A stage to showcase their latent talents
The inmates of Ramavarmapuram Children’s home present play — Photo: K.K. Najeeb
MESMERISING SHOW: Inmates of Government Children’s Home staging ‘Kuzhaluthukar’ at K.T. Mohammed Memorial Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Hall in Thrissur on Wednesday.
Thrissur, India: Like the pied piper of Hamelin, they came and mesmerised the audience with their performance. The inmates of the Government Children’s Home, Ramavarmapuram, staged ‘Kuzhaluthukar’, a theatre performance, at the K.T. Mohammed Memorial Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Hall, here, on Wednesday.
About 25 children of the home participated in the performance, the theatre adaptation of the famous folktale ‘The Pied Piper’. It was staged to mark the valedictory of a month-long summer theatre camp ‘Venalkkootam’.
The programme, conducted with financial assistance from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), aimed at encouraging latent creative skills in the inmates of the children’s home. Coming from hard situations in life, the children have been denied the care and support of a family.
K.V. Ganesh, theatre artist and trainer, who directed the play said that the major challenge faced by him was to win the confidence of the children and to make them ready to be trained. “They didn’t know the spirit of togetherness and theatre is essentially a teamwork.”
Another hurdle was language. For many, who belonged to different States and spoke different languages, delivering dialogues in Malayalam was a tough task, he said.
“The choreography was designed by incorporating common play methods and minimum movement pattern to suit children. Clarity of language and pronunciation, however, were limitations,” he said. R. Roshini, the probation officer of the home, noted that such camps helped in bringing about a discipline and sharing mentality among children. “It boosts their morale,” she said.
A week-long film festival, folksong training and painting camps will also be part of Venalkootam.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/22/stories/2010042258520300.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
Safe food practices keep diseases away: expert
‘Food kept open on roadsides causes disease’
‘Food turns unsafe due to improper storage
after cooking and unsafe handling’
‘Vegetables, meat and dairy products should
be stored separately’
Thrissur, India: Lack of awareness about food safety practices causes severe health hazards, N. Anandavally, UN-Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Safety Consultant, has said.
She was addressing a workshop organised by the Food Safety Commissionerate here on Tuesday to create awareness of food safety, anti-adulteration drive and the Food Safety and Standards Act among traders and industrialists.
“About 75 per cent of the diseases are caused by food contamination. Diarrhoea claims about 4 lakh lives in India every year. Still we don’t care two hoots to the food safety measures,” she said.
Ms. Anandavally recalled that Indian ‘parotta’ had been exported to the U.S and the European Union from China as the ‘parottas’ made in India failed to satisfy the food safety standards.
Mushrooming roadside eateries and their increasing clientele were a cause for concern, she said. “The emissions of vehicles can cause cancer. The food items that are kept in the open at roadsides can cause diseases. Absence of a proper mechanism to check hygiene practices increases the risk.”
Food poisoning could be avoided by following good food preparation procedures, she said. “Food turns unsafe due to improper storage after cooking and unsafe handling. Overuse of colour and chemicals also causes various diseases.”
Vegetables, meat and dairy products should be stored separately and maintained at the appropriate temperature, she said.
Proper cleaning and cooking of food items were also very important. “Chicken, if not properly cooked, may contain bacteria that cause typhoid. Unclean raw carrots may have parasites that can even cause death.”
Management of food safety practices should start from the bottom, she said. “We need a farm-to-fork approach. Systematic awareness programmes should be held for preventing contamination of food at every stage of production, not just processing and packaging,” she said.
K. Anil Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Food Safety, spoke about Prevention of Adulteration and Food Safety Acts.
Mayor R. Bindu, who inaugurated the workshop, called upon the traders to return to the traditional cuisines of the State instead of aping the Western tastes. District Food Inspector Joseph Shaji George, Joint Commissioner of Food Safety B. Sudharma and others spoke.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/24/stories/2010032460050300.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
Indian student wins U.S. award
Joe Louis
Thrissur, India: An Indian has been selected for the John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award, instituted by the Entomological Society of America (ESA). Joe Louis, an alumnus of Kerala Agricultural University, will be felicitated at the annual meeting of the ESA to be held at San Diego in California from December 12 to 15. The award, which was announced on March 1, consists of an all-expenses-paid trip to the meeting, a cash prize and a certificate.
Mr. Louis is currently researching the role of Arabidopsis Thaliana Phytoalexin Deficient 4 (PAD4) and Myzus Persice-induced Lipase 1 (MPL1), genes in plant defence, against green peach aphid. Scientific papers based on the research have been published in The Plant Journal and in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions.
“The research has investigated how plants defend themselves against aphids, which are tiny insects that cause considerable damage to their host plants. Aphids can continually feed from a plant and severely damage plant productivity. Green peach aphid is a small insect with a wide range of hosts and causes considerable damage to its host plants. In addition, it also vectors viral diseases of plants. Hence, it is very important to understand the mechanism by which these tiny insects feed on plants,” he told The Hindu.
For his research, he used a small weedy plant, Arabidopsis Thaliana. Genetic, biochemical, molecular and electrophysiological approaches were taken to study plant response to aphids.
Reducing insecticides
The research has helped identify a lipid or lipid-derived product that is involved in providing plant defence against aphids.
“The outcome will help us understand the plant genes/mechanisms that control aphid infestation and also facilitate development of plants that have enhanced resistance to aphids. This in turn will reduce our dependence on toxic insecticides and keep our environment clean,” Mr. Louis said.
He did his schooling in Alappuzha and graduated from KAU’s College of Horticulture in Thrissur. In 2004, he won a fellowship for research in the U.S. He received his MS in Entomology in December 2006 from the Kansas State University. He is currently doing his Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology at the University of North Texas under the guidance of Jyoti Shah and is expected to graduate in March 2011.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/14/stories/2010031453910500.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
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