MATRICA FOUNDATION

Car Cost

Have we ever considered how much our car costs the city? Just think of the roads that need to be expanded, to fill the ever-exploding numbers of vehicles in our city. Delhi has put as much as 23% of its land under roads and wants to build more to keep up with the ever-growing bulge on its roads. But the city is fighting a losing battle, as road space per vehicle has actually decreased, not increased. Bangalore and all other cities are learning that they will have to make roads over the graveyards of their trees.  But this is only one part of the unaccounted cost of our cars – add everything from land for petrol pumps to electricity for traffic lights, cost of traffic policing, the space for parking and the crippling costs of air pollution on our bodies – and you will find the car and the city are a match made in hell.  Take roads. We know that cars on roads are like the proverbial cup that always fills up. When more roads fail to solve the problem, governments invest in flyovers and elevated highways. These roads occupy space – real estate – and are costly to build and maintain.  But this investment is not paying off either as ever-increasing cars fill the ever-increasing space. This is why experts say building roads to fit cars is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. Britain’s orbital motorway, akin to Delhi’s Ring Road, was built 20 years ago. Since then, it has been expanded at huge costs to 12 lanes. But bumper-to-bumper traffic on it has dubbed it the nation’s biggest car park.   Read More

LONDON: Acute poverty prevails in eight Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, together

accounting for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African nations combined, a new ‘multidimensional’ measu

re of global poverty has said.
The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), was developed and applied by the Oxford Pover

ty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support.

It will be featured in the forthcoming 20 ^thanniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report.
An analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more ‘MPI poor’ people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest

African countries combined (410 million). Read More

World Aids day 2009 1st December

1. What is HIV and AIDS?

Over the last fifteen years a new disease spread by a family of viruses, HIV, has spread globally. HIV stands for Human lmmuno-deficiency Virus. HIV has been given this name because its long-term effect is to attack the immune system of the body, making it weak and deficient. We live virtually in a sea of microorganisms and at every moment an enormous number of them are entering our body. It is the immune system that normally fights off these microorganisms and keeps us healthy. Any compromise with the working of the immune system has profound effect on our body.
After about 5 to 10 years of contracting the HIV infection, the virus has weakened the immune system of the patients so much that they develop a number of different illnesses such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, persistent diarrhea, fever and skin infections. This condition is called AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

2. How long does it take for HIV to cause AIDS?

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Some 50 men of Kuchwahi village and I are perched on mahua trees somewhere close to the edge of Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh National Park. The agitated villagers are trying to catch a glimpse of Chakradhara, a tigress that had mauled to death a village girl, Anjana Tiwari, when she had gone to pick flowers earlier in the day. The 18-year-old had just written her board exams. “She was a ‘computer mind’…. would’ve topped the district,” says a villager perched on the same tree as I. All the villagers want now is revenge.

Save Tiger

The area’s forest department officials, on the other hand, are on a conflicting mission. A posse of them, who arrived that afternoon riding Gypsy vans and elephants, are trying to chase away the tigress.
But Chakradhara is still roaming the park. Her fate will depend on her ‘report card’ — if she kills more humans, she will be shot dead or shifted to a zoo by the same government officials who are now trying to ‘save’ her.
There are others trying to save tigers, too. ‘Stripey, the cub’ has 2,32, 410 fans on the social networking site Facebook. But in a democracy, the majority’s will is key to the tiger’s survival.
Retribution killings
Of the total unnatural tiger deaths revenge killings account for about half, says Ullas Karanth, an expert who has been tracking the tigers in Karnataka’s Nagarhole National Park for more than two decades.
That’s what had happened on March 7 in Talda Khet village near the Ranthambhore National Park. Two cubs aged 13 months died after eating a poisoned goat carcass. The villagers had injected the carcass with large doses of Aldrin, a pesticide that’s easily available. The cubs had killed three goats. So, Ram Khiladi Gujjar, owner of the goats, procured the pesticide. Read More