TOI Social Impact Awards 2012: Picking the true changemakers

From a cascade of applications from all corners of the country, a rainbow of organizations emerged after the first round of shortlisting for the TOI Social Impact Awards 2012. Entries and documents submitted by the shortlisted 67 entities — NGOs, corporate-backed bodies, government entities — have now been given to an experts' panel for detailed evaluation. And then the stage will be set for the final selection by an eminent jury.

The shortlisted entries span five sectors — education, health, livelihoods , environment and advocacy & empowerment. Within each sector three awards will be given, one each for an NGO, corporate and government entity.

Twenty experts will closely review the shortlist, bringing their vast experience into the evaluation process. Most of these experts have two to three decades of experience in the field, and have been associated with the voluntary sector.

"Some exciting work is being done and that must be brought to the knowledge of as many as possible," says Major Sabyasachi Chatterjee, one of the experts in the livelihood sector. Chatterjee is a scientific consultant at the office of the principal scientific advisor to the Government of India. He was earlier associated with developmental work in the department of science and technology.

"As it is, institutions of higher learning offer little recognition for socially-relevant research in rural areas, and therefore, this is one mechanism to highlight contributions of a few torch-bearers ," he adds. Commenting on this year's entries, Kartik Shanker, professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, felt that this year's entries are much better.

"I feel these things take time to catch on in terms of both applications and the prestige, and that is, of course, inter-related ," he said. The experts will evaluate the entries on seven key criteria: scale of impact, replicability, sustainability, finances, people's participation, innovativeness , and promotion of equity . The same criteria were used for the first shortlist by three Mumbai -based organizations, Dasra, GiveIndia and Guidestar India.

This year's Awards process has been marked by several new features which includes a simplified initial online application form, recommendation of worthy entities by a National Search Panel comprising eminent people from the developmental field and a more interactive set-up for entrants. Major Chatterjee felt that the process has "definitely improved compared to last year".

The shortlist after Phase 1 consists of 75 entries distributed over the five sectors as follows: Education (16), Health (15), Livelihoods (18), Environment (14), and Advocacy & Empowerment (12). Some entities have been shortlisted in more than one sector. There are 23 entries from corporate-backed organisations, 12 from government agencies or institutions , and 40 from NGOs.

The experts will grade each entry after evaluation on a grading matrix. The graded entries will be ranked and the top three from each category in each sector will constitute the second shortlist. Field visits will be made to each of the 45 final shortlisted entrants to cross-check various aspects such as the impact on the ground and involvement of people in field areas. Finally, a sevenmember jury will meet in the first week of January to scrutinize the final short list and select the 15 winners : for the three awards in each of the five sectors. The jury will be guided by the experts' evaluations as well as the field reports. The awards ceremony is scheduled for January 28, 2013 in Delhi.

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNL

Looking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.

The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand challenges"—igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory, according to the NIF website. Nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

This July, California-based NIF made history by combining 192 laser beams into a record-breaking laser shot that packed over 500 trillion watts of peak power-a thousand times more power than the entire United States uses at any given instant.

"This was a quantum leap for laser technology around the world," NIF director Ed Moses said in September. But some critics of the $5 billion project wonder why the laser has yet to ignite a fusion chain reaction after three-and-a-half years in operation. Supporters counter that such groundbreaking science simply can't be rushed.

(Related: "Fusion Power a Step Closer After Giant Laser Blast.")

—Brian Handwerk

Published November 29, 2012

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Man Arrested in Fla. Girl's 1993 Disappearance

Police have arrested a 42-year-old man and charged him with murder in the case of a Florida girl who vanished almost 20 years ago.

Andrea Gail Parsons, 10, of Port Salerno, Fla., was last seen on July 11, 1993, shortly after 6 p.m. She had just purchased candy and soda at a grocery store when she waved to a local couple as they drove by on an area street and honked, police said.

Today, Martin County Sheriff's Department officials arrested Chester Duane Price, 42, who recently lived in Haleyville, Ala., and charged him with first-degree murder and kidnapping of a child under the age of 13, after he was indicted by a grand jury.

Price was acquainted with Andrea at the time of her disappearance, and also knew another man police once eyed as a potential suspect, officials told ABC News affiliate WPBF in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Handout/Martin County Sheriff's Office

"The investigation has concluded that Price abducted and killed Andrea Gail Parsons," read a sheriff's department news release. "Tragically, at this time, her body has not been recovered."

The sheriff's department declined to specify what evidence led to Price's arrest for the crime after 19 years or to provide details to ABCNews.com beyond the prepared news release.

Reached by phone, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said she did not know whether Price was yet represented by a lawyer.

Price was being held at the Martin County Jail without bond and was scheduled to make his first court appearance via video link at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning.

In its news release, the sheriff's department cited Price's "extensive criminal history with arrests dating back to 1991" that included arrests for cocaine possession, assault, sale of controlled substance, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and violation of domestic violence injunction.

"The resolve to find Andrea and get answers surrounding the circumstances of her disappearance has never wavered as detectives and others assigned have dedicated their careers to piecing this puzzle together," Martin County Sheriff Robert L. Crowder said in a prepared statement. "In 2011, I assigned a team of detectives, several 'fresh sets of eyes,' to begin another review of the high-volume of evidence that had been previously collected in this case."

A flyer dating from the time of Andrea's disappearance, and redistributed by the sheriff's office after the arrest, described her as 4-foot-11 with hazel eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing blue jean shorts, a dark shirt and clear plastic sandals, according to the flyer.

The sheriff's department became involved in the case after Andrea's mother, Linda Parsons, returned home from work around 10 p.m. on July 11, 1993, to find her daughter missing and called police, according to the initial sheriff's report.

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High-powered ‘Fix the Debt’ group draws attention, scrutiny in Washington

In the discussions about the “fiscal cliff” consuming Washington, a powerful new group stands out, touting the virtue of bipartisanship and shared sacrifice.

The business leaders who set up the Campaign to Fix the Debt appear nearly every day on network talk shows and have won coveted time with President Obama in pushing for increased tax revenue, reduced government spending, and changes to Social Security and Medicare. The group’s leaders met Wednesday with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and returned, yet again, to the White House.

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385 new HIV cases in S'pore between Jan & Oct

SINGAPORE: From January to October this year, 385 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were reported among Singapore residents, said the health ministry on Thursday.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) expects the total number of notified HIV cases in 2012 to be similar to that of 2011, when there were 461 cases.

In the first six months of this year, 215 new cases of HIV, which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), were reported.

Between July and October, there were 170 new cases.

MOH said among the cases reported between January and June, 92 per cent (198) were males and 8 per cent (17) were females.

Most of them caught the virus through sex.

Half of those infected had heterosexual sex, while 43 per cent were infected from homosexual transmission, and 4 per cent from bisexual transmission.

About half, or 47 per cent, of those infected were between 30 and 49 years.

63 per cent were single, 23 per cent were married and 10 per cent were divorced or separated.

Half of the new cases reported between January and June already had late-stage HIV infection when they were diagnosed, similar to the pattern in previous years.

Slightly more than half found out they had the virus during HIV testing, as part of medical care.

Another 15 per cent were detected through health screening.

14 per cent were detected during voluntary HIV screening and the rest found out they were HIV-positive through contact tracing and other screening methods.

A higher proportion of homosexuals - or 28 per cent - were detected during voluntary screening, compared with 4 per cent for heterosexuals.

MOH and the Health Promotion Board (HPB) have urged individuals to protect themselves from HIV infection by following the principles of "ABCD": abstinence, being faithful, correct and consistent use of condoms and early detection.

- CNA/xq

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Indira Gandhi lent Indian politics the dynastic shift: Ramachandra Guha

BANGALORE: The Congress led by Indira Gandhi fostered a generation of hero worship and dynasty politics after 1969. This inspired many others like Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who started off with noble intentions to fight against caste discriminations, to do the same and has led to a centralization of politics in present India, said Ramachandra Guha, on Wednesday.

He was speaking during the launch of his latest book, Patriots and Partisans.

The 54-year-old historian went on to add that Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the most charismatic leaders of Indian politics, has been slowly losing his popularity because of the Congress's dynastic politics.

"Sins of seven successive generations have been bestowed on Nehru," he said light-heartedly.

The highest paid non-fiction writer of the country also slammed the phenomenon called the 'Congress chamchagiri'. "I saw a long queue of Congress party members waiting outside Rahul Gandhi's house during his birthday, a couple of years ago, braving scorching sun. Nevertheless, Rahul didn't come out to greet them while the 100 kilogram cake they had brought for him disintegrated leaving a trail from the Congress general secretary's house till the Indira Gandhi circle," he said.

He said that scientific institutions in Delhi couldn't achieve the success of ones in other parts of the country as officials chosen in the capital-based institutions are often selected on the recommendation of politicians.

Guha went on to add that massacre of Muslims in Hyderabad during the annexation of the state by the Indian army happened before the constitution came into being in 1950, but it is sad that the perpetrators of 1984 Sikh massacre and 2002 Muslim massacre in Gujarat, which were initiated by Congress and BJP, respectively, haven't still been punished.

He slammed right and left wing politicians, saying that the citizens have allowed the Hindu rightists' claims to be truly patriots of the country because the left is often considered anti-patriotic because their fatherland has always been a different country - depending upon the prevalence of Marxists movements in these countries, like China, the USSR, Cuba and currently Venezuela - and also due to the high decibel levels and angry outbreaks of the saffron brigade.

"Violence unleashed by left ( Naxalites) and right (Hindu fundamentalists) is against democracy, liberalism, religious plularism and tolerance, the idea that our Constitution promotes. Citizens should protect the country from these extremisms," he said.

TOO EARLY

Guha had a word of advice for the Arvind Kejriwal-launched Aam Aadmi Party, saying that it's too early for them to participate in the 2014 general elections. "Their current economic policies are a bit naive," he added.

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Caterpillar Fungus Has Anti-Inflammatory Properties

In the Tibetan mountains, a fungus attaches itself to a moth larva burrowed in the soil. It infects and slowly consumes its host from within, taking over its brain and making the young caterpillar move to a position from which the fungus can grow and spore again.

Sounds like something out of science fiction, right? But for ailing Chinese consumers and nomadic Tibetan harvesters, the parasite called cordyceps means hope—and big money. Chinese markets sell the "golden worm," or "Tibetan mushroom"—thought to cure ailments from cancer to asthma to erectile dysfunction—for up to $50,000 (U.S.) per pound. Patients, following traditional medicinal practices, brew the fungal-infected caterpillar in tea or chew it raw.

Now the folk medicine is getting scientific backing. A new study published in the journal RNA finds that cordycepin, a chemical derived from the caterpillar fungus, has anti-inflammatory properties.

"Inflammation is normally a beneficial response to a wound or infection, but in diseases like asthma it happens too fast and to too high of an extent," said study co-author Cornelia H. de Moor of the University of Nottingham. "When cordycepin is present, it inhibits that response strongly."

And it does so in a way not previously seen: at the mRNA stage, where it inhibits polyadenylation. That means it stops swelling at the genetic cellular level—a novel anti-inflammatory approach that could lead to new drugs for cancer, asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular-disease patients who don't respond well to current medications.

From Worm to Pill

But such new drugs may be a long way off. The science of parasitic fungi is still in its early stages, and no medicine currently available utilizes cordycepin as an anti-inflammatory. The only way a patient could gain its benefits would by consuming wild-harvested mushrooms.

De Moor cautions against this practice. "I can't recommend taking wild-harvested medications," she says. "Each sample could have a completely different dose, and there are mushrooms where [taking] a single bite will kill you."

Today 96 percent of the world's caterpillar-fungus harvest comes from the high Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan range. Fungi from this region are of the subspecies Ophiocordyceps sinensis, locally known as yartsa gunbu ("summer grass, winter worm"). While highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, these fungi have relatively low levels of cordycepin. What's more, they grow only at elevations of 10,000 to 16,500 feet and cannot be farmed. All of which makes yartsa gunbu costly for Chinese consumers: A single fungal-infected caterpillar can fetch $30.

Brave New Worm

Luckily for researchers, and for potential consumers, another rare species of caterpillar fungus, Cordyceps militaris, is capable of being farmed—and even cultivated to yield much higher levels of cordycepin.

De Moor says that's not likely to discourage Tibetan harvesters, many of whom make a year's salary in just weeks by finding and selling yartsa gunbu. Scientific proof of cordycepin's efficacy will only increase demand for the fungus, which could prove dangerous. "With cultivation we have a level of quality control that's missing in the wild," says de Moor.

"There is definitely some truth somewhere in certain herbal medicinal traditions, if you look hard enough," says de Moor. "But ancient healers probably wouldn't notice a 10 percent mortality rate resulting from herbal remedies. In the scientific world, that's completely unacceptable." If you want to be safe, she adds, "wait for the medicine."

Ancient Chinese medical traditions—which also use ground tiger bones as a cure for insomnia, elephant ivory for religious icons, and rhinoceros horns to dispel fevers—are controversial but popular. Such remedies remain in demand regardless of scientific advancement—and endangered animals continue to be killed in order to meet that demand. While pills using cordycepin from farmed fungus might someday replace yartsa gunbu harvesting, tigers, elephants, and rhinos are disappearing much quicker than worms.

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Huge Jackpot Looms, but Can Money Buy Happiness?

Nov 28, 2012 1:02pm

Can money buy happiness? If you’re clutching several Powerball tickets in one hand as you thumb through yacht and pony catalogs with the other, you’re probably betting yes.

We’re all told the odds of winning are abysmal — about 1 in 175 million — but let’s assume you win the $500 million jackpot. Experts say the initial euphoria will wear off relatively quickly and you’ll be left with pretty much the same dismal outlook on life you’ve always had.

“Winning will release some pleasurable chemicals in your brain over the short term,” said Scott Bea, a clinical psychologist with the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “Unfortunately, your brain will likely revert back to the same old same old before too long.”

Bea conceded that the extra bushels of cash would ease any anxiety over paying the bills, and you’d probably get an additional rush of those joy-boosting neuro-hormones when you went on a shopping spree, but ultimately the basal ganglia, the part of your brain that tends to dwell on the negative, will kick in and you’ll be back to your usual miserable self in no time.

Why? Because in its dark little heart, the brain is a pessimistic organ. Studies show bad memories tend to be far stickier than pleasant memories. And as Bea pointed out, complaints are the topic of nearly 70 percent of all conversation. So according to this logic, you’re less likely to relive the glory of your jackpot moment than you are to grouse about all the fifth cousins suddenly friending you on Facebook to ask for a handout.

Bea also said big winners who aren’t careful to cultivate happiness skills such as optimism, a charitable attitude and savvy money management habits often wind up in more wretched circumstances than where they started. History is certainly littered with such examples.

Back in the 1980s, Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey lottery not once, but twice. She quickly gambled away all $5.4 million and today she’s flat broke, living in a trailer park. Then there’s Billy Bob Harrell Jr. a Pentecostal preacher who was working as a stock boy in 1997 when he scored a cool $31 million in the Texas lottery. The stress of winning so overwhelmed him that he divorced his wife and committed suicide.

Does this mean you should hope the odds work against you when they draw those lucky numbers at 10:59 ET tonight? According to Bea, not at all.

“For most people, purchasing a ticket and fantasizing about what life will be like once you’ve won is the most pleasant part of the lottery experience,” he said, “You could probably flush the same amount of money down the toilet and get much the same result — but then you wouldn’t have the dream.”

SHOWS: Good Morning America

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Keeping the financial regulators on their toes

When members of Congress need factual information and insights into the effectiveness of the financial laws put in place after the 2008 economic crisis, they regularly turn to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Orice Williams Brown.

Initially as director and now as managing director of the GAO’s financial markets and community investment section, Brown and her staff have issued dozens of reports examining the flaws and offering recommendations to improve the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout fund, the Wall Street regulatory reform law and the initiatives to prevent housing foreclosures.

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Maldives defends scrapping India airport deal

COLOMBO: The Maldives defended Wednesday its controversial decision to terminate an airport management contract with an Indian firm, saying the deal was dogged by "legal, technical and economic issues".

President Mohamed Waheed's government gave five days to GMR Group to leave after prematurely ending the 25-year lease of the nation's main international airport for a one-time fee of $78 million and revenue share thereafter.

The government said it was advised by unnamed British and Singaporean lawyers to abrogate the agreement, prompting India to warn that the move could scare away foreign investors from the archipelago.

"The cabinet decided to terminate... on grounds that there were many legal, technical and economic issues regarding the agreement, and that it was legally invalid, and impossible to further continue," Waheed's office said.

Waheed's government had objected to the privatisation carried out by his predecessor Mohamed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader who quit earlier this year and claimed he was forced out.

There was no immediate comment from GMR that ran the airport -- which handles 2.6 million passengers a year -- since November 2010 together with Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad. GMR held a 77 per cent stake in the operation.

Former leader Nasheed who initiated the deal with GMR described the termination as a major blow to foreign investment and tourism, the country's main source of foreign exchange.

"This decision is bad for tourism, bad for the economy and bad for the Maldivian people," Nasheed said in a statement. "This will put off potential investors for decades."

He accused his successor of leading the nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims "down the path to economic ruin".

The Indian foreign ministry has said that they will closely monitor the developments and asked the Maldivian government to ensure the safety of Indian nationals in the country.

- AFP/ck

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