India Celebrates 63rd Republic Day
 
By: F. Tarapour
 
TEHRAN – The Indian Embassy in Tehran celebrated its country’s 63rd Republic Day in an atmosphere of joy and patriotic fervor on Thursday at the embassy premises.
Indians worldwide, too, celebrated in the spirit of patriotism to mark 63 years since the establishment of the Indian Constitution (in 1950), three years after it won independence from the British colonial rule.  
Celebrations in the Indian capital, New Delhi, were marked by military parades showcasing India's military power and cultural events.
Thailand's first woman Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the guest of honor, watched along with the Indian President Ms. Pratibha Devisingh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other dignitaries, the spectacle which began with the uniformed men and women of armed and paramilitary forces marching down the famous Rajpath (King's Avenue) boulevard.
The ceremony at the Indian Embassy in Tehran was attended by more than three hundred people including the embassy staff, members of Indian community and Indian expatriates in Iran, teachers and students of the Kendriya Vidyalaya (Embassy of India school in Tehran), journalists and friends of India and Iran.
The ceremony began with the traditional hoisting of the tricolor followed by the national anthem as well as some patriotic songs recited by Indian school children.
The Indian Ambassador to Tehran, D.P. Srivastava, then read out the address to the nation by the President of India, wherein she stressed that India, the world’s largest democracy, “could set an example, before the democratic world, of progress and growth.”
She said that the nation should demonstrate a sense of responsibility and a show of unity in a world that is complex and challenging.
All nations, developed and developing, are facing the impact of global economic instability, as well as problems of unemployment and inflation in varying degrees, the President said, and added that it is upon the Indian community to head the country to its destiny.
The vision and goals of “our great nation” are clear, she said, and added that the economy should grow to such high levels so that “we can become a developed nation.”
The President elsewhere said that the charter of the nation’s democracy is the Constitution, which has been and should be the compass “guiding us in nation-building.” The youth should understand this as they are the architects of the future, she said.
Lastly, she called on the citizens for strengthening the roots of democracy and foundations of India. This can only be visualized if all demonstrate a sense of responsibility and unity.
On the same evening, the Indian Ambassador hosted a reception for the Diplomatic core in Iran and the Iranian guests at the Esteqlal Hotel.
Among prominent guests were Head of Iran's Majlis Cultural Commission Dr. Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Vice President and Head of the Presidential Office Hamid Bagaei, Director General of National Petrochemical Company Abdul-Hussein Bayat and some high-ranking Iranian Foreign Ministry officials.
In yet another festive atmosphere at the Indian school on Friday, hundreds of pupils and their parents converged at the school premises to celebrate their country’s 63rd Republic Day.  
 

Iran Holds Intl. Storytelling Festival

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- Iran holds the 15th International Storytelling Festival hosting storytellers from around the world presenting the oral traditions of their countries.
The event's selection board has selected 15% of the 1,850 entries to compete in five different categories.
Organized by Iran's Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA), the festival hosts artists from different countries including South Africa, Thailand, Denmark, Canada and Romania.
Renowned storytellers Hans Laurens of Denmark and Eric James Wolf of the US are among the participants.
The 15th International Storytelling Festival kicked off on January 26 in the city of Orumiyeh in the northwestern province of Azarbaijan and will run until January 29, 2012.


New Lung Cancer Test Predicts Survival

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -- Clinical trials in the United States and China have shown that a new gene-based test for patients with lung cancer beats standard methods in predicting survival, researchers reported Friday.
The findings, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, should help doctors to make more accurate prognoses and better choices for treatment, the scientists said.
Lung cancer is the most lethal type of the disease worldwide, claiming some 1.4 million lives -- more than breast, colon and prostate cancers combined -- each year.
The experimental test measures the activity of fourteen genes within cancerous tissue, and is especially effective is assessing a form called non-squamous non-small cell cancer, commonly brought on by tobacco use.
"This has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of people every year to survive longer," said David Jablons, the main architect of the study and a professor at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF).
Currently, doctors classify early-stage lung cancers by their size, location and microscopic profile.
Known as staging, this type of assessment guides decisions on the use of supplementary treatment -- including chemotherapy -- after cancerous tissue is removed.
A more precise prognosis would mean "more people who might benefit from additional therapy could receive it after surgery, before any residual cancer has had a chance to grow," Jablons explained in a statement.
Previous research has shown that chemotherapy given in early-stage lung cancer helps thwart recurrence when there is evidence of lymph node involvement.
The problem, however, is that this especially insidious form of the disease is hard to spot early on.
Only some 30 percent of patients in the United States, for example, are detected in the earliest stage, and even then survival is far from guaranteed -- 35 to 45 percent of patients identified with Stage One lung cancer die within five years.
"The prognostic test would address the inability to identify these patients," Jablons said.
In the US trial, the new testing method -- designed at UCSF and developed by the California-based company Pinpoint Genomics -- used an algorithm to calculate the risk of death after examining the tissue of 361 patients at the UCSF Medical Center as low, medium or high.
All of these patients had had surgery to treat non-squamous, non-cell lung cancer.
The algorithm was then applied to 433 other patients with the earliest stage of the same type of cancer, and their survival rate was monitored over five years.
The method accurately identified patients with high, intermediate and low risks of death, the researchers said.
A similar study in China, conducted by the China Clinical Trials Consortium, confirmed the results.
A disclosure notice in The Lancet notes that Jablons and several of the co-authors have paid consultant relationships with Pinpoint Genomics.


Tablet Use Can Cause Neck Pain

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- People using tablet computers should place the device on the table and tilt its screen rather than holding it on their lap for a long time.
Harvard School of Public Health and Microsoft experts say tablet computer users are at a higher risk of texting neck pain than laptop users.
During the trail, Jack Dennerlein and colleagues filmed 15 volunteers as they worked on the tablet in four common configurations and studied their movements by using a motion-analysis system,
In the first position called lap-hand the tablet was not placed in its proprietary case but held on the lap in one hand while the other hand was used to touch the screen.
In the second position or lap-case, users kept their tablet in its case but hold it on their lap working with both hands on the screen.
In the third configuration or table-case, the tablet was set up in its case on a table while its screen set at a lower angle and volunteers worked with both hands.
In the last position known as table-movie, the tablet was placed on the table in its case and tilted at a higher angle. The user did not work on the screen and instead watched movies or other programming on it.
Tablet users generally had more acute angles of head and neck flexion than desktop or notebook computers, says the report published in the accident-prevention journal .
Findings also showed that when the two tablets were in the “table-movie”' configuration in which the screen's angle was at its steepest, the user's posture approach was a neutral position.
Results suggest that tablet users could place the tablet higher, on a table rather than the lap, to avoid low gaze angles. They can also use a case that provides steeper view angles, the authors concluded.