BUGLE

We all have heard of brain drain. It is the phenomenon of meritorious students from third world countries like India migrating to developed countries especially like United States. Of course this helps propel India in global stage in terms of its contribution in running world class corporate like Microsoft or Pepsi and several other organizations with some Indians sitting at the top of these companies. This clan of immigrants also feeds Indian coffer with their remittance in foreign exchange. Though, time and again there are many so-called nationalists are found bemoaning, shedding crocodile’s tears, for the brain drain. That is had they been here, they could contribute for the advancement of their own country. None better than them know it is next to impossible, since nothing thrives better than corupptons, casts and reservations here. But there is change in wind direction. Since 2003, between 50000 to 60000 Indian information technology professionals have returned to India for better...

My readers, who took interest to read the academic article " Blood transfusion and hepatitis B", must be interested in the details of reference . The article is written in Harvard style and the reference are published in the given my blog " The Onlooker ".

The articles related to blood transfusion and hepatitis B infection have been published in three installments earlier and now being concluded. Any one interested to get any such article written as this may write to kamalkali1962@yahoo.com . A critical evaluation the laboratory tests that are available for testing blood donations for the presence of anti-HBc. Among anti-HBc assays there are nine assays which are used by the laboratories across the world. These nine assays are divided into two groups; competitive and non-competitive. The competitive assays are Murex, AxSYM, PRISM® HBcore, PRISM® HBc, COBAS Immulite and the non-competitive assays are ADVIA and Ortho. The choice of assays depend upon the suitability of its use varies from one medical community to other and the cost factors matter too. However, in case blood transfusion, with its social objectives in mind, most of the developed and developing nations opt for those assays which are cost effective and dependab...

Continued from Part - I & II .......... In transfusion medicine safety of blood products is a major concern. The hepatitis B virus getting transmitted through blood transfusion is far more than the hepatitis C virus it is around 1:60000 vs 1:103000 (Schreiber, Busch, Kleinman, Korelitz. 1996). This is despite of availability of assay for screening quite sensitive to detect hepatitis B virus surface antigen or HBsAg. It is very common incidence of hepatitis B infection in post-transfusion cases (Saraswat, Banerjee, Chaudhury, Mahant,Khandekar, Gupta, et al.1996). Common explanations what offered for incorrect negative findings or results with the common assays are due to circulation of viral protein in low level. This can escape detection and screening of HBsAg mutant`s infection by assays in blood donors. Obviously this cause hazards in post blood transfusion (Jongerius, Wester, Cuypers, van Oostendorp,Lelie, van der Poel, et al.1998). Besides this other reason is cited ...

The studies observed that more than 300 million people all over the world are infected by hepatitis B virus. This virus belongs to Hepadnaviridae family, a non-cytopathic hepatotropic DNA virus. Though there is a prophylactic vaccine deemed to be effective still the high prevalence of this virus is found in continents like Africa and Asia (Lok,. & McMahon, 2001). Hepatitis B virus induces the liver ailments, the degree of which varies from person to person ((Ganem & Prince, 2004). The effects of infections by hepatitis B virus are controlled efficiently and cleared from the blood without any symptom or clinical evidence of liver disease by some persons. They may have inflammation severely in the liver i.e. acute hepatitis but after being resolved leave no long term squeal. There are others who cannot clear the virus and likely to develop a chronic infection but most of them may remain without any symptom and any acute liver disease, around 10 to 30 per cent of them con...

Blood transfusion is not always safe for the recipients. In most of the countries , standard tests those are conducted to detect any infection in donor's blood are not full proof. I wrote an article on this for someone but the article remained with me for some reason. I would like to share the information it has with you. Since the article is long enough , I am going to publish it in few installments. INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B is the dreaded disease, especially when it is transmitted through blood received from donation. The detection of hepatitis B in blood became easy when hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was discovered. This helped decrease the occurrence of hepatitis in post-transfusion scenario. As such this has been a major breakthrough to arrest the spread of hepatitis B through blood transfusion. This helped the detection of hepatitis B ‘e’ antigen, hepatitis B core antigen (anit-HBc) and HBsAg as well. The common method of detecting hepatitis B infection is scr...

The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai has raised another question. It is not from the public in general;in India public,s voice is not suppressed but simply ignored. Our great politicians with their hide that could put Rhinos ashamed have learnt the best art of governing in a way that can match a dictator but unfortunately with democracy! This time it is no lesser than a cabinet minister Anatuley; who raised the question about those bullet proof jackets , what mocked its name presenting us the bullet ridden bodies of it's wearers. That too, a man like Karkare, a man of principal and unearthed the skeletons of Malegaon massacre masterminds, digging the moral grave of our politicians. The other question is who the man was to order all the three of them together, who were shoveling the Malegaon episode! That too, they were sent to a comparatively far less hazardous terror spot. Who killed them? It reminds me inscriptions on the back of highway trucks "My India is great"...

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is disease found in 8 to 10% school going children. The boys are three times more susceptible to this syndrome than girls, reason is not known yet. Diagnosing ADHD; sans any clinical tests like other common diseases. Clinical judgment taking into account of all symptoms associated with ADHD is the method of diagnosing ADHD. Doctors need to collect information from both the parents and the teachers. Children with ADHD act without thinking. They may understand how they are expected to do but may not be able to act accordingly. They are inattentive, cannot sit idle; at the same time know not what to do. Of course all the kids behave sometimes this way but not all the time. With their growing age they gradually get collected and settled. ADHD is diagnosed when such behavioral pattern prolongs for long time and does not show the sign to recede. The symptoms of ADHD may be absent in doctor’s chamber. The children face different challenges at h...

The cars are in long queue for gasoline, 1979 Great depression was confronted with “New deal”, mooted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. That comprised many relief program for jobless and farmers. It undertook business reforms, including minimum wages and maximum weekly working hours. It’s fruits are still very much in system till today in US like social security, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Authorities. After World War II, American economy got stabilized and continued to swell till 1970s. In 1973, in the month of October Syria and Egypt declared war against Israel, on the very day of Jewish atonement or Ramadan. The war lasted for 20 days and is known as Ramadan War or Yom Kippur War. The Arab forces were defeated by Israel and that angered them. They stopped exporting oil to US, Western Europe and Japan. The oil price skyrocketed, the Wall Street rocked again. It l...

It is observed that middle class suffers most or lose maximum in terms of their money or savings, when any financial crises creeps in. Every time the share markets go tumble tosser, they are caught napping or on wrong foots. The rich and super riches can withstand the blow of market crash. The poor are not directly affected by it due to their non exposure. So, the victims are middle class people. The current crash in stock market is a global phenomenon. The Wall Street is the origin, the sub-prime crisis is responsible and the result is global recession. There is hue of demand slump, layoffs, and interest rate cuts all over. India is not totally insulated from these vagaries. This the time one should be more wise to safe guard his investments or savings. No one knows for the sure; when stock market will bottom out. It may take any length of time. It took 3-4 years for the market to bottom out after the Wall Street crash in 1929. Finally when market bottomed out, the stock prices lost t...

Here I post a poem , once sent by one of unknown fried in Google's community. The title of the poem is "DEATH"; the most mystic, blurred and obscure fact in our life. Thought to share with you; It was early in the morning at four, When death knocked upon a bedroom door, Who is there? The sleeping one cried. I'm Malkul Mawt(the angel of death), let me inside. At once, the man began to shiver, As one sweating in deadly fever, He shouted to his sleeping wife, Don't let him take away my life. Please go away, O Angel of Death! Leave me alone; I'm not ready yet. My family on me depends, Give me a chance, O please prepense! The angel knocked again and again, Friend! I'll take your life without a pain, Tis your soul Allah requires, I come not with my own desire. Bewildered, the man began to cry, O Angel I'm so afraid to die, I'll give you gold and be your slave, Don't send me to the unlit grave. Let me in, O Friend! The Angel said, Open the door; get u...

After a long gap, I am here at it again. You may be thinking that I am on long vacation or busy elsewhere! No, I was neither on vacation nor busy elsewhere. In fact I remained busy here, trying my hands on some other job. The jobs, I heard much about available on the net, is the job of writer. And that is paying. This wooed me. I thought adding few bucks besides my salary is not a bad idea. After all, who does not like add something more to his purse that can be spent comfortably? So I jumped in to it. Tell you frankly, it kept me quite busy after my office hours. I forgot to watch good many days the news channel in TV or my evening session of news paper reading. My wife encouraged me, finding I am less badgering to her for cups of tea or smoking; sitting by the side of her in my drawing room, compelling her to passive smoking. After all these days, one of our minister has vowed to take up the cudgel against the smokers, compelling them to smoke nowhere except in toilet! The experienc...

Many great personalities opined about their conjugal life or observation of married life; few of them are compiled here for your perusal: David Bissonette When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. Sacha Guitry After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. Hemant Joshi By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Socrates Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. Dumas The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want? Sigmund Freud I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. Anonymous "Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays." Henny Youn...

Here goes a joke, that I received from one of my friends.Though I feel bit crude about it but at the same time can not deny it's reality. Can anyone tell me , what the joke suggests, why at all it should be in that way? Read carefully, if you can, Before marriage...... He: Yes. At last. It was so hard to wait. She: Do you want me to leave? He: No! Don't even think about it. She: Do you love me? He: Of course! Over and over! She: Have you ever cheated on me? He: No! Why are you even asking? She: Will you kiss me? He: Every chance I get. She: Will you hit me? He: Are you crazy! I'm not that kind of person! She: Can I trust you? He: Yes. She: Darling! After marriage.... Simply read from bottom to top !

The American Rock musics or other songs are the heart throbs of young generations. I do not appreciate them sometime for the extra decibels they pour in my ear drums. But what captivates me,is their lyrics; with so simple terms they carry such deep meanings of life is truly amazing sometime. Such is this I quote here from one them, what I have been sent by one of friends, whom I must salute ,for introducing them to me: You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Anyplace is better Starting from zero got nothing to lose Maybe we'll make something But me myself I got nothing to prove You got a fast car And I got a plan to get us out of here I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money We won't have to drive too far Just 'cross the border and into the city You and I can both get jobs And finally see what it means to be living You see my old man's got a problem He live with t...

You never know if these stories are true but this is a good one 'Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!' My father yelled at me. 'Can't you do anything right?' Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn't prepared for another battle. 'I saw the car, Dad. Please don't yell at me when I'm driving.' My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt. Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil. What could I do about him? Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon. He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He ha...

One of my friend forwarded me a poem what has been sent by one of her student from US. She is currently engaged with some research work that relates to the most critical (!) subject at least for me- Mathematics. But that never made her to lose her taste buds for mellifluous, touchy poems. I know not who is poet but my kudos for him or her. Here it goes.............. ..I kept the right ones out And let the wrong ones in Had an angel of mercy to see me through all my sins There were times in my life When I was goin' insane Tryin' to walk through The pain When I lost my grip And I hit the floor Yeah, I thought I could leave but couldn't get out the door I was so sick and tired Of a livin' a lie I was wishin' that I Would die It's Amazing With the blink of an eye you finally see the light It's Amazing When the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright It's Amazing And I'm sayin' a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight That one last shot...

The oil price is cooling, it touched $99 per barrel and settled around $103 today. At the same time dollar is firming against INR and hoovering around Rs44-45/- per dollar band. Obviously the gain in the fall of Crude price is being off set by the appreciation of dollar for the oil importing companies (that includes all) in India. So, the concerned ministry has announced that they are not mulling any immediate reduction in oil price. In fact they are projecting how much being subsidized per liter of petrol,diesel, kerosene and LPG cylinder. What is surprising they never highlight how much direct and indirect taxes are levied on any petroleum products. Subsidy on them means just ploughing back a slice of taxes collected on them. The inflation rate has shown the symptom to take a downward trend. May be the better time is back or likely to be back in another two months. Monsoon appears to be good , though it has caused havoc in some areas causing flood or river overflowing or changing it...

Not many remember, in late 60s or early 70s, three movies from Hollywood in a series brought Italy in the forefront of cine-goers mind. They were “Marriage in Italian Style”, “Divorce in Italian Style” and “Ghost in Italian Style”. I remembered them with a recent development of dispensing compensation in Italian style. News of Associated Press suggested that Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country in the last century. This has been to by Libyan foreign minister Mr Abdel-Rahaman Shalgam. He further claimed that Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi, who is visiting Libya at present, is set to sign a memorandum pledging a $5 billion compensation package involving construction projects, student grants and pension for Libyan soldiers who served with the Italians during the Second World War (too late to consider!). He further said “It is a material and emotional recognition of the mistakes that our country has done to yours duri...

Perhaps the present generations would laugh at ; exchanging love letters or mailing them to distant lovers at our times. The e-mail, SMS, cellular phones have made those things obsolete. With mobile phones they feel they are always in touch with each other. I feel pity for them, why you know? They never come to know after dropping the first love letter in the mail box, how we kept waiting for its reply for days. How those intermediate days use to lose its pace with every passing days. Looking at letter box , off and on, in odd hours when usually there use to be no chance of mail delivery, with a hope against hope for the desired mail. Intense the wait, intense the love that usually got projected in the next letter that followed the previous one`s reply. There is no account how many hearts might have broken for the missing mail that contained the first lover letters of the lovers. Obviously they were never responded, frustrating their writer, who always took it granted she was not for h...