovation in business for the future. A wise business would want to get the best of those women in now. Yes, there is a cost involved, but why not be the first leader.

Your answer makes sense from society’s standpoint. How do you convince an individual entrepreneur?

What is an entrepreneur? It is somebody with a bright idea that you haven’t got. Therefore, they are going to turn their bright idea into a market opportunity. If they can get there before the competition gets there, the first entry pretty much guarantees success.

If you are an entrepreneur, want smart ideas, best expressions of talent, creative and energetic people, the bright buzz around you; if those people happen to be women you want them on board. You would much rather have that and be a winning entrepreneur.

You spoke on women at the conference. What is the message you are trying to convey?

I suppose the message is very simple. Just take India as an example. There is no shortage of regulation and legislation on women’s equality and empowerment. There is no shortage of departments within government allocating budgets. But it doesn’t happen in quite the way the design plan says it should. The issue isn’t about legislation or regulation. Some of it might be about enforcement possibly and isn’t just about cash. What is the need?

The need is that there is a dominant culture within politics and business which is run by men which is not persuaded by moral, philosophical values or business reasons. (Which is) why girl empowerment is a vital part of a fair economy of the future. Because of the non-persuasive reality, women increasingly find it difficult to break through barriers that men create.

What do we need to do to break that barrier? We need to follow the best examples of recent campaigns of the last generation. Campaigns around environment and debt reduction and development. Those were campaigns that were coordinated efforts between civil society organizations and the media. The media is a vital player in this equation.

In the UK, what has your experience with diversity been?

I served for nine years on the commission for racial equality of the UK. During my term, we saw a substantial change in UK laws that made institutional racism a criminal offence. Let me explain because it relates exactly the same to the women’s argument. There is racism that is overt, but that is too direct. Institutional racism, where an organization says in the quiet corridors where transactions take place, we really don’t want any of those people to be a part of our leadership. That is an institutionalized process that determines a barrier to access. We made that an illegal activity. What that began to do is to cause public organizations and private businesses to ask themselves hard questions about how we are going to be compliant.

If you transfer that on to the role of women in business, in the UK there is no target process which says there must be X proportion of women who are at the helm of business. Norway decided it would set—three years ago—a minimum boundary level of 40% of those on public boards of companies needed to be women by 2010. Well, as of 2009, the reported facts carried in the Financial Times, Norway has 43% of women who are members of corporate boards.

Guidelines for CAT issued: no breaks for online test

Aparna Kalra — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:27:00 GMT

New Delhi: The company that will administer the first computer-based test for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) released guidelines for candidates on Monday.

For one thing, no bathroom breaks will be allowed during the test that will last 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Contingency measures: A file photo of students taking a mock test for last year’s CAT. This year’s online testing firm has said it had plans to tackle emergencies ranging from power outages to terror attacks. Satish Bate / HT

Prometric Testing Pvt. Ltd, the local arm of US-based testing company Prometric Inc., also said it had contingency plans to tackle emergencies ranging from power outages and computer crashes to natural calamities and terror attacks.

“No breaks will be given during the test. Candidates are advised to use the bathroom prior to check-in,” said Prometric in ‘A Practical Guide to the CAT 2009’ released on the official common admission test or CAT website (www.catiim.in).

Candidates who will take the test for admission to the class of 2010 in the IIMs have been asked to be patient while their identity is being checked through fingerprinting, warned that their friends and relatives will not be allowed to wait at the test centre, and promised video and audio recording of all testing sessions.

The CAT was conducted in pen-and-paper format for 33 years before the job of administering it was outsourced to Prometric. The test continues to be a high-stakes one though the number of candidates who registered for the test dropped this year for the first time in 12 years to 241,582, reflecting an uncertain job market.

To deliver the first computerized version of CAT, Prometric said earlier that it was strengthening its staff, services and technology infrastructure in India.

“In the event of a power outage, or any disruptions such as computer crash, all of the candidates’ responses are safely housed in the server’s hard drive which is backed up by an uninterruptible power supply (UPS),” said the guide. “The test can be resumed exactly where the candidate left off.”

Test-preparation companies have conducted mock computer-based tests to prepare candidates for the exam, which will take place between 28 November and 7 December.

Overuse of antibiotics can make you drug resistant: experts

PTI — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:10:00 GMT

London: Regular use of cough and cold medicines is not good for health as it makes a person immune against antibiotics, experts have warned.

The prescription of the pills, even when it is not required, is fuelling a rise in number of infections that are resistant to antibiotics, experts at European Centre of Disease prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm said.

Due to routine use of cough and cold drugs, modern medicine is reaching a point when it will not be able to function as antibiotics would become powerless to fight life-threatening hospital infections, the Telegraph reported.

“If this wave of antibiotic resistance gets over us, we will not be able to do organ transplants, hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, intensive care and neonatal care for premature babies,” said Dominic Monnet, senior expert at ECDC.

Echoing Monnet’s views, Laurance Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association’s General Physicians committee, said, “the idea that antibiotics cure coughs and colds and are all purpose things that are good for you has to be discarded”.

Sarah Earnshaw, another expert at ECDC said, patients, especially parents are often demanding antibiotics for their children. A survey in 2002 showed that 60% of people did not know that antibiotics do not work against viruses such as flu".

The ECDC would be writing to all general physicians warning them about overuse of the drugs and giving them materials to help them explain to demanding patients that antibiotics must be used sparingly, she added.

Cautious optimism on placements at IIM-B

Poornima Mohandas — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:06:00 GMT

Bangalore: While the exuberance of previous years is yet to return, the mood was cautiously optimistic on the first day of summer internship placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) on Friday.

A good summer placement season is seen as a harbinger of a good final placement season in February-March, when students land permanent jobs.

“The students I spoke to seemed to be in demand,” said Suvojoy Sengupta, partner and co-head of the India practice of Booz and Co., which has taken three students as interns. “Last year, they weren’t this confident.”

In November 2008, both summer and final job placements took a beating after the crash of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The Wall Street investment bank had been one of the most sought-after employers on premier B-school campuses in India.

As at IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta, which started their summer internship placements earlier this week, companies on the first day at IIM-B, too, consisted mainly of consulting firms and investment banks.

The consulting firms—Booz and Co., McKinsey and Co., Boston Consulting Group Inc., Bain and Co. Inc. and AT Kearney Inc.—made 19 offers on Friday at IIM-B.

The investment banks included JPMorgan Chase and Co., UBS AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Inc. and NM Rothschild and Sons.

IIM-B aims to get summer internships for at least 30% of its batch of 350 students, with around 40 companies invited on day zero. The term day zero is B-school parlance for the first slot when the most sought-after recruiters are invited to campus; it lasts a day and a half.

The institute expects at least 150 companies to visit the campus.

The process is likely to conclude in six-seven days. IIM-B has a larger class of 350 first-year students this year after the caste-based quota was implemented. These students will start their internships in April and graduate in March the year after.

Last year, the summer placements concluded in five days for a smaller batch of 280 students.

Financial services firm Anand Rathi Group was also at IIM-B making offers to students. “We are going aggressive on our investment banking division,” said Nand Sharma, director, strategy and business development at Anand Rathi. The company plans to take 10-12 interns from IIM-A, IIM-C and IIM-B, against none last year. “We need people in mergers and acquisitions and private placements,” Sharma said.

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Recruiters queue up at IIMs to hire interns

Aparna Kalra — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:11:00 GMT

Firms recruiting summer interns from the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) plan to hire larger numbers from the premier business schools this year on the back of improved business sentiment.

Sunny days: The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. According to the IIMs that are in the process of placing students as summer interns next year, the situation has changed for the better. Hemant Mishra / Mint

“We are targeting to hire 24 IIM students this year,” said Edward Naylor, spokesman in Asia for Goldman Sachs. “They will join Goldman Sachs in our London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Mumbai offices.”

This means a doubling of summer intern hires that the investment bank made in 2008. “It is clearly a very different environment,” Naylor said, explaining the higher intake.

“Our intention is to hire more people,” said Abhishek Malhotra, partner in Booz and Co., an international consulting firm that offered three internships at IIM Ahmedabad on Monday and intends to also hire at IIM Bangalore, where candidates start meeting potential employers from Friday.

TAS, which recruits managers for the Tata group of companies, is also hiring aggressively. “Yesterday, 10 interns were recruited from IIM-A, which was the highest number of offers made by any company on that day,” Rahul Krishna, who heads TAS, said in an emailed response on Wednesday.

Krishna said he will also recruit summer interns at IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore, besides three other business schools which he did not name. IIM-C said in a statement on Thursday that TAS made 10 internship offers.

TAS recruited a total of 27 summer interns last year from the six business schools it visited.

India’s business schools were hit by the global financial crisis and the absence of Wall Street recruiters in the final placement season of 2009, when graduating students find full-time jobs, despite a good summer placement season in 2008.

The situation has changed for the better, according to the IIMs that are in the process of placing students scheduled to graduate in 2011 as summer interns next year.

Summer placements are important for management students because many of them are eventually offered full-time jobs by the companies with which they intern at the end of the two-year course.

The first day of summer placements on Wednesday at IIM-C saw Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. (RBS) selecting 11 students for internship. Three leading investment banks also made offers, the institute said in a statement, but declined to name the recruiters.

Consulting firms McKinsey and Co., Boston Consulting Group and Bain and Co. will have three-five students joining them as summer interns from IIM-A in April next year. Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc would also accept five summer interns each, the institute said on Monday. RBS hired at least 10 summer interns for its Hong Kong, Singapore, New Delhi and London offices from the Ahmedabad business school.

The competition to hire the best students has also intensified.

“No, one can’t assume to have a free hand to select the best students,” Naylor said. “There are many strong financial institutions on campus, all with unique stories to tell.”

IIM Kozhikode said in a statement on Thursday that it has wound up its summer placement season for its 309-strong class. It said the highest stipend offered was more than Rs1 lakh for two months. A spokesperson said this was slightly better than last year, but declined to provide data on average stipends.

Banks and financial services firms hired 21% of the class, IIM Kozhikode said. Sales and marketing companies accounted for 23% job offers. New recruiters on campus were from the areas of media, sports management, hospitality and non-government organizations, the institute said.

A good summer placement season could be a precursor to a robust job market for graduates in February next year.

Malhotra said his company will hire more for full-time jobs as well. He declined to specify numbers but said, “We have experienced growth in our business.”

He said the summer hires are most likely to join the company full-time in 2011, when the business environment is expected to have improved further.

aparna.k@livemint.com

Nanoparticles may lead to irreparable damage

Seema Singh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:39:00 GMT

Bangalore: The variety of nanoparticles that are being developed as the all-purpose delivery system for drugs and diagnostics may be ultra small in size, but could cause long-lasting damage to the body, even to the DNA.

Listen to an interview with Rajiv Saxena, a professor of Immunology at JNU who has got a grant to study nanoparticles. Download here

Reporting in Friday’s issue of Nature Nanotechnology, a team of UK researchers say that medically used nanoparticles can damage the cell’s DNA without even crossing the protective cellular barriers.

Even as several metal and polymer-based nanoparticles wriggle their way into our lives—in paints, sunscreens, tyres, anti-crease, anti-bacterial clothes, medicines, medical imaging—some organs in the body such as the skin, placenta, lungs and the gastrointestinal tract have been traditionally considered as barriers to many nanomaterials.

But the present study, led by Charles Patrick Case and Gevdeep Bhabra from Bristol Implant Research Centre in Bristol, shows that even if the nanoparticles don’t cross the barrier, they can damage the DNA through intercellular signalling, which is akin to a relay effect.

There have been several studies showing the toxicity of nanoparticles, but this study is different because it shows a novel indirect mechanism where a mediator such as the ATP (the powerhouse of the cell) is activated, which, in turn, generates a chain of cellular events, says Rajiv K. Saxena, professor of immunology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “The important point is that now we have to consider not only direct impacts, but even the indirect ones.”

To study the impact in the lab, scientists grew a multilayer of human cells to mimic a specialized protective barrier. They used this barrier to examine the indirect effects of cobalt-chromium nanoparticles—which are generated from wear and tear of bone implants that follow joint replacement surgeries and are also the most popularly used nanoparticles in magnetic scans—on the cells that were lying behind this barrier.

The amount of DNA damage in the cells behind the protective barrier was similar to the DNA damage caused by direct exposure to the nanoparticles.

“We are not saying that this is the model of what goes on in the body…but since nanotechnology is an extremely exciting technology with huge advantages to the mankind, we need to understand the way nanomaterials interact with the body,” Case said in a press briefing on Thursday.

He and his colleagues showed that the nanoparticles did not pass through the barrier to cause the DNA damage, but, in fact, generated signalling molecules within the barrier cells that were then transmitted to the cells behind the barrier.

Recalling one of his earlier studies while serving in the US Environmental Protection Agency, Saxena says when carbon nanotubes were inserted in the lungs, researchers found their impact in the heart overnight. “Maybe the tiny particles crossed the lung wall or maybe such (as shown in the present study) signalling effects were at work, we don’t know.”

Experts say the study of nanoparticle toxicity is such a new field that there isn’t even a consensus on the extent of the harm caused.

But soon these nanoparticles will pervade the environment, says Saxena, who is studying the impact of carbon nanotubes on human health in India under a grant from the Rs1,000 crore Nano Mission. His initial work on the impact of carbon nanotubes on red blood cells and the lungs shows that these micro entities induce anaemia in the human system.

Still, the biomedical world is pinning high hopes on this technology, the latest success story, though in animal models, being its effective use in delivering erection drugs in the form of a topical application, which, one day, could replace oral erectile dysfunction drugs.

“Side effects are bound to occur,” says K.S. Narayan at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research at Bangalore, who works on molecular electronic devices. “But researchers should also highlight the way forward and the possible solution,” he says, adding that the cobalt-chromium particle used in imaging can be made safer by robust capping so that their magnetic properties remain intact.

seema.s@livemint.com

Understanding Mental Illness

Samanth Subramanian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:24:00 GMT

download podcast here

This week, Just to Clarify is pegged to a profile of a highly ranked executive who has battled bipolar disorder for more than a decade. The story will focus on the challenges of working professionals with mental illnesses, but our podcast today will seek clarity on the variety of these illnesses, and to explain, for example, how bipolar disorder is different from schizophrenia. Our guest today is Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, a Chennai-based psychiatrist and a former deputy director of the Schizophrenia Research Foundation.

Podcast: A US-India educational partnership?

Saabira Chaudhuri — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Last week, Kapil Sibal met with US Education Secretary Arne Duncan to discuss the possibility of increasing US-India collaboration on education. He also met with heads of leading US universities, including Harvard, MIT and Yale, to urge them to consider educational partnerships with India, as well as the possibility of setting up campuses here.

Sibal has stated that he expects the pending Foreign Education Providers Bill, which would facilitate the entry of foreign institutes in India, to be pushed through by next July. Once the law is in place, the Human Resource Development Minister says that the playing field will be far more level for foreign education providers.

What does the future hold for US India educational relations? We talk to Vijaya Khandavilli, former country coordinator for educational advising services at the U.S. Educational Foundation in India to learn more.

Download interview here…

UN child reporters to showcase films at international film festival

Saabira Chaudhuri — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:13:00 GMT

“As a TV reporter I will show people everything. They will understand everything. I will report on news for my village. I will ask people about their problems and their hopes.” So announced 14-year-old Mohammed Akram, a boy from the Doulatabad village in Andhra Pradesh to a press gathering organized by UNICEF in New Delhi yesterday.

Mohammed Akram produced a short film entitled “This is how we study”

Akram is one amongst 21 child reporters who have been trained by Dr Vasuki Belavadi, an associate professor of video production at the University of Hyderabad, as part of a UNICEF initiative called Children as Media Producers (CAMP), which trains children to report on local issues through the medium of broadcast.

The underlying aim is to inspire social change by laying the groundwork for a dialogue with the local administration. “They ask inconvenient questions,” said Belavadi when describing how the children he trains approach village leaders. He explains that the initiative empowers them to approach the village heads: “They now ask the sarpanch why there are no dustbins in the village.”

Now, UNICEF has struck up a partnership with the Mumbai based Children’s Film Society of India, which is chaired by actor/director Nandita Das. The partnership comes at an opportune time, as this year marks 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Children’s Film Society is sponsoring “The Golden Elephant”, its 16th international children’s film festival, which will run from 14 to 20 November in Hyderabad. Co-sponsored by the government of Andhra Pradesh, the festival aims to highlight 70 children’s films from around the world, including twelve from Asia, and will have panel discussions discussing issues like why children’s films are virtually invisible in India, whether they should be incorporated into schools’ curriculum, what the definition of a children’s film actually is, and whether the right to entertainment should be a fundamental right for children. Sixty delegates from across the world will attend, including Bollywood biggies like Vishal Bharadwaj and Gulzar, who have publicly expressed an interest in children’s film.

Click here to watch Akram’s film “This is how we study”

Additionally, the festival will showcase films created as part of UNICEF’s CAMP initiative, many of which highlight local problems pertaining to health and education, such as the lack of classrooms, toilets or water in schools village. It will also offer training workshops for children who want to learn how to be children’s reporters.

While the CSFI largely focuses on fiction films for children, Das states that the organization is also conscious of social issues affecting children: “Particularly now, with our partnership with UNICEF, we are open to considering issues like child labour, sexual abuse and others.”