Bangalore, October 2022: The fuss about Bangalore being a sleepy city and closing down all fun joints and shopping destinations early in night is a common phenomenon. Or it was till now! Gear up because the much-awaited midnight shopping madness – ‘Midnight Shopping Carnival’ is back with a bang at Nexus Koramangala Mall, the paradise for foodies and shopaholics of the city.
Who does not want to indulge in a shopping spree when there are great discounts and surprises at every step! Better yet if these all are in store for your favorite brands with extended shopping hours! Nexus Koramangala Malls Midnight Shopping Carnival promises to literally let you “shop till you drop” with all the brands coming together to host the carnival and offering unbelievable discounts to the customers.
Experience shopping like never before with Hourly Lucky Draw, Exciting Brand Offers, 5x Shopping Rewards, Games, On Spot Surprises and assured Gifts and the list does not end here. Immerse yourself in the charm of an amazing flea market, live curated performances, and an array of delectable street foods, while you enjoy your midnight shopping frenzy.
So, keep your calendar free and go all out and shop to your heart’s content in this once-in-a-year Midnight Shopping Carnival on 21st Oct from 9 pm-12 midnight at Nexus Koramangala Mall.
By supporting beekeeping, with training, hives, and equipping women self-help group (SHG) and youth with life skills, DCB Bank hopes to create sustainably livelihood opportunities in the mangrove landscape.
DCB Bank, is collaborating with rural communities to promote coastal ecosystem-based livelihood project through beekeeping for women and youth residing near mangroves in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka.
The beekeeping project is ongoing across six villages of the district with the goal to create an alternate livelihood stream for the local communities. The life skill will provide long-term earning opportunities to women and youth. Women and particularly those in the rural landscape make a silent yet substantial contribution for the well being of their families and community.
The honeybee helps with pollination, this is in addition to the myriad biodiversity of flies, butterflies, birds, and other forms of pollination that keep fruit and food production thriving on earth. India’s domestic bee species are well suited to the dual role of enhancing fruit, agri productivity and provide honey, pollen, beeswax to the beekeepers. The beekeepers provide a safe space free from depredation to the bees. A symbiotic relationship that will have a positive impact on conservation and biodiversity in the region. Beekeeping will also significantly reduce the dependence of the local community on cutting mangroves, the depletion of which has been a cause for concern. Bees feed on mangrove flora or flowers. This is a means to try and achieve a balance in coexistence for humans and mangrove forests.
DCB Bank has arranged 200 bee boxes and healthy bee colonies in the first phase of the project. On the ground teams have worked to inform, educate, and mobilise the communities to volunteer for the training. The Bank is supporting 190 women from 15 self-help groups and 10 youths with bee boxes and bee colonies. They, along with 50 more youth, will receive training in beekeeping. Each bee box can produce up to 10 kilograms of honey a year, and if things go as planned the next year 2023, approximately 2,000 kilograms of honey will be available with the beneficiaries. The expectation for the price of honey is six hundred rupees a kilo. The beneficiary groups shall also receive three honey extractors for the hygienic extraction of superior grade honey.
The participants will be guided in selling their produce in the market. The project will directly benefit five hundred households comprising 75% women, enabling them to gain a manner of financial independence, contribute to the family income and play a key role to maintain the biodiversity in the area. This sustainable rural livelihood enterprise allows the beneficiaries to conduct beekeeping in the vicinity of their residence while they continue with the daily routine activities.
One of the beekeeping activities also involves setting up bee colonies. Ensuring hygienic bee colonies is important for the success of the sustainable enterprise, the project will include procuring and placing disease-free colonies of Apis cerana indica, a subspecies of the Asiatic honeybee known for its highly social behaviour.
In addition to the participating women and youth, an estimated 260 more individuals, who are a part of farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and will be involved in the making of bee boxes and marketing of honey, will also directly benefit from the project.
DCB Bank Gaurav Mehta, Head PR, Marketing & CSR had this to say, “DCB Bank focusses on rural communities and their wellbeing. This project has a threefold objective – rural entrepreneurship, sustainable livelihood and build climate change resilience. DCB Bank corporate social responsibility initiatives partner with local communities to protect sources of groundwater, enhance biodiversity, and support sustainable livelihood. By harnessing bees as a nature based solution – bees as pollinators and income generator, mangroves as bee flora, brings about awareness on the impact of climate change on the coastal communities. Uttara Kannada has the potential to create a unique space with mangrove honey in the country and give the women a chance to supplement their income and improve their quality of life. DCB Bank is confident that the initiative will protect biodiversity, enhance crop production, and promote forest regeneration, which is in line with our community development approach and outreach programmes.”
The crucial role of women in ensuring the sustainability of rural households and communities, improving rural livelihoods & overall wellbeing has never been in doubt. Women account for a substantial proportion of the agricultural labour force, including informal work and perform the bulk of unpaid care and domestic work within households. They make significant contribution to agricultural production, food security and nutrition, land, and natural resource management, and building climate resilience.
People Tree Advance Center for Cardiac Care Adopts High-End Approach: Successfully Performs Minimally Invasive Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement, Bengaluru, October 17, 2022. Fateel Rehman Ahmed Aloub (patient) underwent mitral valve surgery twice in 2010 and 2011. In 2011 his initial mitral valve was replaced with a bioprosthetic mitral valve.
Patient arrived at People Tree Hospitals with severe mitral regurgitation across his valve as the existing valve had degenerated. He came in frank cardiac failure with breathlessness, fluid collection in chest, abdomen and legs with a BP of 80/50mm of Hg. The patient had chronic kidney disease, chronic liver disease, Splenomegaly, Thrombocytopenia and bleeding Duodenal Ulcer. Many centers refused to operate the patient due to these comorbidities. The patient was examined at People Tree Hospitals Advanced Center for Heart Care and deter mined that minimally invasive transcatheter mitral valve replacement: a state-of-the-art procedure that is very rarely performed nationwide, was the only possible option. Minimally invasive transcatheter mitral valve replacement is an innovative procedure in which a catheter is inserted through the main lower limb vein. From there, the catheter is advanced into the right atrium and the interatrial septum is punctured to access the left atrium. The mitral valve is located between the left atrium and the left ventricle. The catheter goes through the surgical valve and the new valve is threaded onto the catheter. It is inflated with a balloon so it expands into position and starts working.
Following a thorough background check and preliminary lab analysis, the patient was found to be competent to undergo the procedure. After approving all the terms and conditions and explaining the risk, the patient under went the procedure in the cath lab. After completion of the procedure, the patient was shifted to ICU in stable condition and was discharged after 5 days.
People Tree Hospitals is proud to say that it has successfully performed Minimally Invasive Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement, a rare and high end complex cardiac procedure. The People Tree Advance Center for Heart Care provides full spectrum of cardiac services under one roof. It is equipped with state-of-the-art CATH LAB and modular CARDIAC OT with 24*7 availability of cardiologists, cardiac surgeon and cardiac anesthe tist capable of performing emergency angioplasties, pacemaker implantation, device closure of holes in the heart, peripheral angioplasties, Bypass Surgery, Open Heart Surgery, Valve Replacement, Thoracic Surgery, Congenital Heart surgery, minimally invasive (keyhole) cardiac surgery and so forth.
Dr Jothi S Neeraja, MD, CEO, People Tree Hospitals said, “I am proud to say that we have the most dedicated and passionate cardiac care team committed to saving lives! The team is well trained to perform all the advanced procedures with the latest technology. We are committed to solving cardiac problems and spreading aware ness.”.
Dr Prasad Bhat (Cardiologist), Dr Diwakar (Cardiologist), Dr Akshay (Cardio Thoracic Surgeon), Dr Manju nath (Cardiologist), Dr Suma K Rao (Cardiac anesthetist and intensivist), participated in this procedure. “Our patient is a 60-year-old man from Sudan who has undergone mitral valve replacement surgery twice, the last one 10 years ago. His biological valve had deteriorated so he was experiencing severe mitral regurgitation. Due to this, several symptoms appeared. He also had chronic kidney and liver disease with splenomegaly, low platelet count, and duodenal ulcer with fresh clots. He did not have the option of surgical mitral valve replacement as he had multiple comorbidities and a history of two mitral valve replacements. Surgeons at many centers refused to operate on him. Hence we decided to perform a novel transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR). After a detailed evaluation, it was decided that he was suitable for TMVR. In this, a prosthetic valve was implanted in the mitral position through a lower venous access. A post-procedure echo showed a normally functioning valve without mitral regurgitation. The patient tolerated the procedure well. He has been on follow up and his kidney function has improved and he is symptom free now. This is one of the first few such procedures done in Karnata ka,” said cardiologist Dr Prasad Bhat.
The registration drive was organized by DKMS BMST Foundation India
Roorkee, Uttarakhand 18 October 2022: Aiming to create awareness on blood stem cell donation and to encourage people to register themselves as a potential life saver, DKMS BMST Foundation India conducted a blood stem cell donor registration drive at IIT Roorkee from October 14 to 16 during the ‘Thomso22’ student fest. Over 400 students registered as potential donors during the three-day awareness and donor registration drive organized by DKMS BMST Foundation India. DKMS-BMST a non-profit organization dedicated to the fight against blood cancer and blood disorders.
In India, many blood cancer patients are children and young people whose only chance of recovery is a stem cell transplant. For a successful stem cell transplant patient need to find an HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) matched donor. Only about 30% of the patients in need of a stem cell transplant can find matching donor from within their family, the rest 70% depend on finding a matching unrelated donor.
Patrick Paul, CEO, DKMS BMST Foundation India, says, “Patients and donors of Indian origin have unique HLA characteristics that are severely under-represented in the global database, which makes the probability of finding a suitable donor even more difficult. Successful blood stem cell transplant needs a perfect HLA tissue match. The representation of Indian population in the registry is minimal. India, being a young country, our aim is to raise greater awareness about blood stem cell donation through students.”
Nitin Sahu, Convener Thomso’22and PG Student, IIT Roorkee, says “I am glad that Thomso’22 collaborated with DKMS-BMST as its official social initiative partner to promote young and healthy people to come forward and donate blood cells and help save lives. DKMS-BMST ‘s vision and mission of fighting against blood cancer and blood disorders are appreciable. They aim to improve the situation of patients with blood cancer and other blood disorders in India and throughout the world by raising awareness about blood stem cell transplantation and registering potential blood stem cell donors.”
Rohit, a 33-year-old resident of Kanpur, who recently saved a life by donating his blood stem cells was also present to share his experience and inspire students to register. DKMS-BMST team also informed the students about the impact of stem cell donation and transplantation on those who are diagnosed with blood cancer.
Patrick Paul added, “We are thankful to IIT Roorkee and its students for helping us organize the registration drive. DKMS-BMST aims to organize many such awareness drives and registration drives across the country at colleges and universities specially targeting the youth crowd, because they remain in the registry for longer period and there is higher chance of getting their stem cell matched quickly.”
To register as a potential stem cell donor, you must be a healthy Indian adult between 18 to 50 years of age. When you are ready to register, all you need to do is complete a consent form and swab the inside of your cheeks to collect your tissue cells. Your tissue sample is then sent to the lab, to be analyzed and listed anonymously on the international search platform for matching stem cell donors.
Today, more than 39 million potential unrelated donors are listed worldwide with stem cell donor centers and registries, of which only 0.04% are Indians. This situation can only be changed by recruiting many potential blood stem cell donors from India. If you’re eligible, take the first step to register as a blood stem cell donor by ordering your home swab kit at www.dkms-bmst.org/register
Bengaluru: Unnati, a Bengaluru-based vocational training and social transformation foundation for the underprivileged youth, has partnered with Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (Department of Industrial Training & Employment), Government of Karnataka and ExxonMobil to extend vocational training to 5,000 students this year.
Students of various government colleges will be trained for free under UNXT, a program by Unnati for final year students from government degree, ITI, diploma, and professional degree colleges. The duration of UNXT, is about 165 hours (including blended learning), spread over 30 days. The offline sessions in the classroom amount to almost 90 hours with 3-hour classes daily. The online modules account for 75 hours, wherein over 600 short videos and over 3000 questions are available to help the youth.
Addressing the press conference, Ramesh Swamy, Director, Unnati, said, “The intensive training program is in line with the NSDC curriculum for soft skills. Unnati has MOUs signed with the Department of Collegiate Education (DCE) Karnataka, Department of Industrial Training and Employment (DITE) Karnataka and Karnataka State Skill Development Corporation, for implementing the VTP and the UNXT programs across Karnataka.”
He also said Unnati wants to collaborate with more industries for placements. It is also creating a directory of skilled human resources that would help industries hire. The proposed directory would have the Unnati trained youth, including their video resume that would speed up the recruitment. The same would be made available to all industries, including those located in rural areas. This would help industries choose the right candidates for jobs in their locality and thus check migration from rural to urban areas.
Mr. Krishnamurthy, Executive Director, KSSDC said the aspirants can also opt for a residential facility during the training, which would be conducted across the state in the coming days.
Mr. Naveen Shukla, Director, ExxonMobil, said that primacy has been given to skill development programmes that instil confidence among the students of government educational institutions. The training programmes help in improving communication skills, which are very much required for those in the private and government sectors. ExxonMobil is one of the largest partners now under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. The company is training over 5000 youth during this financial year through Unnati.
Mr. Halappa Shetty, Deputy Director, Department of Industrial Training and Employment, who was present, said that his department has been conducting various skill improvement training programs. Many ITI-passed students are getting benefits. Training in internet drafting, electric vehicles, robotics, welding, etc would be given to youth besides improving their capabilities through soft skills.
“The department considers its association with the Unnati foundation important. It is appreciable that the foundation is conducting soft skills training for students,” he added.
There were a couple of youngsters who had undergone training at the Unnati and were now employed gainfully. One such person is Ms. Sushma, who is an employee of HP Company. She said, “I am a rural youth. When I came for the first time to Bengaluru, I didn’t even know which bus I had to take to reach my destination. Like many, I joined Unnati to get trained. I didn’t have many expectations from the training. But today I am comfortably facing the camera and speaking to you. The credit for building confidence in me goes to Unnati. I suggest rural youth make the best of the free Unnati training programs.”
Unnati, through its “Centre Model” (VTP) has 30 centres across the country and 16 centres in Karnataka alone (including Bengaluru). Unnati has designed a 35-day programme where financially and socially underprivileged youth in the age group of 18–25 years get training in various skills. It includes spoken English skills, life skills, value-based living, basic computer training and vocational training based on their educational background. In all, nearly 300 hours of training is imparted by dedicated staff, thus enabling inclusive growth by empowering families that are below the poverty line.
The Unnati program was started in the year 2003 and over the last 19 years transformed the lives of over 55,000 youths. What is unique to Unnati is the fact that the top management of the organisation is pro bono.
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