Madhu Kinnar, country's first transgender mayor...!!!!

NEW DELHI, JAN 5:  

A city in central India has elected the country's first transgender mayor, nine months after a court ruled that transgender be recognised as a legal third gender, local media reported.

Madhu Kinnar, 35, won the mayoral election in Raigarh in the mineral-rich state of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, beating her opponent from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by more than 4,500 votes, the Press Trust of India reported.

Television images showed a sari-clad Kinnar, with a large red bindi on her forehead, greeting supporters who placed marigold garlands around her neck.

Kinnar - who is from the Dalit or "low caste" community and used to earn a living singing and dancing in trains - said that she was overwhelmed by her election.

"People have shown faith in me. I consider this win as love and blessings of people for me. I'll put in my best efforts to accomplish their dreams," Kinnar was quoted as saying.

"It was the public support that encouraged me to enter the poll fray for the first time and because of their support only, I emerged as the winner."

Activists say there are hundreds of thousands of transgender people in India, but because they were not legally recognised, they faced ostracism, discrimination, abuse and forced prostitution.

Last April, Supreme Court recognised transgender as a legal third gender and called on the government to ensure their equal treatment.

While the landmark judgment was welcomed by human rights campaigners, many say it contradicts the court's reinstatement of a gay sex ban that has resulted in an increase in the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, forcing many to conceal their sexual identity.

(This article was published on January 5, 2015)

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/india-elects-first-transgender-mayor-in-raigarh/article6756820.ece

ASTONISHING RESULTS--Exercise & DNA

Exercise may change our DNA

By: NYT | January 3, 2015 11:17 am

We all know that exercise can make us fitter and reduce our risk for illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. But just how, from start to finish, a run or a bike ride might translate into a healthier life has remained baffling.

Now new research reports that the answer may lie, in part, in our DNA. Exercise, a new study finds, changes the shape and functioning of our genes, an important stop on the way to improved health and fitness.

The human genome is astonishingly complex and dynamic, with genes constantly turning on or off, depending on what biochemical signals they receive from the body. When genes are turned on, they express proteins that prompt physiological responses elsewhere in the body.

Scientists know that certain genes become active or quieter as a result of exercise. But they hadn’t understood how those genes know how to respond to exercise.

Enter epigenetics, a process by which the operation of genes is changed, but not the DNA itself. Epigenetic changes occur on the outside of the gene, mainly through a process called methylation. In methylation, clusters of atoms, called methyl groups, attach to the outside of a gene like microscopic mollusks and make the gene more or less able to receive and respond to biochemical signals from the body.

Scientists know that methylation patterns change in response to lifestyle. Eating certain diets or being exposed to pollutants, for instance, can change methylation patterns on some of the genes in our DNA and affect what proteins those genes express. Depending on which genes are involved, it may also affect our health and risk for disease.

Far less has been known about exercise and methylation. A few small studies have found that a single bout of exercise leads to immediate changes in the methylation patterns of certain genes in muscle cells. But whether longer-term, regular physical training affects methylation, or how it does, has been unclear.

So for a study published this month in Epigenetics, scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm recruited 23 young and healthy men and women, brought them to the lab for a series of physical performance and medical tests, including a muscle biopsy, and then asked them to exercise half of their lower bodies for three months.

One of the obstacles in the past to precisely studying epigenetic changes has been that so many aspects of our lives affect our methylation patterns, making it difficult to isolate the effects of exercise from those of diet or other behaviors.

The Karolinska scientists overturned that obstacle by the simple expedient of having their volunteers bicycle using only one leg, leaving the other unexercised. In effect, each person became his or her own control group. Both legs would undergo methylation patterns influenced by his or her entire life; but only the pedaling leg would show changes related to exercise.

The volunteers pedaled one-legged at a moderate pace for 45 minutes, four times per week for three months. Then the scientists repeated the muscle biopsies and other tests with each volunteer.

Not surprisingly, the volunteers’ exercised leg was more powerful now than the other, showing the exercise had resulted in physical improvements.

But the changes within the muscle cells’ DNA were more intriguing. Using sophisticated genomic analysis, the researchers determined that more than 5,000 sites on the genome of muscle cells from the exercised leg now featured new methylation patterns. Some showed more methyl groups; some fewer. But the changes were significant and not found in the unexercised leg.

Interestingly, many of the methylation changes were on portions of the genome known as enhancers that can amplify the expression of proteins by genes. And gene expression was noticeably increased or changed in thousands of the muscle-cell genes that the researchers studied.

Most of the genes in question are known to play a role in energy metabolism, insulin response and inflammation within muscles. In other words, they affect how healthy and fit our muscles – and bodies – become.

They were not changed in the unexercised leg.

The upshot is that scientists now better understand one more step in the complicated, multifaceted processes that make exercise so good for us.

Many mysteries still remain, though, said Malene Lindholm, a graduate student at the Karolinska Institute, who led the study. It’s unknown, for example, whether the genetic changes she and her colleagues observed would linger if someone quits exercising and how different amounts or different types of exercise might affect methylation patterns and gene expression. She and her colleagues hope to examine those questions in future studies.

But the message of this study is unambiguous. “Through endurance training – a lifestyle change that is easily available for most people and doesn’t cost much money,” Lindholm said, “we can induce changes that affect how we use our genes and, through that, get healthier and more functional muscles that ultimately improve our quality of life.”

– By Gretchen Reynolds

http://www.financialexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/exercise-may-change-our-dna/25621/

Physical inactivity can damage blood vessels

By: PTI | Washington | January 1, 2015 3:12 pm

Even a few days of inactivity can cause damage to blood vessels in the legs that can take a prolonged period of time to repair, scientists have found.

The researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine found that reducing daily physical activity for even a few days leads to decreases in the function of the inner lining of blood vessels in the legs of young, healthy subjects causing vascular dysfunction that can have prolonged effects.

Paul Fadel, associate professor of medical pharmacology and physiology, and John Thyfault, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology, also found that the vascular dysfunction induced by five days of inactivity requires more than one day of returning to physical activity and taking at least 10,000 steps a day to improve.

“We know the negative consequences from not engaging in physical activity can be reversed,” said Fadel.

“There is much data to indicate that at any stage of a disease, and at any time in your life, you can get active and prolong your life.

“However, we found that skipping just five days of physical activity causes damage to blood vessels in the legs that can take a prolonged period of time to repair,” said Fadel.

The researchers studied the early effects on the body’s blood vessels when someone transitions from high daily physical activity – 10,000 or more steps per day – to low daily physical activity, less than 5,000 steps per day.

The researchers found going from high to low levels of daily physical activity for just five days decreases the function of the inner lining of the blood vessels in the legs.

“The impairment we saw in just five days was quite striking. It shows just how susceptible the vascular system is to physical inactivity,” Fadel said.

http://www.financialexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/physical-inactivity-can-damage-blood-vessels/25126/

MERRY CHRISTMAS----THERMAX----

MIND BOGGLING YET…

I WAS AMAZED TO SEE THE PRICE ROCKETED TO CREATE ENOUGH TURBULENCE IN ME.

I BOUGHT 1000 SHARES OF THERMAX FOR Rs 38.65, 15 YEARS BACK,

TODAY, THE PRICE OF THERMAX IS Rs 1050/- OF Rs 2/- FACE VALUE (EQUAL TO Rs 5150/-). IN OTHER WORDS, ONE LAKH INVESTED HAS BECOME MORE THAN 66 LAKHS.

EVEN RECENTLY, 2-3 YEARS BACK, I FOUND MARKSAN AT Rs 2.30 NOW IT IS QUOTING Rs 64/-.

ALSO FOUND MORARJEE TEXTILES AT Rs 7.0 NOW TOUCHED A HIGH OF Rs 61, INDOCOUNT INDUSTRIES AT Rs 7.0 NOW TOUCHED A HIGH OF Rs 390/-.

BUT THE ABOVE THREE WERE JUST MEMORIES BUT NO PARTICIPATION……

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND ALL INVESTORS & TRADERS…

Anoyara Khatun “Girl Heroes”-Malala Yousafzai Fund !!!

From a victim of human trafficking to a global hero

Anoyara Khatun was a victim of trafficking, but is now a global hero who has foiled numerous attempts of unscrupulous men to lure away girls from West Bengal's remote villages

Kamalika Ghosh  

December 20, 2014 Last Updated at 00:29 IST

Anoyara Khatun (extreme right) has rebuilt her life from the ashes of her past and is now an activist who leads a battalion of children fighting trafficking

The serene hinterlands of West Bengal hide within their vast expanse a secret so dark, so terrible, that people hesitate to talk about it. It concerns their daughters. It also concerns unscrupulous men who tempt parents into sending their young girls from their homes to a dream life of fashionable clothes and good salaries — and disaster. What they don’t say is another story. Anoyara Khatun knows that story well.

What immediately transfixes you about the 17-year-old Khatun is the sparkling pair of eyes, full of hope and grit. Trafficked at the tender age of 12, the girl from one of the remotest village of Bengal, Chhoto Askara, does not intend to look back at the dark days of the past. She has rebuilt her life from the ashes of her past and is now an activist who leads a battalion of children fighting trafficking,child marriage and child labour in their own meaningful ways. She requests me not to ask her questions about her past, about her trauma and how she was rescued.

Khatun is one of the “Girl Heroes” from across the world that the Malala Yousafzai Fund recently celebrated for 30 days — from October 11 to November 9 — as beacons of “exemplary courage and leadership”. So far, Khatun has foiled about 50 child marriages and 85 trafficking attempts. She has also successfully managed to get around 200 dropouts back to school. The young girl is the head of as many as 80 children’s groups across 55 villages in Sandeshkhali. These groups were formed by the Dhagagia Social Welfare Society, or DSWS, and Save the Children Trust (a donor organisation) in the effort to  rid the villages of the problem of child trafficking. “I had decided very early on that I shall not just remain an activist. I wanted to take up a leadership position,” smiles the teenager whose hobbies are to write poetry and songs.

Once she led a group of children at night to save a girl from the clutches of traffickers. “People in the villages go to bed by eight and children are not allowed to go out after that, but I sneaked out,” she recounts. “I took along some friends and chased the traffickers across the village, jumped canals and finally caught them. It was a huge risk. But we succeeded in saving the girl.”

Sandeshkhali is around two hours’ drive from Kolkata. Here DSWS and Save the Children Trust have worked relentlessly for years. “The work has been tough,” says Hriday Chand Ghosh, secretary of DSWS. “When we started, the main impediment was the acute lack of awareness among parents.”

Ghosh narrates the ghastly incident of how a girl from the village was trafficked to Delhi and how her body was burnt using hot iron rods. The girl was rescued by DSWS. He also mentions another incident where a trafficker had approached some parents with a photo album that had pictures showing well-dressed girls sharing a place at the dining table with their employers. “What we have seen in most cases is that these children are paid the promised salary in the first couple of months of employment, and then the salaries stop,” says Ghosh. I get an insight into the magnitude of the problem when, during my conversation with Ghosh, the hapless parents of two missing girls come knocking on his door.

To stop the children of the villages from falling into the traffickers’ trap, Ghosh and his co-workers took up extensive sensitisation programmes. Apart from parents, the panchayat members, police and the schools were involved in the awareness programmes. “We have formed children’s groups in the various villages in and around Sandeshkhali. These groups have children from the mainstream as well as children who have been rescued from traffickers, children who worked as domestic helps and others who have survived abuse,” says Ghosh. There is also the Child Protection Committee (CPC), comprising panchayat members, police officers, village elders, teachers, parents and welfare workers. Whenever a stranger is sighted in the locality, members of the children’s groups follow them to find out what their intentions are. If that person is trying to take a girl away from her home, they try coaxing the girl not to leave. They then try to reason it out with the parents. If the situation gets out of hand, the youngsters approach CPC for help.

Khatun is one of the 'Girl Heroes' from across the world that the Malala Yousafzai Fund recently celebrated for 30 days—from October 11 to November 9—as beacons of 'exemplary courage and leadership'

Children, explains Khatun, are the first ones who know what is happening in their localities. “When an unknown person enters the villages, most of the children are out playing. One informs another to convey to the other children that he should be followed,” says Khatun. “After the information has reached everybody, we congregate at a chosen place, decide the course of action and get to work.”

Back from a tour of Delhi where she met Minorities Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla, this fighter of a girl, who is pursuing her graduation studies at Humayun Kabir Mahavidyalaya, believes that it is society that makes a distinction between a son and daughter. Nominated for the International Peace Prize, 2012, and recently felicitated by West Bengal Minister of State for Women and Child Welfare Shashi Panja, this reticent girl does not care much for the limelight. “Earlier, I never gave interviews. If you had come a year or two back, I would have refused to talk. I feared the media attention might spoil my work. I always thought it better to be a nameless, faceless force that brings about changes in the system. The work is important, not me,” she declares with maturity beyond her years.

Her warm nature is what endears her to the village elders and children alike. A drive down the narrow lanes to one of the Multi-Activity Centres, where school dropouts are oriented to education, gives you a fair idea of her popularity. When she reaches the place, the children there circle their “Didi”. “Eto din ashoni keno (Why did you not visit us for so long?),” they ask.

At these centres, school dropouts and rescued children are trained for schooling for three or four months and then enrolled in the nearby schools. “Apart from these centres, we also have six vocational training centres, where slightly older rescued girls who have had primary education and are hesitant about going back to primary classes are tutored in tailoring and knitting,” says Ghosh, who adds that poverty is a driving force behind the child abuse.

Apart from children, the trust has also tried to involve mothers in various self-help schemes. Many women now work with small groups providing mid-day meals to schools. After the destruction wreaked by cyclone Aila in 2009, many women were given the chance to earn a living at nurseries when social organisations took up the initiative to plant mangrove trees. “We can proudly say that even after a disaster like Aila, there hasn’t been a single case of child migration in the 50 villages that we worked in,” say Khatun and Ghosh almost simultaneously.

From what it was around a decade back, the situation has become relatively better in these villages. But there is still a long way to go. “Strengthening the community-based child-protection mechanism by forming children’s committees under the government’s Integrated Child Protection Scheme will be our action plan,” says Jatin Mondar, programme manager, Save the Children, West Bengal State unit. “The involvement of children in this exercise should be stressed with the objective of including their voice in developing a strong social safety and protection network against child trafficking.”

For every Malala, there are thousands of Khatuns who have turned their pain into their greatest strength. Transforming themselves from victim to victor, these children and child rights activists have silently and tirelessly worked to tell the world, as Khatun wrote in one of her poems, that they might be children but they are humans too: “Sishu hole o manush amra”.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/from-a-victim-of-human-trafficking-to-a-global-hero-114121900567_1.html