VOL. 13 ISSUE 26 Thursday, February 06, 2014

PAGE 2 PAGE 4

New hi-tech HIV diagnosis machine unveiled in city

Ministers turn a deaf ear to disability cor-ruption- Rao

Graduation for saleISHAN BHATTACHARYA

Thirty eight students who failed a final course exam received pass-marks in a re-evaluation

amid claims they paid for their suc-cess.

Failing in the last semester and then paying money to brokers to have final papers doctored is becoming a worry-ing trend in Bangalore, according to students and teachers alike.

A Weekly Observer investigation has uncovered a complex trail of middle-men and brokers who demand up to Rs 8000 to turn a fail into a pass. One Head of Department at a city college even spoke of teachers who received money from these brokers being sus-

pended from campus.

Students who performed well in ex-ams have spoken of their surprise at the reversal of fortune for some of their poorer performing classmates.

In one course, with 120 students, 60 failed the final paper. At a subsequent re-evaluation, 38 of the 60 students who failed were then given pass-marks.

Of the 120-strong batch of students in the Bachelor in Computer Application department of the Public Education Society College (PES) in Bangalore, 60 of them failed in the final semester of the course. Student “toppers”, those who came top of the class, say some of those students consider the “broker” arrangement an open secret.

These brokers are invariably students hired by a middle-man who has access to professors and teachers responsible for grading papers and exams.

A source in PES College, who we have chosen not to name for his own safety, said: “Sixty out of 120 students failed in our batch. But most of them paid mon-ey via another student, who works for a broker in Bangalore University, and they then managed to pass the course.

“They take Rs 8000 per paper to en-sure that you pass. I have even heard that if you are willing to pay a good sum of money to the brokers, they will arrange a test for the failed students where one can sit in his home and solve the paper.”

He added: “There are two ways to do this. Those who know that they will fail a paper give the money in advance to the brokers and then brokers doctor the final result sheet that is given to the college.

“Those who come to know that they failed after the results are out pay the money when they send papers for re-check or re-evaluation. I think this is why after re-check the number of fail-ures went down to 22 from the initial 60.”

Arranging a change in your grades could not be easier. Our source con-tacted Vinay, a student at PES study-ing on the same course as those whose grades were allegedly altered.

He said: “There is one guy named Vinay in our college who does all the monetary transactions for the broker. One needs to pay the money to him and then the broker takes care of the rest as he then deals with the people at Bangalore University.”

Vinay in a recorded conversation with the source, said: “If you need to pass you need to pay Rs 8000 per sub-ject and give me a photocopy of the re-valuation receipt and then you will definitely pass, absolutely no worries.”

Kannan PS, the head of the BCA de-partment in PES College, said: “Two years back a group of teachers from our college were suspended from duty for almost a year as they were caught taking money to pass students. I have heard that students pay money to bro-kers but I do not have any proof of it.”

He added: “Ten per cent of the stu-dents every year complain that because of improper checking they do not get the marks they deserve. This year a very good student of mine got poor marks, which even I refuse to believe.”

Statistics given by Kannan revealed that 22 students flunked in the final semester.

Sohini Purakayasto, who was in the top five list of best students in the BCA department, said: “It is very disheart-ening that people who do not study pay money and pass the course. I work hard and still at times I do not get the marks I deserve. Nothing can be done about it, this is how things are.”

KN Murthy, principal and director of PES College, said: “We are very serious about these issues. Our college is one of the best colleges in Bangalore and if we ever find out that students are pay-ing money to pass, we will immedi-ately rusticate him or her. Such things do not happen in our college and I am very sure of it.”

A spokesman for Bangalore Univer-sity head office, the university which grades the PES papers, said: “We are very strict about this. I have never heard of such cases. Regardless of what college you have information about, we will take action. Vinay Gowda said , “ I don’t know anything about this.”

Police manhunt after murder just yards from the temple

Police have launched a man-hunt to find the accused in-volved in the murder of a 40-year-old widow who was beaten to death following a property dispute.

According to the Channapatna Rural Police Station, the de-

ceased, identified as Seeta Lak-shmi, was beaten to death by her husband’s brother.

The police said Muniswamacha-rya, Seeta’s husband who was a goldsmith, died in 2013 of a heart attack. The police added that he owned property worth Rs 1crore.

S. Nagaraj, Circle Inspector of Channapatna Rural Police

Station said: “After Muniswa-macharya’s death, his accused brother, Krishnacharya decided to acquire the entire property in his name, which was opposed by Seeta. Hence, she decided to discuss this issue in front of the village panchayat, but her efforts went in vain and the two had altercations.”

(Continued on Page 3)

KARISHmA RAvINdRAN

Seeta’s body, near Veerbhadra Temple, after she was beaten to death

Vinay, who said he could change exam grades for Rs8000

‘If you need to pass you need to pay Rs 8000 per sub-ject and give me a photocopy of the re-valuation re-ceipt and then you will definitely pass, absolutely no

worries.”

The WeeklyObserver 2Thursday, February 06, 2014

Ministers turn a deaf ear to disability corruption - Rao

A national-award winning au-diologist has claimed the Kar-nataka government and senior bureaucrats are aware of fake disability certificate rackets which entitle their owners to qualify for official pensions.

Dr. B. N. Pranesha Rao, a re-tired scientific officer and con-sultant in audiology who has been working in the field of hearing impairment and dis-ability for over four decades says that the main reason for the poor condition of individu-als with hearing impairments in the state is because of the per-

sistence of an archaic system of classification coupled with offi-cial apathy and corruption.

Presently, Dr. Rao who has also been working as a mem-ber of the Indian Red Cross for the last ten years, works at the Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospi-tal in Vasanthngar.

A former member of the In-dian Air Force,he was awarded the national award by the then president Prathibha Patil in 2007 for his contribution to the field of disability and its associ-ated problems.

According to Dr. Rao, there are several hospitals and doc-

tors within the country who run rackets regarding the sale of dis-ability certificates.

Current legislation specifies that individuals with a disability level exceeding 60 per cent are eligible for a monthly pension of Rs 1200. The pension amount for people with a disability level below 60 per cent is Rs. 400 per month.

However, at present most holders of these certificates are not legally eligible for these pen-sion provisions says Dr. Rao.

“There have been occasions when the personal assistants of MLA’s have phoned me and in-

structed me to increase the dis-ability percentage for a particu-lar individual so that he or she could be applicable for a greater pension”, he adds.

Earlier, the responsibility of providing disability certificates belonged to the central govern-ment. However, at present the function has been decentralized, leading to discrepancies in their allocation and making security and control more difficult.

Reports of a recent raid car-ried out by the Karnataka Lok-ayukta, show that touts in city hospitals charge between Rs 3000 and Rs 5000 in return for these fake certificates.

Apart from the pension amount, the carriers of these certificates are the recipients of a number of benefits including travel concessions and employ-ment opportunities.

Another problem that has been outlined by Dr. Rao is the fact that government funds allo-cated for the disability sector are often misplaced and misused.

Commenting on this, he says, “ Even though the speaker Mei-ra Kumar provided Rs 10 crore to bring about improvements in the disability sector, there are significant gaps as far as the im-plementation of any new policy is concerned. The Ministry of Social Justice chose to purchase substandard hearing aids from a company called Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India even though there are far better aids which are available in the market.”

He added that in 2008, a com-pany called Mysore Minerals purchased hearing aids worth Rs. 6 crore which are now most-ly lying unused.

Speaking about the efficacy of government schemes aimed at improving the lives of the ap-proximately nine lakh disabled persons in the state, Dr. Rao stated that according to legal provisions the state government is compelled to ensure that 3 per cent of state government jobs are reserved for people with such problems.

“ There is a major lack of en-thusiasm from the administra-tive side. As part of an official program, we provided the Bru-

hat Bengaluru Mahanagara Pa-like ( BBMP) with several hear-ing aids. However, most of these are lying unused now”, he adds.

In addition to these issues, the main challenge, according to Dr. Rao, is the lack of trained medical professionals in vari-ous educational instituitions for deaf people in the city.

“ Nearly 10 per cent of the chil-dren in Karnataka ( which has an approximate population of 6 crores) are born with congenital disabilties. Early identification and proper treatment can only happen if the government plays a consistent and honest role in addressing these issues”, says Dr. Rao.

Three murder accused arrested

Bhaskar Dutta

Bangalore University has al-legedly failed to obey guide-lines to make the college easier to navigate for disabled peo-ple.

Guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC), state that universities and col-leges across India should have disabled-friendly infrastruc-ture, which includes ramps, rails, lifts, barrier-free toilets, and other disability-friendly ar-rangements to make it suitable for the differently abled stu-dents.

But colleges and universities in Bangalore have no such pro-visions yet.

Sunnati, Personal Assistant of the Commissioner of Disabili-ties said, “Bangalore University has made slight changes in the infrastructure but major chang-es have not yet been seen. We have sent a notice to the univer-sity after the first inspection.”

She added: “The condition of the disabled in India is really bad.

“The work for their better-ment is very slow; it might take another decade to make the society disabled-friendly. The construction of ramps and rails does not only come under the guidelines of UGC, there are minor works that is necessary

to make it friendly for persons with disability. The sign boards in colleges and universities need to be both written in painted letters and in Braille.”

According to Dr. N Gopuku-mar, Education Officer at UGC office, Bangalore, UGC has sanctioned money six years ago to build infrastructure for the disable people.

:He said: “The colleges and universities were sanctioned funds in the 11th five-year plan and they are left with only two

more months to complete the construction work. There has been just slight development with slow changes in the in-frastructures, and the comple-tion date is also about to expire soon.”

The officer added: “The amount provided by the UGC is very small; it is Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs, which is very less for the implementation of the scheme. It is the college and university that have to invest more money into it, which is why they take time.”

University flouts UGC guidelines and remains disabled-unfriendly

Dr. Rao receiving the national award from President Pratibha Patil

Crores were spent buying inferior hearing aids

Three men accused of carry-ing out repeated robberies and a murder have been arrested while one still remains at large

Thausif Ahmed, Noor Ahmed and Arif Ahmed, along with their accomplices, carried out repeated robberies around the city, according to police. One of these led to a murder.

On December 26, the four ac-cused followed Munir, 67, who had come to the city from Bel-lary to collect money. The four learned that Munir had 30 lakhs in cash. Munir was fol-lowed from Majestic bus stop, from where he had taken an

auto. The auto was stopped near Cunningham Road where the four accused threatened the au-to-driver with a knife and then stole 4 lakhs from Munir.

He lost a finger during a fight with the gang. The four fled on two bikes.

A complaint was lodged by Munir on the day of the attack with Highgrounds Police Sta-tion who immediately started an investigation. The police later found out that a case of murder was already lodged against the same group at JC Nagar Police Station.

Thausif, Noor and Arif were caught after a raid on January

10. The raid was headed by Rav-ish, Ramzan, Mahesh, Satish and Harish from the Highgrounds Police Station.

One lakh in cash, weapons and two bikes were recovered from them.

The fourth robber has not yet been identified.

Ravish, a member of the team which carried out the raid, said: “We are expecting to recover a lot of cash from the fourth per-son. These guys blow all the money in pubs, but they have been accused for a number of robberies in the city. We are hoping to catch him soon.”

From left : Thausif, Arif and Noor after being arrested by the police

aNaNNYa sarkar

The Bangalore University campus which lacks disabled-friendly infrastructure

Neha siNgh

The Weekly

Observer 3Thursday, February 06, 2014

Nikita Narvekar

A 26-year-old woman was found dead at her house in Ganigarapalya village on Sunday morning. The police suspect her husband to be involved as he was missing after the incident.

The Talaghattapura Police Station informed that Pushpa was found hanging from the ceiling and that her parents believe that her husband, Kar-igowda, killed her.

Pushpa was married to Karigowda, 35, on April 19, 2007. Both of them were from Nayakanhalli village in Mandya district. Karigowda used to work in a wine shop.

Kalegowda, Pushpa’s father said, “I spent Rs. 2 lakhs and fifty thousand to get my daughter mar-ried. They later shifted to Ganigarapalya where they stayed on rent.”

He added, “They were happy for the initial two years of the marriage, but after that things changed. Karigowda would come home drunk and beat my daughter. She informed me about it when she left her husband’s place and came here to stay, but I made both of them understand and then sent her back.”

Police constable, Anwar R Beedi of Talaghat-tapura Police Station said, “The father received a call on February 2 at 11 am saying that his daugh-ter had passed away.”

He added, “When the family rushed to Pushpa’s place, they saw her hanging by a sari from the ceil-ing. They registered a case at 4 pm that evening.”

Kalegowda said, “When we came to the place,

we saw our daughter hanging. But it looked like she was killed and then hanged to show it as a sui-cide.”

Anwar said: “Karigowda was nabbed from a place called Srinagar in Bangalore on February 4 and is under police custody as of now. He will be produced in court soon.”

Karigowda said: “I did not kill my wife. I was not at home because I went for work and it is then when she hanged herself.”

Anwar added, “We are not sure of how she died. It is only after the postmortem report we can tell the actual cause of her death. We are investigating the case.”

The couple has two children, Raj and Yogesh, who are now staying in Mandya with their grand-parents.

The husband has been booked under Section 498(A) and 304(B) of the IPC.

Husband arrested by police after wife found hanging at home

Health workers threaten poison protest over jobs

Over 150 health inspectors and paramedic students, jobless since 2008, took to the streets of Bangalore today demanding immediate em-ployment.

The inspectors were promised jobs after com-pleting their training but despite 2642 vacant posts throughout Karnataka graduating batches from 2008 to 2014 have still not been hired.

Sandeep Kumar, a health inspector from the batch of 2013 who hasn’t had a job since January last year, said: “On February 14 the budget will be declared. We are hoping that after that we will have our allocation and get our jobs finally. If not, then we shall stage another protest in front of Vidhan Soudha and poison ourselves.”

After the last protest, which took place on Janu-ary 20 and 21 in front of Town Hall, Health Min-ister, UT Khadhar said that an approval from the Finance Minister was required for a separate allocation of funds so that the inspectors could get their jobs.

The protesters marched from Majestic Railway Station to Freedom Park.

Lavanya, 27, a health inspector, said: “It has been more than five years now and still we are not getting a job. New PHC’s are coming up

throughout the state but they do not have enough

staff. Health Inspectors are the backbone of the PHC’s yet no effort is being made to fill up the vacancies.”

She said: “Even in private sectors we are unable to find jobs and the Health Minister U.T. Khadhar keeps giving us false assurances.”

She added: “We have met many officials, G.Parameshwara, President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), the health secre-tary, health officer and also the opposition leader from JDS – H.D Kumaraswamy. They all assured us full support, yet things are at a standstill.”

Another health inspector, Prasad said, “Despite all our efforts our voice is falling on deaf ears. Our parents had a lot of hope on us and now we have nothing in our hands. We hope the government will help us and we do not have to take any drastic step.”

rahul Sadhu & raju peethala

Health inspectors and paramedic students protest near City Railway Station.

We are not sure of how she died. It is only after the postmor-tem report we can tell the actual cause of her death. We are investi-gating the case.

Murdered just yards from temple after daily prayers

According to the complaint filed by Seeta against Krish-nacharya in July 2013 at Akkur police station, Seeta’s brothers, Arun and Yogesh, went along with her to meet Krishnacharya as they wanted to solve the dis-pute. Krishnacharya threatened to kill her if she ever discussed regarding property dealings with him.

The complaint filed by Sha-manthakumar, Seeta’s elder brother, read: “After their alter-cation, both Seeta and Krish-nacharya registered individual complaints at Akkur police sta-tion at S.M Halli village against their respective families. Al-though Akkur police said that it was a civil matter and they asked them to take the matter to court.”

The complainant, Shaman-thakumar, Seeta’s elder brother said, “Krishnacharya threatened

to kill my sister if she stayed in the village. And hence she went to Tumkur, where my brother lived.

Nagaraj said, “On Janu-ary 31, Seeta decided to file a case against Krishnacharya at the Channapatna court. After Krishnacharya became aware of Seeta’s plan, he decided to put an end to it.”

Nagaraj said, “On January 31, 2014, Seeta stayed at her friends place at Sogal village near S.M Halli. The next day she left for her house in S.M Halli. Krish-nacharya had followed her in an Omni car and reached Sogal village.”

In the complaint it was men-tioned that on February 1, at 2pm, Seeta performed various religious rituals at a temple in S.M Halli and stepped outside the temple after she finished the

rituals. Within minutes, Krish-nacharya, 45, and his accom-plice Palaksha, 38, arrived in an Omni car and hit Seeta with a metal rod.

The police said that Seeta was beaten thrice on her head by a sharp metal rod which led to her death.

Nagaraj said, “Both the ac-cused Krishnacharya and Palaksha escaped soon after the incident. One of the eye-witnesses called up the police to inform about the incident. Both are absconding but we have received a tip off that they are in Tamil Nadu. We have sent two teams to nab the ac-cused. We have been inter-rogating two suspects from S.M Halli village from the past three days.”

Shamanthakumar, said: “Krishnacharya had a textile business. Seeta’s husband was a wealthy man, he owned a gold jewellery store at M.G Road. He gave loans to many people in the S.M Halli village.”

He said: “Since Seeta did not have any kids, Krishnacharya wanted to acquire the entire property on his name. On Janu-ary 31, 2014, a person named Qualis Raja phoned Seeta for repaying Rs 80,000 loan which he took from Muniswamacha-rya. He asked her to come near Veerabhadhra Swamy temple to pay her the money, but when she reached there, she was hit by a metal rod from behind.”

He added: “I suspect Krish-nacharya and his accomplice Palaksha are behind my sister’s murder. Krishnacharya took the support of the people who had to repay loans to Seeta to kill her. Had the police co-operated with us, my sister wouldn’t have died.”

A case has been registered against the ‘accused’ at Channa-patna police station under sec-tion IPC 302 (punishment for death) and section IPC 34 (vol-untarily causing grievous hurt).

One of the metal rods which was used by the accused to kill Seeta.

Seeta, who was murdered on February 1.

Continued from page 1.

Sandeep Kumar threatens to poison himself in front of Vidhan Souda if de-mands not addressed

‘

- Anwar, Police Constable

The Weekly

Observer 4Thursday, February 06, 2014

EVENTS

Observer Team: Editor–Chitharth Mathivanan Chief Sub Editor-Nikita Narvekar Sub Editors– Anannya Sarkar, Apurva Venkat, Neha Singh News Editors - Anagha Sawant, Ishan Bhattacharya Picture Editor & Design Desk – Karishma Ravindran Reporters– Anand Jain, Bhaskar Dutta Email- editor@iijnm.org An IIJNM Publica-tion (For Private Circulation)

THEATRE

Fearless-Dance DramaIt portrays the struggle against fear and helplessness of wom-en in contemporary society through different dance forms and sounds & lights.Time: 8 pm OnwardsDate: February 12Venue: The Humming Tree - Music Venue & Bar, 3rd Floor & Roof Top, 12th Main , Indirana-gar.

Exhibition of PaintingsShristi Sareen is a young artist from Delhi and her collection tells a tale .Time: 11 am- 7 pmDate: Feb 7-Feb 9Venue: Atta Galatta#134, KHB Colony, 5th Block , Koramangala.

Pathway to Abstractism - Art ExhibitionThe gallery portrays work of established, mid level and bud-ding artists, Artist of the Month : Swapan Sarkar and Rajesh V ShethTime: 10 pm onwards, Event Duration:8 hoursDate: Feb 01 - Feb 28Venue: Gallerie Third Eye 2nd Floor, Yemlur Main Road, Next to Logican IT Park, Behind HAL Air Port

Auto drivers protested to lower the hiked Value Add-ed Tax on LPG gas.

The protest started at Town hall from 11 am by Auto Rickshaw Driver’s Union (ARDU). According to the drivers, until now they have conducted nine strikes, but government has not listened to their demands.

President of Adarsh Rickshaw Auto Union, Manju-nath said, “A driver tried to commit suicide by drink-ing pesticide. He is fine now and our union gave him Rs 15000 but this incident didn’t affect the government. They just conduct meetings and then they don’t think to help us.

“We hope the government listens to us. Till then we will protest” said the general secretary of ARDU, Rudramurthy.

The police declined to comment.

A union of more than 80 students protested in the central region of the city for equal representation of dalits in the education sector.

The B.R. Ambedkar Students Association, with other Dalit groups, was protesting for the selection of a Dalit member as the Vice Chancellor of the newly formed Shimoga University, which split from Bangalore Uni-versity few months back. The union of around 100 members, most of whom were students from G.K.V.K College, was protesting near Anand Rao Circle.

The President of Samata Sainik Dal said: “In the history of Agriculture sciences, not even a single Dalit member has led the 6 Universities in Karnataka. We demand and sincerely request to make one of us the Vice Chancel-lor of the new college.” said Venkataswamy, President of the Samata Sainik Dal.

A doctor in Yeshwantpur was attacked in his clinic by a patient in an apparent attempted robbery.

Dr. K. N. Aithal, a senior consulting physician, was beaten up on January 29. The patient came for a check up when the doctor was closing the clinic and attacked him while he was writing a prescription.

Dr. Aithal said: “It was closing time, around 8.30 p.m., when a well-built man entered the clinic. He said he had too many pimples on his face, infected pimples. So I ex-amined him and started to write the prescription. As I was writing, I felt everything around me become black.

I shouted loud, and as the neighbors began to enter, he ran away.

Sub-inspector of Police at Yeshwanthpur, T. Venkatesh, said: “The cause of the attack and the attacker has not been determined yet. We are still investigating.”

NEWS BRIEFSAuto drivers protest against LPG price hike, claim govt refusing to budge

Dalit students protest for equal repre-sentation in the state’s education sector

Doctor attacked in his own clinic af-ter assailant asked for consultation

New diagnostic tool slashes HIV diagnosis time

ART

WORKSHOP

Exhibition at Bhandhavya School - Handmade Hand-

loomsBIS is a school for disabled who makes the textiles. All textiles are handmade by the special children and the staff of the school to raise funds for the School. Time: 10 am - 5 pmDate: Feb 6 - Feb 12Venue: Bhandhavya, #78, Mod-el House Street, Basavanagudi

A blood bank in the city has introduced pioneering new technology that can greatly improve efficiency in the diag-nosis and treatment of infec-tious diseases.

The Rashtrotthana Blood Bank has collaborated with Roche Molecular Diagnostics to pro-vide patients with automated Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) fa-cilities at the bank.

NAT with Transcription Me-diated Amplification (TMA) was previously implemented in few hospitals of the city. This time, this technology has been introduced in an upgraded form known as Realtime PCR technology at the bank.

Real-time technology makes it possible to accurately identify and diagnose infectious diseas-es such as HIV-1, HIV-2, Hepa-titis B and Hepatitis C at a much faster rate than the conventional Enzyme Linked Immunosor-bent Assay (ELISA) test.

Sumithra, Head of NAT lab at Rashtrotthana Blood Bank says,

“The current conventional test procedures in the country such as ELISA / chemilumi-nescence identify these deadly viruses only after a period of 30 to 90 days, or even more, post infection. This period, in medi-cal terms, is called the ‘window period’ where serological tests cannot determine the presence of antibodies against these in-fections.”

She added that the advanced NAT test is capable of directly detecting DNA strands of virus-es within a period of six to eight days, thus significantly helping reducing the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections.

According to her, one of the major problem areas with re-gard to blood transfusions, is the high vulnerability of thal-lasemic children (who require multiple transfusions) to infec-tions such HIV-1, HIV-2, Hep-atitis B Virus (HBV) and the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV).

Commenting on the methods employed by the Rashtrotthana day center to ensure the safety of children and individuals in

need of regular blood transfu-sions, Sumithra said, “In order to ensure maximum safety the blood bank shall only transfuse NAT screened blood.”

The new technology also aids in ensuring the safety of diabe-tes patients in regular need of blood.

Despite the fact that the NAT technology provides more accu-rate results than the traditional ELISA test, it has not yet been made mandatory in Indian medical circles.

The principal drawback of the ELISA method is its incapability to identify the presence of cer-tain viruses at the early stages of a disease. As a result of this, of-ten, blood given by donors who are suffering from a disease in its initial stages, is incorrectly marked as being ‘tested nega-tive’.

Blood Kumar, Head of blood donation campaigns at BGS Global Hospitals said: “A pa-tient has the right to ‘safe blood’ in order to recover. I am happy that Rashtrotthana Blood Bank has taken an initiative of intro-ducing this technology in the state.

“I can only hope that private hospitals and other centers too adopt the same technology in near future.”

Currently, the NAT technolog-ical model is the only one of its kind in the state as far as ensur-ing the safety of blood supplies is concerned.

K.S. Narayana, a member of the Rashtrotthana Blood Bank said, “The automated NAT test-ing platform at our blood bank can reduce chances of human errors and also facilitate testing of a number of samples at one go with great ease. The com-bined feature of the NAT sys-tem encourages centralization and can also support the work-load of other local blood banks

within the region to use this test to their advantage.”

Speaking about the need to bridge the significant gap be-tween the demand and supply of blood in the city, he added, “We need voluntary donors in order to tackle the issue of shortage in blood in Banga-lore. Last month, Rashtrottha-na Blood Bank faced an acute shortage in blood due to which our thalassemic patients suf-fered the most. People think do-nating leads to weaknesses. It is a misconception. The more you donate the healthier your mind and soul become.”

Jolly Joan Benjamin, a doctor who works for the Samraksha Project of the Rashtrotthana Blood Bank, emphasized the need to raise awareness about blood donation activities.

She said, “We are visited by a lot of rural patients here who are in need of blood. There is not enough awareness among them regarding blood donations. It is when they come here as recipi-ents they realized the value of it. Government must ensure to create awareness among them as well as in the urban popula-tion to avoid any crisis result-ing from shortage in blood in future.”

According to her the daily demand for blood in the city ranges from 2000 to 2500 liters of which not even half is being met.

“It is high time people realize their responsibilities towards society”, she added.

The NAT technology was first launched at the Guru Tegh Ba-hadur Hospital in New Delhi. Apart from Karnataka, the globally accepted NAT Real-time PCR technology is avail-able in most cities throughout the country. In Mumbai, it was introduced in 2009 at the Hin-duja Hospital blood bank. Sub-sequently, Pune adopted the technology in 2011.

Dhanunjay, Regional Manager at Roche Molecular Diagnos-tics, which has financially col-laborated with the bank,said: “Rashtrotthana blood bank has chosen the Cobas S 201 auto-mated NAT system from Roche because it is presently the only available platform that can test for HIV-2.

The prevalence of this virus has been demonstrated in vari-ous parts of Karnataka and in many other parts of the country as well. The serological screen-ing of HIV-2 has been made mandatory by the government for the very same reason and the Rashtrotthana blood bank has ensured that this test is made available on their NAT platform.”

He added, “Each NAT machine costs around 4-5 crore. This is why Rashtrotthana Blood Bank has taken the machine from us on rental basis. We will charge them depending on the number of samples sold. Each sample sold will be charged Rs. 900.”

The inauguration of the tech-nology at Rashtrotthana Blood Bank will be held on February 8, 2014 at the center.

Prutha Bhosle

The hi-tech equipment, which cost up to Rs 5 crore, will revolutionise HIV and Hepatitis diagnosis for patients in the city

Raising awareness. Dr Jolly Joan Benjamin

Staff from Roche Molecular Diagnostics at the launch of their hi-tech HIV diagnosis machines