To combat dengue, north corp breeds larvae-eating fishes

As monsoon approaches, the health department of the North Delhi municipal corporation MCD (Narela Zone) has decided to breed larvae eating fish in water bodies to deal with mosquitoes.

The department had begun the process of breeding gambushia fish, often called ‘mosquito fish’, two months back at their hatcheries and today the numbers have grown into thousands.

The fish, sized 8 mm at birth and about 50 mm as an adult, feeds on only mosquito larvae and survives for four years. In a month, a fish lays between 50 and 200 eggs, which become an adult in 90 days.

Considering there are so many water bodies in rural areas, the civic agency faces a lot of problem in spraying the insecticides at all these places. On the contrary, this biological method is a longterm solution to deal with the breeding of dengue mosquitoes, which grow in fresh water, said officials.

“Out of total water bodies, about 50 have fresh water and during monsoon these become breeding grounds of dengue mosquitoes. Insecticides and medicines harm other natural habitat as well. That’s why we have decided to use eco friendly techniques,” said Dr. Pramod Varma, deputy health officer, Narela Zone.

Varma said the process of releasing the fish to the water bodies will start by June end—a few days before the onset of monsoon. “During monsoon their numbers increase gradually and each would finish off larvae over 40 times its body weight in a day,” said the official.

Gambusia fish can be bred even at home, the official said. “A single, fully grown gambushia fish eats about 100 to 300 mosquito larvae per day,” he said.

The cost of introducing such fish is relatively low compared to the cost of fogging machines and spraying larvicide oil in water bodies.

“We spend between ₹1 lakh-₹1.5 lakh on spraying insecticides in water bodies, which remains affective for 15 days. On the other hand, the fish feeds on mosquito larvae and requires no other food,” a public health department said.

The north corporation plans to transport these fish to other health centres. Health officials will identify areas prone to mosquito breeding and start releasing them into ponds, fountains and stagnant water in these areas.

“Fish would be transported to local and periphery areas, where there is breeding of mosquitoes. We have spoken to the horticulture department for developing small water bodies in neighbourhood parks where we can breed these fish,” senior district malaria officer said.

Days before the deadline, he delivered the 4,000-word speech, recited against a tinkling piano.

In the speech, Dylan references the music of Buddy Holly and three books that influenced him – Moby Dick, Homer’s Odyssey and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

After writer Ben Greenman observed in a blog post that Dylan had apparently made up a quote from Moby Dick, the Slate’s Andrea Pitzer discovered it had been cobbled together from several phrases in the entry on the novel on SparkNotes. Slate then found that almost 20 of the 78 sentences Dylan devoted to Mody Dick closely resembled lines from SparkNotes.

Some examples:

Dylan – “Ahab’s got a wife and child back in Nantucket that he reminisces about now and then.”

SparkNotes – “…musing on his wife and child back in Nantucket.”

Dylan – “Captain Boomer - he lost an arm to Moby. But...he’s happy to have survived. He can’t accept Ahab’s lust for vengeance.”

SparkNotes – “Captain Boomer has lost an arm in an encounter with Moby Dick... Boomer, happy simply to have survived his encounter, cannot understand Ahab’s lust for vengeance.”

The reclusive musician, who did not acknowledge the honour for weeks, and representatives of the Nobel Prize Committee have not yet commented on the matter.

This is not the first time Dylan, 76, has been accused of plagiarism. In the past, critics have said he passed off traditional folk songs and covers of blues songs by performers such as Lead Belly as his own compositions.

Dylan has also been accused of copying some lines for the song Modern Times from 19th century poet Henry Timrod and some of the lyrics on his 2001 album Love and Theft from Junichi Saga’s book Confessions Of A Yakuza.

In a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan defended his actions, saying: “It’s an old thing — it’s part of the tradition. It goes way back.”

He added, “In folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It’s true for everybody, but me. I mean, everyone else can do it but not me. There are different rules for me.”

A student of the Government High School in Pondi, some distance away from his village, Kumar has turned bitter. “I think that the government has no respect for toppers,” he told HT, in between selling ladies finger and brinjal by the roadside.

His mother is equally heartbroken. “My son secured 90% in class 10 and is now topper of class 12, but no one is helping us. We have only two acres of land and we cannot afford fees for his coaching where he wants to study,” she said.

Kumar’s father is a marginal farmer with meager income that had forced his elder brother Mohnish to discontinue studies after tenth standard some years ago.

“I am confused and have lost hope in the administration,” said Kumar. Having failed to get into a coaching centre in Kota, he tried for admission into the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Here again he failed for want of money.

Yamini Sahu, his Physics teacher at the school, said Kumar was the ‘most talented student’ she had ever taught. “We all knew he will be in the merit list. He surpassed our expectation by coming first,” she added.

Kumar secured 493 marks out of a total of 500 in the board examination. He got 99 each in both chemistry and mathematics. The lowest he got was 93 in English.

BR Dhruw, the district education officer, described Kumar’s plight as “unfortunate”. “We have no funds to help him and we have written to the director of social welfare department to help him,” he said.

Ironically, the Chhattisgarh government gives a cash award of 1.1 lakh rupees to each student on the merit list, but the money is disbursed only in September. By then, it would be too late for Kumar.

There is a cloud over the clean-energy push, a growing area of cooperation, after Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate pact aimed at fighting global warming by reducing carbon emissions.

Still, it will be the ModiTrump meeting itself which would be most critical. The two leaders, who are not conventional by any yardstick of politics, will get to know each other and set an agenda for their future, according to the source.

Continuity is at the heart of the US-India ties. But what may worry New Delhi is the way Trump has gone about his foreign policy. His willingness to reset the terms of engagement with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies and Paris pact pullout point to big shifts, and not happy ones, in the US stance.

The US’s ties with Russia and China have not given out much to draw any conclusion as to where Trump places India in the region.

“Since the Trump administration came to power, ties have not flagged but have progressed with same pace as under the (previous) Obama administration,” external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj told media earlier this month.

Officials say both sides value the ties. One of them said cooperation would continue in the area of counter-terrorism. “During his visit to Saudi Arabia, the President did mention India as a victim of terrorism,” a source said.

That he didn’t mention Pakistan — a frontline state for the US -- as the victim of terror should bring some cheer to India.

Trump not meeting Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during Saudi Arabia holds a symbolic significance for Delhi.

Past US administrations have spoken out against terror emanating from Pakistani soil but little has been done on the ground to change that. Trump is expected to take a harder line.

Given the DMK is in the opposition camp, the AIADMK is likely to go with the ruling alliance.

A panel of ten Opposition leaders, assigned to pick a candidate, held its first meeting on Wednesday but decided to wait after the government’s overtures.

If the government seeks any suggestion from opposition leaders, the Left and the Congress are likely to propose the name of 71-year-old Gandhi, a retired IAS officer and former governor of Bengal.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad is understood to have endorsed the stand. “No ideological compromise,” a source quoted him as saying.

Sources ruled out the possibility of NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s nomination, saying that when Congress president Sonia Gandhi proposed it to him last April, he had ruled himself out.

Another probable candidate, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, is seen as a “weak candidate”, the sources added.

The meeting saw leaders argue over the proposed candidate even as Yechury exhorted all parties to “prepare for a fight” whoever their candidate is.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, the coordinator of the group, suggested that they wait for the government nominee.

BJP sources said a BrahminDalit combination was being explored for the post of the President and the Vice President.

Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and veteran Murli Manohar Joshi are considered as contenders for the President’s post while Union minister Thawarchand Gehlot is seen a probable for the post of vice president that falls vacant in August.

The Prime Minister is leaving for the United States on June 25 and the announcement of the NDA’s candidate could happen around June 20.

The treasury bench is expecting MLAs of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and those from the Congress in states such as Gujarat and Karnataka to spring a last-minute surprise on their party.

On Wednesday, Venkaiah Naidu spoke to Bahujan Samaj Party’s Satish Chandra Mishra and Nationalist Congress Party’s Praful Patel. Rajnath and Naidu also briefed Modi about the deliberations.

Naidu and Rajnath are part of a three-member panel, also comprising finance minister Arun Jaitley, that the BJP has formed to hold dialogue with the opposition and within the NDA over the polls.

Separately, BJP chief Amit Shah formed another committee to work with states to ensure victory of its candidates.

Though its implementation is going to be a challenge with at least eight agencies involved -including the municipal bodies, the Delhi Development Authority and the traffic police -- the policy seems to have political will.

It is a rare policy on which the Delhi and the Union governments are in sync. Both Union ministers of urban development and roadways have expressed concern over Delhi’s parking menace. Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu recently said the Centre is planning to make parking proof mandatory for new vehicle registration. This has been included in Delhi’s parking policy too in which vehicle owners will have to give proof of parking space to get new commercial registrations. Similarly, minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari had said that his ministry is working on increasing the penalty for illegal parking.

With nearly 80% of Delhi’s parking lots operated by the municipal corporations, the biggest roles would be their’s as they will have to fix the new rates. The government will earn an estimated additional Rs 600 crore from parking fees if the policy is implemented. The policy also asks them and the DDA to come up with a rule to allow vacant plots in colonies to be developed as parking lots on payment basis.

With the BJP in power in the MCDs and at the Centre, officials expect a quick roll out of the policy once approved.

The college releases different cut-offs for different streams.

For English (hons), students from humanities subjects need 97.25 %, a dip of 0.25% from last year’s 97.5%. It is available at 98% for science students, the same as last year.

For Economics (hons), students from humanities and science streams need 97.5%.

The highest dip of 10 percentage points was in Sanskrit (hons) with the subject available at 70% for students from all streams. Last year, it was available at 80% for commerce stream students, at 70% for humanities and at 75% for science background students.

“We don’t have a problem of over-admission even if the cut-off is a little lower than last year’s. There is an aptitude test and an interview for elimination but right now, this will allow more students to be eligible for the interview and increase the talent pool we will be selecting from,” an official from the college said.

There is a dip in all science courses except Chemistry (hons), which has the same cut-off as last year — 96.33 %.

The college received 24,168 applications for the 410 seats it offers in eleven courses.

The list of candidates selected for aptitude test and interview will be announced on Thursday. The interview will begin on June 17.

The college, which reserves 50% seats for Christians, conducts an aptitude test and an interview for applicants who meet the cut-off.

Applicants are given 85% weightage for Class 12 marks, 5% for aptitude test and 10% for the interview.

However, candidates falling under persons-with-disability (PwD) category will not have to give the aptitude test and for them, the interview will be of 15% weightage.

In 2016 too, the college saw a dip in cut-offs with the fall ranging 0.25-0.50 percentage points. The college had received fewer applications as compared to 2015.

THERE IS A DIP IN ALL SCIENCE COURSES EXCEPT CHEMISTRY (HONS), WHICH HAS THE SAME CUTOFF AS LAST YEAR — 96.33 %