Complaints as FIR? A potent weapon for Character Assassination?

New Delhi, Dec. 28:

In the wake of the shocking revelation that the Haryana Police did not register an FIR in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case for eight long years, the Union home ministry has decided to direct states to ensure that all complaints received by police stations are treated as FIRs.

In a related development, the government is contemplating a move wherein winners of police and gallantry medals can be stripped off their award if they are convicted by the courts in any case.

The home ministry has initiated a move to strip former Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore of the police medal awarded to him despite the molestation charges against him. He has been asked why he should not be stripped of his medal.

The former Haryana IPS officer, Mr R.K. Sharma, serving a life sentence in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case still has a President’s police medal, a home official said.

It was in 1990 that Ruchika, then only 14, was molested by Rathore. The traumatised teenager committed suicide in 1993 following unabated harassment of her and her family by Rathore. Yet, the FIR in connection with the incident was registered only in 1999, six years after her death.

Ruchika’s family members have alleged that when they went to lodge a complaint against Rathore, then a senior police officer in Haryana, police initially refused to register an FIR. Besides, police refused to register a case when Ruchika’s brother was allegedly harassed by police on false charges. According to sources, the home ministry has now decided to issue a circular to state governments and UTs asking them to ensure that all complaints received at police stations are treated as FIRs. While there have been many complaints over the years by members of the public regarding the reluctance on the part of the police to register FIRs, the Ruchika case has finally spurred the home ministry into being pro-active on this front.

“The circular, to be issued next week, will direct state governments and Union Territories to ensure free and total registration of all complaints as FIRs”, said ministry sources.

The Centre is considering bringing about amendments in the Criminal Procedure Code and making it mandatory for the station house officer (SHO) who heads a police station to give reasons for registration as well as non-registration of a case after receiving a complaint. According to sources, the objective will be to ensure that even if a complaint is false, police won’t be able to escape responsibility where a probe is concerned once an FIR is registered.

The Centre is likely to take a decision on withdrawing medals if an officer is later found guilty in cases registered against them. The new policy is likely to be one that will lead to the automatic revocation of police and gallantry medals awarded to officers if they are convicted by a court. The rules are likely to be formalised when a high-powered awards committee headed by the home secretary, Mr G.K. Pillai meets here on January 4. Said a home ministry official, “Any IPS officer convicted by a court should be stripped of his medal. The awards committee will look into all relevant issues and take a decision,” the official added.

Supreme Court Interprets the Offence of Rape

Taking a view that could significantly alter the manner in which rape cases are tried, the Supreme Court has held that conviction would be warranted even if the victim’s testimony, though not fully corroborated, is found credible.

A Bench of Justices J M Panchal and Deepak Verma said in a judgment that violation of a woman would be considered rape even if there is slightest penetration that does not cause rupture of the hymen. The Bench’s observations in the judgment could have far-reaching medico-legal implications in cases relating to rape.
The apex court said that minor discrepancies like the prosecution’s non-examination of a doctor cannot be a ground for giving the benefit of the doubt to a person who is accused of rape.
Referring to a particular doctor who initially conducted the medical examination of the prosecutrix, the court said: “That alone is not sufficient to discard the prosecution story. Corroboration is not the sine qua non (mandatory) for conviction in a rape case”.
The apex court, while dismissing the appeal of the convict, Wahid Khan, also held that in rape cases even the slightest penetration that does not rupture the victim’s hymen or other parts of her genitalia amounted to rape.
“Sexual intercourse...in law is held to mean the slightest degree of penetration of the vulva by the penis with or without emission of semen.
“It is, therefore, quite possible to commit legally the offence of rape without producing any injury to the genitals or leaving any seminal stains,”  the Bench said, quoting medical jurisprudence.

Sufficient evidence
In the case the Bench heard, the defence took the plea that the victim’s hymen was not ruptured and that the doctor, who examined the victim, was not questioned by the prosecution during trial.

Finer Sense of Touch

Women seem to be gifted with a finer sense of touch, thanks to their slender, smaller fingers.

"Neuroscientists have long known that some people have a better sense of touch than others, but the reasons for this difference have been mysterious," said neuroscientist and study author Daniel Goldreich of McMaster University.

"Our discovery reveals that one important factor in the sense of touch is finger size," added Goldreich.

To learn why men and women have different finger sensitivity, the authors first measured index fingertip size of 100 university students.

Each student's tactile acuity was then tested by pressing progressively narrower parallel grooves against a stationary fingertip - the tactile equivalent of the optometrist's eye chart.

The authors found that people with smaller fingers could discern tighter grooves.

"The difference between the sexes appears to be entirely due to the relative size of the person's fingertips," said Ethan Lerner of Massachusetts General Hospital, who is not with the study group.

"So, a man with fingertips that are smaller than a woman's will be more sensitive to touch than the woman."

The authors also explored why more slender fingers are more acute. Tinier digits likely have more closely spaced sensory receptors, they concluded.

Several types of sensory receptors line the skin's interior and each detect a specific kind of outside stimulation.

Some receptors, named Merkel cells, respond to static indentations (like pressing parallel grooves), while others capture vibrations or movement.

Much like pixels in a photograph, each skin receptor sends an aspect of the tactile image to the brain -- more receptors per inch supply a clearer image.

To find out whether receptors are more densely packed in smaller fingers, the authors measured the distance between sweat pores in some of the students, because Merkel cells cluster around the bases of sweat pores.

People with smaller fingers had greater sweat pore density, which means their receptors are probably more closely spaced, said a McMaster's release.

These findings were published in the December issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Hunger harmone Responsible for over eating

Hunger hormone ghrelin might drive people to eat even when they are full, says a new study.

"What we show is that there may be situations where we are driven to seek out and eat very rewarding foods, even if we're full, for no other reason than our brain tells us to," said study co-author Jeffrey Zigman.

Scientists previously have linked increased levels of ghrelin to intensifying the rewarding or pleasurable feelings one gets from cocaine or alcohol.

Zigman, assistant professor of psychiatry at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Centre, said his team speculated that ghrelin might also increase specific rewarding aspects of eating. Rewards, he said, generally can be defined as things that make us feel better.

"They give us sensory pleasure, and they motivate us to work to obtain them," he said. "They also help us reorganise our memory so that we remember how to get them."

Mario Perello, postdoctoral researcher in internal medicine, study co-author, said the idea was to determine "why someone who is stuffed from lunch still eats - and wants to eat - that high-calorie dessert."

For this study, researchers evaluated whether mice that were fully sated preferred a room where they had previously found high-fat food over one that had only offered regular bland chow.

They found that when mice in this situation were administered ghrelin, they strongly preferred the room that had been paired with the high-fat diet. Mice without ghrelin showed no preference.

"We think the ghrelin prompted the mice to pursue the high-fat chow because they remembered how much they enjoyed it," Perello said. "It didn't matter that the room was now empty; they still associated it with something pleasurable."

For the second test, the team observed how long mice would continue to poke their noses into a hole in order to receive a pellet of high-fat food.

"The animals that didn't receive ghrelin gave up much sooner than the ones that did receive ghrelin," Zigman said, according to an UT release.

The next step, Perello said, is to determine which neural circuits in the brain regulate ghrelin's actions.

These findings appeared online in Biological Psychiatry.

Anti Wrinkle Sugar Coated Tablet from Nestle

A sugar-coated tablet has been created which can bring a dramatic slowdown in ageing of the skin, say researchers.

Bringing together nutritional and dermatological science, the pill has been developed by the confectionery giant Nestlé and L’Oréal.

They have used a compound found in tomatoes to promote the regeneration of new skin cells and protect old ones from damage, reports The Times.

The sweet red pill, called Innéov Fermeté, belongs to a rapidly developing class of products called cosmeceuticals, beauty treatments that are swallowed and work from within.

Patricia Manissier, head of research and development at Innéov, the L’Oréal/Nestlé joint venture producing the new drug, said: “We have done a lot of research which shows this product works and now we’re looking for ways of improving it. We know that good nutrition can prevent the skin from ageing and that there are clear links between certain nutrients and skin health.”

Teeth grown with Stem Cell Technology at Delhi, AIIMS

Don't worry about your child's loss of teeth or if they have immature ones as doctors at AIIMS can regrow them using stem cell technique by just making a minute slit in their root.

"We at AIIMS are treating children with infected, immature teeth as a result of traumatic injuries, by using locally available indigenous stem cells," Dr Naseem Shah, Chief of the Centre for Dental Education and Research, AIIMS said.

She explained that the root forms the most important part of the tooth. It anchors the tooth within the bone and houses the pulp (tiny blood vessels and nerves) which extends to the underlying bone and helps to nourish and give feeling to the tooth.

Any trauma to the teeth may lead to infection and death of the pulp, infection in the bone and arrest of the root development. Such roots are very fragile and may fracture, ultimately leading to loss of tooth.

Conventional treatment for such teeth involves removal of dead pulp from root canal, followed by sealing of the canal with an inert material that occupies the space vacated by the removal of the pulp (known as root canal therapy).

However, in the new treatment, after the infection in root canals is controlled, bleeding is induced in the root canal by intentionally puncturing the tissues at the root end and a clot is allowed to be formed in the root canal.

Brahmi herb effective for Alzheimer's

Researchers are coming by evidence that herbs like brahmi, associated with the ayurveda system of medicine, can help ward off Alzheimer's disease and preserve one's mental faculties.

Although what exactly causes Alzheimer's is not known, sufferers experience inflammation of the brain, deposits of beta amyloid, traces of heavy metals and signs of oxidative stress.

Brahmi, a semi-aquatic plant, acts on all of these, said Con Stough, director of the National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM) involved in trials underway at Swinburne University of Technology Brain Sciences Institute (BSI).

"It has an anti-inflammatory effect, is an antioxidant and collates and removes heavy metals and beta amyloid," he said.

Two trials with a brahmi extract called CDRI08, conducted over 90 days, have shown improvements in working memory, particularly spatial memory accuracy.

Pine bark, lemon balm, American ginseng, rosemary and brahmi, are some of the herbs showing promise in fending off Alzheimer's dementia, causing memory loss, depression and anxiety.

A 50-day trial of a particular pine bark extract supplement for men aged 50 to 65 years has also shown improved speed in spatial working memory and immediate recognition tasks, along with lowering blood pressure.

Another trial is investigating the short-term calmative effects of a special lemon balm product, because anxiety and agitation are major symptoms that Alzheimer sufferers experience.

Andrew Scholey, who heads BSI's Herbal and Nutritional Medicine Research Unit, said that historically the field of alternative medicine has struggled to gain scientific credibility.

"However, Swinburne's trials are performed to standards that provide acceptance within the mainstream scientific community," added Scholey.

Consumer research indicates that more and more people are using some form of alternative health products as part of a proactive, preventative health strategy.

Sleep Shortage can kill you

What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India

A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India. However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner (in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.

Was it the stress?

A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.

The Real Reason

However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out':

http://connect.in.com/ranjan-das/play-video-boss-day-out-ranjan-das-of-sap-india-229111-807ecfcf1ad966036c289b3ba6c376f2530d7484.html

Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep (and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled).

The Evidence

Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of ‘Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep’. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.

Some Excerpts:

· Short sleep duration (<5 or 5-6 hours) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009.

As you know, high BP kills.

· Young people (25-49 years of age) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.

· Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.

· Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!

· Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis andheart disease. Paper published in 2004.

· Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.

Ideal Sleep

For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.

The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.

For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess (lack of non-REM sleep), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down (I’ve been there, done that L)

Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.

If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test below.

Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don’t like to drive (maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that lineJ)

In conclusion:

Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising (marathoning!), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.

If you are not getting enough sleep (7 hours), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.

I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep. J

Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail to as many of your colleagues as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. If we can save even one young life because of this email, I would be the happiest person on earth.