HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015 TO ALL FROM KARNAM LOKESH CATCH ME @https://www.facebook.com/lokeshthecute 

No safety concerns yet in trials of GSK's Ebola vaccine

                                    GlaxoSmithKline's experimental Ebola vaccine in trials in the United States, Britain, Mali and Switzerland, and the safety data so far are "very satisfactory", scientists said on Monday.

                              The trials, which began just over two months ago, have been using healthy volunteers, rather than patients with Ebola, to test whether the vaccine is safe for humans.

                            The experimental shot uses a single Ebola virus gene from a chimpanzee virus to generate an immune response. Because it doesn't contain any infectious virus material, it can't infect those being vaccinated.

                          Adrian Hill, a professor at Oxford University who is leading the British arm of the trial, said 20 people at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, 80 people at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development in Mali, 34 people out of an eventual 120 at the University Hospital of Lausanne, and 59 out of an eventual 60 at the University of Oxford had so far been given the shot.

                            "The safety data here have looked very satisfactory so far," Hill said in a statement. "The response we have seen from people coming forward to take part has been remarkable."

                           The West Africa Ebola epidemic has now infected more than 13,000 people -- mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia -- and killed more than 5,000 of them, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

                         Several drug companies are now accelerating Ebola vaccine trials and the WHO has said it hopes one or more of the vaccines may be ready for some limited use in West Africa in early 2015.

                              GSK's vaccine and another leading candidate made by NewLink Genetics are already in human trials. Five more should begin testing in the first quarter of next year, according to the WHO. One from Johnson & Johnson will start trials in January.

                                Hill said the teams running the GSK vaccine trial should know by late December 2014 how the immune responses of Malian health care workers who have had the shot compare to those observed in adults given the vaccine in Britain and Switzerland.

97-Year-Old Grandmother Drives and have still more to have dreams

Many people have dreams they never realize. One woman, a 97-year-old great-grandmother from New Jersey, has a bucket list of goals she still wants to complete. This past week, she notched one of those goals off her list when she drove a semi-truck, a dream she’s had for most of her life.

Vera Abruzzi has wanted to drive one of the big rigs for about 80 years. Last Wednesday, with the help of her grandson, Gary Kadi, she saw that dream come true.

                      Kadi arranged for his beloved grandmother to take semi-truck driving lessons with Winsor’s Tractor Trailer Driving School. The instructor spent the day with her as Abruzzi learned to drive the 70-foot long rig. At the end of the day, she got to drive it around in a Linden, New Jersey parking lot.

                         Prior to her big day behind the wheel, the grandmother of 4 said she was looking forward to the experience probably as much as she’d looked forward to anything in all her 97 years. She explained that the 18-wheelers have always intrigued her and she’s longed to experience driving one firsthand.

                        Her instructor said she did just fine and handled the truck’s gear system well up to 20 mph. The great-grandmother of 7 told a WABV-TV reporter after the momentous drive that given the opportunity to take the rig on the highway, she would have gone 90 mph. She said she isn’t afraid of trying anything.

So what’s next for Abruzzi? She said she’d love to fly an airplane. Kadi said whatever she wants to do, the family is on it.

this is for information oly no action can be taken

IRON LADY OF INDIA

Irom Sharmila Chanu (born 14 March 1972), also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Mengoubi" ("the fair one") is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. On 2 November 2000, she began a hunger strike which is still ongoing. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called "the world's longest hunger striker". She is currently on trial forattempted suicide.On International Women’s Day, 2014 she was voted the top woman icon of India by MSN Poll.

On 2 November 2000, in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley of Manipur, ten civilians were shot and killed while waiting at a bus stop. The incident, known as the "Malom Massacre", was allegedly committed by the Assam Rifles, one of the Indian Paramilitary forces operating in the state. The victims included Leisangbam Ibetombi, a 62-year old woman, and 18-year old Sinam Chandramani, a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner.

Sharmila, who was 28 at the time, began to fast in protest of the killings, taking neither food nor water.^[7] As her brother Irom Singhajit Singh recalled, "It was a Thursday. Sharmila used to fast on Thursdays since she was a child. That day she was fasting too. She has just continued with her fast"

Three days after she began her strike, she was arrested by the police and charged with an "attempt to commit suicide", which is unlawful under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and was later transferred to judicial custody. Her health deteriorated rapidly, and nasogastric intubation was forced on her in order to keep her alive while under arrest.

Irom Sharmila has been regularly released and re-arrested every year since her hunger strike beganunder IPC section 309. The law declares that a person who "attempts to commit suicide ... shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year [or with fine, or with both]."

Her primary demand to the Indian government is the complete repeal of the AFSPAwhich has been blamed for violence in Manipur and other parts of northeast India.

By 2004, Sharmila had become an "icon of public resistance."Following her procedural release on 2 October 2006 Irom Sharmila Chanu went to Raj Ghat, New Delhi, which she said was "to pay floral tribute to my idol, Mahatma Gandhi." Later that evening, Sharmila headed for Jantar Mantar for a protest demonstration where she was joined by students, human rights activists and other concerned citizens.

On 6 October, she was re-arrested by the Delhi police for attempting suicide and was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where she wrote letters to the Prime Minister, the President, and the Home Minister. At this time, she met and won the support of Nobel-laureate Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Laureate and human rights activist, who promised to take up Sharmila's cause at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In 2011, she invited anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare to visit Manipur,and Hazare sent two representatives to meet with her.

In October 2011, the Manipur Pradesh All India Trinamool Congress announced their support for Sharmila and called on party chief Mamata Banerjee to help repeal the AFSPA. The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI ML) also stated its support for her and for repeal of AFSPA, calling for nationwide agitation. In November, at the end of the eleventh year of her fast, Sharmila again called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to repeal the law. On 3 November, 100 women formed a human chain in Ambari to show support for Sharmila, while other civil society groups staged a 24-hour fast in a show of solidarity.

In December 2011, Pune University announced a scholarship program for 39 female Manipuri students to take degree courses in honour of Irom Sharmila Chanu's 39 years of age.

On 2 October 2013 Amnesty India issued a press release recognising Irom Sharmila as a "'Prisoner of Conscience', who is being held solely for a peaceful expression of her beliefs." 

International attention

Sharmila was awarded the 2007 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, which is given to "an outstanding person or group, active in the promotion and advocacy of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights" She shared the award with Lenin Raghuvanshi of People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, a northeastern Indian human rights organization.

In 2009, she was awarded the first Mayillama Award of the Mayilamma Foundation "for achievement of her nonviolent struggle in Manipur".

In 2010, she won a lifetime achievement award from the Asian Human Rights Commission. Later that year, she won the Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management, which came with a cash award of 5,100,000 rupees, and the Sarva Gunah Sampannah "Award for Peace and Harmony" from the Signature Training Centre.