Stem the rot!

What is it with Bengaluru and Bengalureans?

For all the efforts that have been put in place to ensure that waste is segregated at the household level to make it easier for disposing garbage efficiently, it is coming to nothing.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has now given up on pursuing segregate-at-source method of disposing waste; instead, it has decided to send mixed (unsegregated waste) to processing units.

Now, these processing units are not designed to process mixed waste – a big problem!

You might wonder what the problem is! It’s huge! When the contractors running these units realise the difficulty in processing mixed waste, the next instant step will be to not accept the mixed waste. That will ensure that this garbage rests in peace by the roadsides – your street corners.

You can imagine how much it would enhance our city’s image as ‘Garbage City’.

Are you wondering how this will come about?

Here goes: Bengaluru does not have a single landfill worth its name to take in mixed wastes. Biomethanation units, too, are closing down one by one as the cash-strapped BBMP has failed to pay them over the past months – in fact right from when they were commissioned and started operations.

Biomethanation is a process by which organic material is microbiologically converted under anaerobic conditions (without oxygen) to biogas. Anaerobic conditions feature lack of free oxygen, but may contain atomic oxygen bound in compounds such as nitrate (NO₃), nitrite (NO₂), and sulfites (SO₃). Three main physiological groups of microorganisms are involved – fermenting bacteria, organic acid oxidizing bacteria, and methanogenic archaea.

These units are able to generate electricity by converting the segregated wet waste into biogas, from which power can be generated.

But these units are different from the processing units we are talking about here. The processing units where the BBMP has planned to send mixed waste are general treatment processing units, not biomethanation units.

Either ways there would be a problem sending mixed waste.

The problem itself is the mixed waste, which has to be – HAS TO BE – segregated.

That responsibility lies on you, dear Bengalurean. If you have the pride in saying “Namma Bengaluru”, or even “Namma Kannada Rashtra” and so on, please ensure that these feelings do not remain rhetorical. Because if that happens, you will be remembered as citizens of one of the dirtiest cities on Earth!

And that day may not be far off when we hang our heads in helpless shame, because we would be faced with no alternative but to continue hanging our heads in shame!

DRDO’s Dengue-killer headed abroad while country suffers

A potent Dengue-busting formulation developed by the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) almost a decade ago is headed to Brazil and Mexico without its benefits being felt anywhere in India.
The Central Insecticides Board & Registration Committee (CIBRC) has disallowed the use of this formulation – known as ‘mosquitocidal trap – within India for want of reams of data by the DRDO pertaining to its efficacy, although trials conducted with help of Delhi Municipal Corporation limits between 2008 and 2010 proved to be not just effective but also environment-friendly and cost effective. The device, said to resemble a paint spray gun, is estimated to cost just Rs 100 a piece with the formulation.
However, the same CIBRC has allowed the formulation to be exported through a Mumbai-based company named Alkyl Amines, which is looking at – and is most likely to – finding buyers in Brazil and Mexico.
Sources in DRDO told Bangalore Mirror that delivering the data as asked by CIBRC would run up costs to “crores of rupees” as the studies, researches and field trials would have to be conducted over many more years to prove the efficacy of this formulation. “There problems of funding as far as this is concerned,” said a senior DRL scientist.
Instead, and unfortunately, he said the Mumbai-based private company is in a position to do that abroad in collaboration with companies there.
This is the sad state of affairs in a country which has been found by an international study, to be grossly under-reporting Dengue cases with the actual number of cases at a shocking 282 times that of the official figures.
Two agencies under the DRDO umbrella – Tejpur-based Defence Research Laboratory (DRL) and Gwalior-based Defence Research & Development Establishment (DRDE) –developed the lure-and-kill formulation in 2005-06 that attracted female Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes (the ones spreading Dengue through their bites) to lay eggs in predetermined stagnant waters. These eggs hatch into larvae but do not transform into adults as the insecticide component of the formulation destroy the larvae.
The advantage of this technology is that one can actually choose where the female mosquitoes can lay eggs (as long as still water exists) and then ensure the destruction of the larvae.
To achieve this, the DRL and DRDE scientists replicated the natural pheromones emitted by the female mosquitoes which send signals to subsequent egg-laying females to settle in those waters to lay their eggs. Pheromones are chemical substances naturally produced and released into the environment by mammals or insects to allow other of its species to do the same things as earlier done by them.
In this case, the scientists replicated the pheromones using cuticular hydrocarbons found on the mosquito’s body surface, which acted as the natural pheromones. These acted as beacons to ‘invite’ the female mosquitoes to lay eggs in particular water-based locations – only for the subsequent larvae to be destroyed.
DRDO scientists fittingly call it a kill-at-source solution to the dreaded disease, which can also develop into the Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF), a fatal condition.
Dr Vijay Veer, director, DRL, confirmed to Bangalore Mirror: “Alkyl Amines in Mumbai has this technology (through transfer of technology from DRDO) and got CIBRC permission to export. (But) CIB permission for use in India is not available.”
Dr Veer said DMC had discussions with DRDO about procuring the mosquitocidal trap six years ago so it could out the spray to good use to completely eradicate the disease. But the CIBRC prohibition has put paid those efforts.
Some hope has come through the office of the Director General of Life Sciences, DRDO, in Delhi. Officials, who did not want to be named, said the mosquitocidal trap would continue to be improved in the DRDE and DRL labs over the next few years. The scientists have not given up. They are trying their best to meet the CIBRC requirements so this will be available to people in this country to eliminate Dengue.
The urgency surrounding this is mainly because an international study has sounded an alarm over the way Dengue is being managed in India by the government bodies. The study Economic and disease burden of Dengue in India published in American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in October 2014 has proved with evidence that between 2006 and 2012 the annual average number of Dengue cases in the country was 57,78,406 as against the mere 20,474 cases given out by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme – 282 times the official figure.
The study has fixed India’s Dengue burden as US$ 1.1 billion per year from the medical costs as well as the income per man lost due to the disease.

"Imaginary meal" tricks the body into losing weight

Salk scientists made a more effective diet pill

Salk researchers have developed an entirely new type of pill that tricks the body into thinking it has consumed calories, causing it to burn fat. The compound effectively stopped weight gain, lowered cholesterol, controlled blood sugar and minimized inflammation in mice, making it an excellent candidate for a rapid transition into human clinical trials.
Unlike most diet pills on the market, this new pill, called fexaramine, doesn’t dissolve into the blood like appetite suppressants or caffeine-based diet drugs, but remains in the intestines, causing fewer side effects.
"This pill is like an imaginary meal," says Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the new paper, published January 5, 2014 in Nature Medicine. "It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite."


Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, has developed a compound called fexaramine that acts like an imaginary meal. Fexaramine, which tricks the body into reacting as if it has consumed calories, could lead to an effective obesity and diabetes treatment in humans. Image: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies


In the United States, more than a third of adults are obese and 29.1 million people have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both obesity and diabetes lead to an increase in health spending, a greater risk of health complications and a shorter lifespan.
Evans’ laboratory has spent nearly two decades studying the farensoid X receptor (FXR), a protein that plays a role in how the body releases bile acids from the liver, digests food and stores fats and sugars. The human body turns on FXR at the beginning of a meal, Evans and others have shown, to prepare for an influx of food. FXR not only triggers the release of bile acids for digestion, but also changes blood sugar levels and causes the body to burn some fats in preparation for the incoming meal.
Pharmaceutical companies aiming to treat obesity, diabetes, liver disease and other metabolic conditions have developed systemic drugs that activate FXR, turning on many pathways that FXR controls. But these drugs affect several organs and come with side effects. Evans wondered whether switching on FXR only in the intestines–rather than the intestines, liver, kidneys and adrenal glands all at once–might have a different outcome.
"When you eat, you have to quickly activate a series of responses all throughout the body," says Evans. "And the reality is that the very first responder for all this is the intestine."
Evans and his colleagues developed the fexaramine compound by departing from the drug scaffold that most pharmaceutical companies typically pursue when targeting FXR. "It turns out that when we administer this orally, it only acts in the gut," explains Michael Downes, a senior staff scientist at Salk and co-corresponding author of the new work. Giving one such drug in a daily pill form that only reaches the intestines–without transporting into the bloodstream that would carry the drug throughout the body–not only curtails side effects but also made the compound better at stopping weight gain.
When the group gave obese mice a daily pill of fexaramine for five weeks, the mice stopped gaining weight, lost fat and had lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels than untreated mice. In addition, the mice had a rise in body temperature–which signals metabolism ramping up–and some deposits of white fat in their bodies converted into a healthier, energy-burning beige form of the tissue. Even the collection of bacteria in the guts of mice shifted when they received the drug, although what those changes mean isn’t clear yet.

Salk researchers demonstrated that fexaramine stops weight gain and burns fat in animal models. Fexaramine is only absorbed in the gut and does not go into the bloodstream, so it does not cause side effects common for typical diet pills. After additional testing, researchers believe this will lead to an effective weight loss diabetes treatment for humans. (Image: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies)

So, why does fexaramine in the intestines work even better than drugs that simultaneously activate FXR throughout the body? Evans thinks it has to do with the natural order in which the body’s molecular pathways normally responds to a meal.
"The body’s response to a meal is like a relay race, and if you tell all the runners to go at the same time, you’ll never pass the baton," says Evans. "We’ve learned how to trigger the first runner so that the rest of the events happen in a natural order."
Since fexaramine doesn’t reach the bloodstream, it is also likely safer in humans than other FXR-targeting drugs, the researchers hypothesize. They’re already working to set up human clinical trials to test the effectiveness of fexaramine to treat obesity and metabolic disease. Ideally the drug, administered under a doctor’s guidance, would work in conjunction with diet and lifestyle changes, similar to weight-loss surgeries or other obesity or diabetes drugs.

From left: Salk researchers Ruth Yu, Sungsoon Fang, Annette Atkins, Ronald Evans, Michael Downes and Sandra Jacinto (Image: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies)

Other researchers on the study were Sungsoon Fang, Jae Myoung Suh, Elizabeth Yu, Eiji Yoshihara, Sandra Jacinto, Yelizaveta Lukasheva, Annette Atkins and Ruth Yu of the Salk Institute; Shannon Reilly and Alan Saltiel of the University of Michigan; Olivia Osborn, Denise Lackey, Bernd Schnabl, David Brenner and Jerrold Olefsky of the University of California, San Diego; Alessia Perino and Kristina Schoonjans of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Alexander Khvat of ChemDiv; and Sally Coulter and Christopher Liddle of the University of Sydney.
http://www.salk.edu/news

Withdrawals? Ha! When you can't breathe, nothing else matters!

There is a sense of achievement in what I have done, and I am not boasting. I have stayed quit (smoking) for 10 days; and however few the days may seem, for a man who couldn't quit for three decades, it's quite a bit to have been able to keep the nicotine stick away for so long -- and that too without a craving for it. I know the habit's gone for good!
But while that withdrawal (the craving for a cigarette) never haunted me, a slew of others are even as I write here.
I had heard about appetite improving post kicking the habit.  Oops! "Improving" is too gentle a word. In my case, I often end up having two or more lunches and innumerable snacking opportunities through the day, which I don't fail to exploit. Friends and colleagues who have been this way, warn me of a sudden paunch blooming because of overeating. Now that's a scare for me.
I don't know why appetite increases when you stop smoking. There are different reasons attributed to the phenomenon. One says that the brain wants the mouth to remain active, and one way is for the hands to keep pumping in morsels of food into the buccal cavity before the chewing and the swallowing happens. But I know there is a more metabolic reason to it than just a mechanical one, and that the draining out of drug nicotine from the blood has something to do with the hunger burst.
Now, the absence of nicotine has also got me in another spot. If I sit too long doing nothing, I easily slip into a doze mode. And if I don't doze off then there are two other problems -- the dizziness and the incapability to focus or concentrate on the job on hand.
These were evident since the day after I quit cigarettes. I initially wondered whether there was something wrong with my overall health parameters. Until, of course, a little search on the Net led me to assuring explanations by Canada's The Lung Association, which has a line under its mast that says: "When you can't breathe, nothing else matters." (http://www.lung.ca)
It explained that dizziness is because the airways inside the lung are getting cleared of the tar and muck left behind by the residual action of inhaling cigarette smoke. The result is that more oxygen is being inhaled than before and the brain is getting more of it causing you a buzz. The feeling is much like taking in too many deep breaths and feeling that buzz in which you ears start mildly ringing and everything starts appearing brighter than normal, and of course, the swoon. That has been happening now and then to me and I have to be extra careful on the bike while riding.
Well, the sleepiness and the lack of concentration is because nicotine, the stimulant, is no longer in my bloodstream, and there is nothing to replace that drug in my body to keep me as awake as I used to be when I smoked. "Nicotine is a stimulant. it keeps your body and brain alert. Your body is now learning how to stay alert without nicotine," it said, and gave me 2-4 weeks' time for me to get over these withdrawal symptoms.
And I had become irritable too. My colleagues and family were taking the brunt of it when I decided I had to do something about it. I actually could do nothing much except read it up; and that again pointed to my body's craving for nicotine. Although I could resist temptations to smoke, my brain and body were secretly acting otherwise which culminated in shorter tempers and mood swings.
Wow! I never realised that a drug kept me alert and that I was so dependent on it that the lack of it was now making me angry. I never realised it even when I criticised heroin addicts and those dependent on psychotropic drugs. I never realised how hypocritical I had been in the ignorance about my own predicament. I was just as hooked as they were. And I had absolutely no moral authority to comment/criticise their habits when I mindlessly continued with mine.
Many years ago, when I started smoking in college in Bombay (mid-1980s) at a time when college students were falling victims to drug and chemical substance abuse in the megalopolis, I had no idea that a much less threatening habit like smoking cigarettes could end me up with withdrawals if I quit down the line.
I had seen at least two of my very close friends being victimised by drug abuse -- one died of overdose at her residence in her bathroom; the other survived, although after a long and painful rehab stint (he's up and fine now). I wish the one who didn't survive saw it coming early and had taken evasive action, as did the other one. But she like thousands of others fell for it. I am glad I didn't; so, I am sure, is the other friend who survived.
Wisdom often comes too late. My decision to quit smoking was borne out of that impulsive late emergent wisdom, no matter what the withdrawals. I take strength from that drug abuse survivor friend in Bombay (Mumbai) who suffered such horrendous withdrawals that mine, due to quitting cigarettes, are not even a patch on his.
Now, as I cruise through my withdrawals (some good, like I get to eat more), I know I will end up a much fitter, happier individual than what I had been for three decades. Three decades! What a waste! Why didn't I realise then that the apparently simple act of breathing clean is the essential seed to healthy living. Why didn't I realise then that when you can't breathe proper, nothing else matters. If you gotta quit, you gotta quit!
Here's one arena where quitters are heroes. And I feel like one albeit a bit too late in life after sending 30 precious years of my life up in smoke.

World's largest cigar

Juan Panesso has had a lot of strange requests over the years he's managed his online cigar store-- but a 20-foot long stogie with a $200,000 price tag was easily the strangest. And the most stressful.
'We try to cater to premium high end sm0kers,' Mr Panesso tells the Daily Mail. 'But we've never had something like this. It's really odd, and stressful and exciting at the same time.'
'We thought it was a case of fraud,' he said. 'I mean, we didn't believe it. It was not just an odd request, it was also a large amount of money. We wouldn't just take a credit card on that order.' Mr Panesso, who manages the Florida-based CigarsDirect.com,  got a call from a customer two weeks ago with a laundry list of expensive requests. 'It was like he had just read the ratings and was picking the best cigars.'
 The customer, who Mr Penesso said is a private collector who lives outside the United States, asked about a very rare, high-end cigar that costs $750. The man ordered 100. 'At that point I didn't believe him at all,' Mr Panesso said. 'It's like buying a 100 Ferraris. In my years here I have never sold one of these cigars.'
Then came the big request: find the world's biggest cigar.

The B'lore torpedo gave them their D-Day, exactly 69 years ago

The simple tube devised in Bangalore in 1912 helped Allied forces penetrate the Nazi formations on Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, and the days following that

US troops carry the Bangalore Torpedo after breaking through the German defences at Omaha Beach, Normandy (France) in this June 1944 picture.

Two US soldiers put the Bangalore Torpedo to test in trying to blast a German anti-personnel mine at Omaha Beach in June 1944. Observe the deadly pipe penetrating way beyond the fence wires to reach the spot, a distance away, which needs to be blasted. 

Exactly 69 years ago, to the moment as you are reading this article, Allied forces were blasting their way through the beaches of Normandy (France), in what has historically come to be known as the D-Day (June 6, 1944) -- the day when World War-II started tilting in favour of the Allies. And what helped them significantly in this historical endeavour was a seemingly ordinary-looking long metal tube with Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives which could blast anti-personnel mines and enemy bunkers without posing any risk to the soldier using this. This defensive weapon was the Bangalore Torpedo -- so called, because it was devised here in Bangalore by a British Army officer Captain McClintock of the Madras Sappers and Miners (Madras Engineering Group or MEG) in 1912.

The 15-metre-long jointed torpedo was invented primarily as means to explode booby traps and blast away barricades which had been left over by the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War. But it found its way into World War-I, and then proved to be of of immense help to the Allied troops to clear mines and bunkers on the Normandy beaches. In the days and weeks following June 6, 1944, the Nazis were caught unawares by one of the most aggressive and well-planned invasions which was timed in such a manner that the Germans never expected the Allies to carry out an counter-invasion as big as this due to the prevailing poor weather conditions. 

The events of the D-Day Normandy beach landings are well featured in the black-and-white multi-starrer film, Longest Day, which also shows the Bangalore Torpedo in action.

MEG officials have said the weapon was used not only to blast anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, but was innovatively used to blast away hill-based enemy bunkers on the beaches of Normandy from where they sniped on the Allied soldiers with deadly effect.

Using the Bangalore Torpedo ensured the safety of the personnel using it even as it effectively neutralised enemy position to allow the Allied troops to advance to capture the higher German positions on the beaches of Normandy.

The MEG officials said the Bangalore Torpedo is a weapon in which a Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive charge is placed within one or several connected tubes and the explosive exploded using a long fuse for delayed effect to ensure the user soldier's safety. It is mainly used by combat engineers to clear obstacles and enemy positions without coming under enemy fire. The weapon is also colloquially referred to as a 'Bangalore mine', 'bangers' or simply 'Bangalore'.

“It is a matter of great pride for us (at MEG) that the Bangalore Torpedo was invented here. The Bangalore Torpedo is still being used by Indian Army and many others world over,” Brigadier MN Devaya, commandant of Madras Engineer Group and Centre said, adding that the weapon still had its relevance in modern warfare.

“The fact that it is still being used by the armies and that there has been no better replacement speaks volumes about the capability of the weapon," he said.

Bangalore Torpedoes are even today being manufactured by Mondial Defence Systems of Poole, in UK, for the UK and US armed forces, while Indian Army continues manufacturing its own in Bangalore.

The weak, idiotic citizen

What do you do when there is a problem that is staring you in your face, and you step forward to solve it, but you are met with stiff resistance from those who allow that problem to fester? One such case was experienced recently wherein huge amounts of water continued to gush out of one of the main pipes in a neighbouring building in Malleswaram, Bangalore.

We know the city is on the brink of a major water shortage, and here we had thousands of litres just spilling into a massive cascade that went on from Saturday until  Friday -- a good six days without anyone even as much as bothering to stem the flow.

First we thought someone had forgotten to close the tap before leaving town. But that was not the case, as we found out a few days later. The problem was that the repair work on one of the valves of the main pipe of that residential building had gone awfully wrong. The workers, not knowing how to deal with the problem, had apparently abandoned work. The result was the huge wastage of water.

When the building's committee was approached along with one of the candidates who is supposed to run in the forthcoming assembly elections, we were met by one resident of that building. And he was livid. He was rude. And in his expressions there was a strong flavour of guilt at not being able to fix the problem emanating from his building and having had to be reminded by residents of a neighbouring building; and the frustration at not being able to get the workers back to rectify the messed up works.

He said: "Do you think I am not a good citizen, that's why I am allowing this water to run to waste? You live in a different building. It's none of your business to interfere with ours! Please just mind your own business!And let us do our work!" 

The word "please" stood out as a sore thumb in that rudeness. But there was no point arguing with an idiot.

I wondered what he would do if a LPG cylinder leak caused an explosion leading to a major fire in our building merely. Would he have just sat twiddling his thumbs? Or would he have stepped out to offer help?

That water was not from the borewell, but from the water pipeline from Cauvery river. It was not just his or their water. It was our water! Every one's water!

We talk about civic consciousness. We talk about standing up together as one to make our city better with better and safer amenities. We talk about making living in Bangalore better.

Where then does that leave space for people like this man, who by all appearances could be defined as an elder, but with a child's brain? It's none of your business??!!

The interaction -- or rather the one-sided verbal 'skirmish' -- with this 'gentleman' happened on that week's Wednesday, which was four days since the water had been gushing out.

For all that man's rude assurances about "We will fix our own problems", solving the problem took another two days.

As we speak reams about correcting several gone-wrong systems in our civic setup, I am shocked to see that these kind of people in our lovely Bangalore are not an exception, but apparently a rule. They are everywhere! They are on the roads, the one who spit back fire when told they are in the wrong lane; they are on the footpaths, the ones who glare back when pointed out they are urinating in the wrong place; they in the balconies of homes, who make an aggressive gesture when asked why a they throw garbage down on the streets. They are everywhere!
How does one hope to improve this city, in that case? There are too many who don not want to allow that to happen...
Damn sad!