Learn Vedas with Computers

By Syed Akbar
Published in Deccan Chronicle, Vijayawada, December 2001
Call it a blend of modernity and eternity. Or simply a union of secularism and religion. For the students of the Vedic University at Sitanagaram in Vijayawada, it's knowledge that matters.
They do not want to distinguish it as modern or ancient. Knowledgefor them is timeless and eternal — be it learning the ancient Vedasor solving the modern-day complex problems on hi-speed computers. The students of Jeeyar Educational Trust (JET) are masters not only in the Vedic knowlege but also in computer education, spoken English, Sanskrit, Telugu and rationalism.
The university campus itself speaks of a perfect harmony between modernity and tradition. If there are thatched huts on one side, there are concrete buildings on the other. If there's a goshala and a deer enclosure, there's also a well-furnished library with computerised index and a modern printing press.
The atmosphere at the Vedic Pathasala is so serene and captivatingthat eight-year-old D Gopalacharyulu from Nepal does not want toleave the place. "I wanted to return home when my parents brought me here five monthsago. The ashram is lovely and the people here are very friendly. I donot want to return now and I will complete the entire course with theblessings of Swamiji," he told Deccan Chronicle.
Ch Srinivasacharyulu is just seven and he is already into the comprehensive Yajur Veda course. He is quite adept in studies andshows interest in computers too.While children of his age play with toys, Srinivasacharyulu takes pride in the companionship of the Scriptures and saintly persons."I love this place. The computer is good," he says.
The JET takescare of education, clothing, books, board and stay of the students.

Ocean to give rain clue

By Syed Akbar
Published in Deccan Chronicle on November 19, 2002
Hyderabad, Nov 18: Scientists from Hyderabad are taking a deep look at the oceans to be able to improve the monsoon forecasting and help governments to prepare better to tackle drought.
Scientists from the city-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, prompted by failure of monsoons for three successive years and prevalence of unprecedented drought conditions, have taken up a mega project to understand the mysteries of the deep and correlate the data for accurate and scientific prediction of monsoon winds. Explaining the oceanographic mossion dubbed Argo, Dr M Ravichandran, INCOIS scientist, told Deccan Chronicle on Monday that scientists could not predict accurately the movement of monsoons due to lack of observation of the oceans.
Ravichandran has just returned from a trip of the Indian Ocean to release floats from the ORV Sagar Kanya.
The Argo - named after a ship in Greek mythology led by Jason, chief of the argonauts, in search of the Golden Fleece that belonged to the king Colchis - is a revolutionary concept for measurement of temperature and salinity, along with reference level velocities, through the upper 2,000 metre of the ocean in real time.
Each Argo float descends up to 2 km where it drifts with the currents. After 10 days, it slowly rises to the surface measuring temperature and salinity profiles as it goes up.
At the surface, it relays this information through satellites. It then sinks to begin another cycle.
The expected life of an Argo float is four years.
City scientists have released nine such in the Indian ocean. In all they propose to release 150 Argos. The international ocean community plans to deploy 3,000 Argos in three years for global coverage.
Ravichandran said the circulation and temperature in the upper layers of the ocean in the tropics respond rapidly to changes in global atmospheric circulation and rainfall distribution.
The resulting changes in sea surface temperature are coupled to changes in global atmospheric circulation and rainfall distribution.
This coupling between the tropical oceans and atmosphere is the key to potentially successful climate predictions, he said.

Plants that eat up toxic elements

Published in Deccan Chronicle/The Asian Age
Problem: Waterways and public drinking sources can contain deposits of heavy metals that can cause serious health problems. These contaminants are very difficult to remove using conventional methods.
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Solution: Certain plants that thrive in watery environments can absorb these pollutants as they grow.
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By Syed Akbar
Pineapple, sunflower and amaranthus, the popular leafy vegetable of the Indian kitchen, can suck up pollution from the soil, water and air, researchers at the University of Hyderabad have reported.
These plants accumulate the pollutants in their roots, stems and leaves and leave the substratum clean.
These plants clean up pollutants that cannot otherwise be removed through the normal chemical processes. As with all things natural, these plants do not despoil nature.
A study by University of Hyderabad researchers has revealed that these and other ornamental and horticultural plant species are capable of removing pollutants even from sewage.
The study was conducted on the bed of the highly polluted Musi river that passes through Hyderabad. Leafy vegetables like Amaranthus spinosus, Alternanthera philoxeroides [alligator weed] and Alternanthera sessiles [khakiweed]were grown on the sewage sludge of the river.
The researchers measured the metal content in the soil and in the fully grown plants after harvesting them.
The team found that the plants had sucked up a variety of metal pollutants.
The concentration of these metals was invariably high in leaf tissue. The transfer factor and content of cadmium, zinc and ferrous in plant parts of these species showed their ability to bioconcentrate these in their tissues.
"It is possible to use these species to restore the biosolid and sewage sludge contaminated sites, while exercising caution on human consumption. Alternanthera philoxeroides was used for removal of lead and mercury from polluted waters," the study reported.
"It is possible to supplement the dietary requirement of human food with zinc and ferrous as these are essential nutrients and the plant species are edible. However, there is a need to monitor the metal transfer factor through the food chain," the study said.
What the study is warning of is leafy vegetables grown in polluted beds. Since the leafy vegetables suck up pollution, people eating them may ingest the metals which can be harmful in large quantities.
Scientists call this ability to suck harmful metals as "hyperaccumulation". Plants with this ability can decontaminate metalliferous substrates in environment. Species belonging to families like Poaceae [a family of common grass], Asteraceae [the sunflower family], Euphobiaceae [the castor family], Caryophyllaceae [the family of ornamental flowers including campion], Fabaceae [legumes] and Brassicacea [the mustard family] simply suck up metals like nickel, zinc and lead.
In the process of using hyperaccumulators to clean up sewage or river beds, the plants are grown on the polluted area. They absorb and concentrate the metals in their roots and shoots. After they become saturated with metal contaminants, roots or whole plants are harvested and disposed.
Heavy metals can be removed from water through hyacinth, pennywort and duckweed. The mustard plant can remove uranium and caesium.
This leads to permanent removal of metals from the polluted area.

Water scarcity in future: recycled water the answer

Published in The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle - November 2007
By Syed Akbar
It is 2020. Within a space station a group of men and women have just finished their daily workout. They sip water from specially made bottles.
There is nothing very unearthly about all this, except that the water has been "reclaimed" from sweat, urine and even their exhalations. The space tourists do not grimace while gulping the water. They don’t have any yucky feeling since they have already been drinking such water down below on Earth.
This is no scenario from a futuristic sci-fi movie. Scientists predict that drinking water reclaimed from urine, sewage and sweat may become the norm in the next two decades. Over-exploitation of groundwater is already causing shortage of water and climate change will only add to it. This will leave people with no option but to reuse "grey water" as urine is called.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States is conducting a major study with 50 volunteers on the psychological, chemical and biological reactions to consumption of water reclaimed from sewage including toilets. The European Space Agency is asking scientists on an Antarctica expedition to utilise recycled sewage water for drinking at its Concordia research station. This will give the ESA enough inputs for its proposed Mars mission by 2030. Nasa volunteers even "borrow" urine from others and drink it after putting it through a state-of-the-art treatment process.
Countries such as Singapore, Australia and the USA have also started experimenting with recycling of sewage and toilet water and are also supplying it in limited quantities to the population. Singapore mixes one per cent of treated sewage water with 99 per cent of natural water to reduce the yucky feeling among its citizens and Australian cities have taken up massive advertisement campaigns to sensitise people on the issue.
Many nations in water-scarce and drought-hit Africa have taken up similar projects with the assistance of the World Health Organisation and the United States. And in India, people have been even drinking "untreated" sewage water from polluted rivers and other water bodies. They might consider any sort of purification a blessing.
Crores of people living downstream of cities like New Delhi, Patna, Allahabad, Nashik, Rajahmundry, Hyderabad and Vijayawada drink treated sewage water without a second thought.
The Musi River empties into the Krishna River near Suryapet in Nalgonda carrying the treated sewage from Hyderabad. The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has set up half a dozen such treatment plants to treat and let out sewage into the three irrigation canals that serve as drinking water sources for lakhs of people downstream. Vijayawada discharges 66 millions litres of sewage every day from 31 outlets into water bodies while Hyderabad pumps more than 300 million litres per day into the Musi river through 18 outlets.
Though reclaimed sewage water has not yet been "officially" used for drinking in India, several civic bodies and industrial houses are utilising it for watering lawns and for other purposes.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, for instance, utilises the waste water for watering its avenue plantation on important roads and gardens.
Big industrial houses such as Madras Fertilisers and Chennai Petroleum purchase waste water from Chennai Metro, recycle it and use the "purified" water in their cooling plants. Arvind Mills, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, Kanoria Chemicals and Maruti Udyog are also known to use the recycled water for industrial purposes.
ALL THOSE RIVERS
Naturally, a question will arise as to why people should drink treated urine and sewage water when rivers and lakes seem to be positively rippling with water. The simple answer is that there is not enough water to meet the future needs of the ever-growing population. Scientists point out that the quantum of water on earth is constant and this means that water cannot be created afresh. The only option is to recycle the available water to meet the increased demand.
As of now, civic bodies in many countries are supplying reclaimed water at subsidised rates to make people go for it. The Singapore government, in fact, takes tourists to many of its recycling plants to in a bid to create awareness on the importance of water conservation. "Soon water availability may be what will differentiate the haves from the have-nots," says H. Subramaniam, water management expert and vice-president of EverythingAboutWater. According to him, India will become a "water-stressed" country by 2025, with water availability declining to between 1000 and 1,700 cubic metres per person per year.
"The possibility of future wars over water is not science fiction," he says. "It is very real. Increasingly, water is seen a strategic resource to be used with caution and managed with care." Statistics support Subrahmaniam’s argument. The total precipitation including snowfall over India is 4,000 billion cubic metres and fresh water available for use is 1,869 billion cubic metres. This includes replenishable groundwater.
However, the actual amount of water available is just 1,122 billion cubic metres, including 690 billion cubic metres of surface water. Of this, 80 per cent goes into farming leaving just 20 per cent to quench the thirst of 1.02 billion people. India’s projected population by 2025 is 1.39 billion. The per capita availability of water in the country has come down from 5,277 cubic metres per person per year in 1955 to 1,970 cubic metres in 2007. By 2025, this will further go down further. India will face an acute shortage of water and there will be no option but to use recycled sewage water.
THAT YUCKY FEELING
The very thought of drinking treated sewage water or urine might make you want to throw up, but the fact remains that water reclaimed from sewage and toilets is as pure as treated potable water. In some cases, it is even purer.
Several studies by the World Health Organisation and scientific agencies in the US, Japan, the UK and Australia have proved beyond doubt that treated sewage water is perfectly fit for drinking. Volunteers who participated in several "taste and tell" surveys were not able to tell the difference between tap water, bottled water and recycled water. Scientists say that recycled water can even be used for kidney dialysis. Scientists of the University of New South Wales used reverse osmosis system to treat water contaminated with pharmaceutical residues and found that it did not have even nominal traces of the chemicals.
However, some experts fear that some harmful traces might remain even efter strict filtration. "When we use recycled water, we must ensure that micro organisms such as E coli and others should be within limits," said Dr B. Ravishankar, senior medical gastroenterologist at Yashoda Hospital, Secunderabad. "Otherwise, it will open the door for infectious diseases." There is also another factor — Indian toilets are dirtier than those of Singapore, Australia, the UK and the US.
"Most Indians are ignorant of the fact that more than 80 species of dangerous micro-organisms have been found lurking in toilets," said Dr Vijay Punjabi, president of the Indian Medical Association. "There’s a likelihood of these germs making way into the recycled water."
PRESTO, IT IS PURE
What exactly happens to urine, sweat, perspiration and sewage water that are treated?
Scientists are simply aping Nature when they go in for recycling of waste water. In Nature, water from sweat, perspiration, faeces and urine go up into the sky through evaporation and later come down as rain. Many of us consider rain water as pure and do not hesitate to drink it.
In the future, scientists will be using membrane bioreactor process for recycling. It will combine clarification, aeration and filtration in a single stage to ensure pure water.
The low-cost and simple methods involve letting out the treated water into rivers, streams, lakes and tanks allowing it to get mixed with natural water. Later this water is purified and supplied to citizens. This indirect potable reuse is already being undertaken in Singapore. There are also other proven methods such as distillation, freezing, reverse-osmosis, electro-dialysis and ion exchange. Nasa plans to utilise its space technology to supply fresh water to countries that are hit by perennial droughts. "Sewage water can be recycled and reused for a dozen times," said senior physicist B. Raja Rao.
"After that, the water quality becomes quite bad." Health experts such as Dr G.R. Srinivas Rao, however, argue that a country such as India which is endowed with natural sources of water need not use recycled water for drinking.
"It may not be healthy since even a small loophole somewhere in the process can lead to an epidemic," he says.
But if things go on like this, we may not have a choice.

A single vaccine may not help in the control of malaria

Syed Akbar

Hyderabad, Nov 10: A single vaccine may not help in the control of malaria and this major health nuisance has to be tackled through specific vaccines for different strains of malarial parasite.

A study by the city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and the National Institute for Malaria Research revealed that different vaccines need to be developed to prevent different isolates of Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malaria.

"The C-terminal region of merozoite surface protein-1 is one of the leading candidates for vaccination against the erythrocytic stages of malaria. However, a major concern in the development of MSP-1 based malaria vaccine is the polymorphism observed in different geographical Plasmodium falciparum isolates," the study points out.

The results from the study also revealed predominance of a particular type of allele among Indian field isolates. Seven such variant forms were isolated in a singe geographical location. This simply means there should be seven different vaccines each targeting a particular isolate, in the Indian context.

The study demonstrated the existence of allele specific antibodies in Plasmodium falciparum-infected patient sera. The scientists suggested the importance of a multi-allelic based vaccine for an effective malaria control in the country.

Malaria is one of the major causes of death from infection in India as in other developing countries.  Development of an effective malaria vaccine may reduce malaria-associated severe morbidity and mortality in malaria-endemic areas.

A number of parasite surface antigens of asexual blood stages are being investigated as vaccine candidate antigens. Among these antigens, merozoite surface protein-1 is a leading candidate antigen.

"A substantial proportion of antibodies directed to MSP-119 in Plasmodium falciparum-infected human sera have been shown to inhibit erythrocyte invasion in vitro. Sequence comparison of Plasmodium falciparum msp1 sequences among different geographical isolates shows a great deal of variations," the study said.

Malaria transmission is perennial in the country but is markedly low in the plain area than forest area. Plasmodium falciparum accounted for 85 per cent of total malaria cases during the study period. In forest and plain areas, the number of falciparum cases per thousand populations were 284.1 and 31.2 respectively, whereas the parasite rate was 14 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively.

In forest areas, clinical malaria occurred more frequently in children aged 0-5 years and declined gradually with increasing age.

Natural colours from bacteria, mushrooms

2007
By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Nov 3: Natural colours obtained from bacteria, mushrooms and other fungi are all set to adorn clothes and crafts in the international market.
Pioneering research by Dr K Perumal and others on microbial dyes has produced an array of natural colours that could be used for dyeing clothes, stone works and handicrafts. These colours are eco-friendly and harmless both to the users and the manufacturers. Even dyes obtained from poisonous fungi are safe on the skin.
According to Dominique Cardon of Unesco, who is currently in the city to participate in the international conference on natural dyes, the colours obtained from fungi are unique in pattern and colour intensity. "A synthetic dye simply gives one colour whereas a dye obtained from fungus, mushroom or bacteria gives an array of colours. It is a cocktail of colours and is very rich in colour intensity and fastness," she said.
Dominique pointed out that the research on natural dyes from microbial agents by Indian scientists would revolutionise the world of natural colours and greatly benefit artisans and artists. "We have scores of coloured fungi and mushrooms. There are coloured bacteria too. Using industrial techniques the scientists obtained colours. These colours can be mixed in different combinations to obtain rare colour patterns," the French researcher pointed out.
Though dyes based on fungi, especially lichens, have been used for quite some time, the technique adopted by Indian scientists is the first of its kind. Colours like browns, yellows and greys are easily obtained from common fungi varieties available in the country.
The colours of the pH indicator, litmus, and various reds, yellows and mauve are also available especially when using appropriate mordants. The commonly used Litmus (of litmus test fame) is also a dye extracted from fungus of the genus Roccella. In alkaline conditions it is blue. As the dying conditions became more acidic, the colour changes from blue to purple and then red.
She said these colours can be fixed to the cloth by using an appropriate mordant. With the increase in the cost of petroleum products, manufacturers are increasingly turning to fungi for their colouring needs. The demand for natural colours has also gone up in the international market and the Indian dyes from fungi and bacteria are going to play a major role.