Spaghetti in cream sauce( veg)
INGREDIENTS I Spaghetti (boiled): 160 gm I Fresh cream: 180 ml I Spinach leaf: 80 gm I Olive oil: 1 tbsp I Chopped garlic: 1/2 tsp I Chopped onion: 1/2 tsp I Salt: 1/2 tsp I Fresh basil: 2 gm I Grated parmesan cheese: 25 gm I Butter: 1 tsp.
METHOD I Heat saucepan and add olive oil and chopped garlic and onion. I Saute’ garlic-onion lightly and add fresh cream till thick. I Then add boiled spaghetti, toss it in cream. I Add trim and washed shredded spinach leaves. I Finish with grated parmesan cheese, fresh basil and butter. I Add salt as per taste and serve immediately. I Garnish with parmesan cheese and sprig of fresh parsley.
“Feeding a hungry child is not charity, it is our social responsibility”
Children are being fed everyday!
I donated and made a difference!
YOU can do it too.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
TOI ,Crest ( 24/10/09) -A unique green experiment.
In Colombia, a green experiment with civilization by SIMON ROMERO
In the 1960s, an aristocratic Colombian development specialist named Paolo Lugari took a road trip across the nearly uninhabited eastern plains of Las Gaviotas, a region so remote and poor in soil quality that not even Colombia’s historic upheavals of violence had taken root here at the time.
Stopping to rest in this vast expanse, written off by agronomists as the equivalent of a tropical desert, Lugari decided it was the perfect place to experiment with the future of civilization. He founded a village unlike any other in this war-weary country.
“The only deserts that exist in this world are deserts of the imagination,” said Lugari, 64, on a visit this month to the community he named after the river gulls, or gaviotas, he saw flying overhead on that trip more than 40 years ago.
These days, visitors travel by propeller plane over the bleak savanna to get here, or by bus past the occasional guerrilla or paramilitary checkpoint. The visitors rarely come. But when they do, they get a glimpse into a fourdecade experiment to alter civilization’s dependence on finite fossil fuels and industrial agriculture. Its 200 residents have no guns, no police force, no cars, no mayor, no church, no priest, no cellphones, no television, no Internet. No one who lives in Gaviotas has a job title. But Gaviotas does have an array of innovations intended to make human life feasible in one of the most challenging ecosystems, from small inventions like a solar kettle for sterilizing water to large ones like a 19,800-acre reforestation project whose tropical pines produce resin for biofuel and a canopy under which native plant species flourish.
Las Gaviotas, Lugari explained, began with one idea: Instead of choosing an easy, fertile place to test energy selfsufficiency and creativity in agriculture, why not choose one of the hardest? The concept, devised before the 1970s oil crisis and well before this decade’s fears of depleting oil supplies, guided the community’s evolution.
Like an oasis amid this madness, Gaviotas drew peasants from the llanos, or plains, who moved here to earn about $500 a month, about double the wage for rural workers elsewhere in Colombia. Some once nomadic Guahibo Indians joined them. Scientists, while largely avoiding Las Gaviotas now because of the surrounding violence, helped design the village’s cluster of homes, laboratories and factories, which still lie 16 hours by jeep from Bogotá, the capital.
“We try to lead a quiet life, depending on nothing but our own labour and ingenuity,” said Teresa Valencia, 48, a teacher who moved here three decades ago.
She said residents had to deal with guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, and gunmen loyal to a paramilitary warlord, Pedro Oliverio Guerrero, who reigns over the llanos with the nom de guerre Cuchillo (Knife).
Visitors who arrive at dawn on a Cessna plane leave before dusk for fear of kidnappings. They see inventions like a water pump powered by a children’s seesaw, a solar kitchen and the forest of tropical pine trees that stands in contrast to the otherwise barren plains.
More than two decades after the pines were planted, with the help of a mycorrhiza fungus introduced to help digest the poor soils, jacaranda, ferns and laurels have flourished under their cover in what some agronomists call one of the developing world’s most astonishing reforestation projects.
“A place like Gaviotas bears witness to our ability to get it right, even under seemingly insurmountable circumstances,” the American journalist Alan Weisman wrote in a 1998 book about Gaviotas.
One Gaviotera, as those born in this village are known, explained her theory. “We have survived,” said the resident, Andrea Beltrán, 25. “Maybe, at this time and place in Colombia,” she continued, “that is enough.” NYT NEWS SERVICE Aunique gree
In the 1960s, an aristocratic Colombian development specialist named Paolo Lugari took a road trip across the nearly uninhabited eastern plains of Las Gaviotas, a region so remote and poor in soil quality that not even Colombia’s historic upheavals of violence had taken root here at the time.
Stopping to rest in this vast expanse, written off by agronomists as the equivalent of a tropical desert, Lugari decided it was the perfect place to experiment with the future of civilization. He founded a village unlike any other in this war-weary country.
“The only deserts that exist in this world are deserts of the imagination,” said Lugari, 64, on a visit this month to the community he named after the river gulls, or gaviotas, he saw flying overhead on that trip more than 40 years ago.
These days, visitors travel by propeller plane over the bleak savanna to get here, or by bus past the occasional guerrilla or paramilitary checkpoint. The visitors rarely come. But when they do, they get a glimpse into a fourdecade experiment to alter civilization’s dependence on finite fossil fuels and industrial agriculture. Its 200 residents have no guns, no police force, no cars, no mayor, no church, no priest, no cellphones, no television, no Internet. No one who lives in Gaviotas has a job title. But Gaviotas does have an array of innovations intended to make human life feasible in one of the most challenging ecosystems, from small inventions like a solar kettle for sterilizing water to large ones like a 19,800-acre reforestation project whose tropical pines produce resin for biofuel and a canopy under which native plant species flourish.
Las Gaviotas, Lugari explained, began with one idea: Instead of choosing an easy, fertile place to test energy selfsufficiency and creativity in agriculture, why not choose one of the hardest? The concept, devised before the 1970s oil crisis and well before this decade’s fears of depleting oil supplies, guided the community’s evolution.
Like an oasis amid this madness, Gaviotas drew peasants from the llanos, or plains, who moved here to earn about $500 a month, about double the wage for rural workers elsewhere in Colombia. Some once nomadic Guahibo Indians joined them. Scientists, while largely avoiding Las Gaviotas now because of the surrounding violence, helped design the village’s cluster of homes, laboratories and factories, which still lie 16 hours by jeep from Bogotá, the capital.
“We try to lead a quiet life, depending on nothing but our own labour and ingenuity,” said Teresa Valencia, 48, a teacher who moved here three decades ago.
She said residents had to deal with guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, and gunmen loyal to a paramilitary warlord, Pedro Oliverio Guerrero, who reigns over the llanos with the nom de guerre Cuchillo (Knife).
Visitors who arrive at dawn on a Cessna plane leave before dusk for fear of kidnappings. They see inventions like a water pump powered by a children’s seesaw, a solar kitchen and the forest of tropical pine trees that stands in contrast to the otherwise barren plains.
More than two decades after the pines were planted, with the help of a mycorrhiza fungus introduced to help digest the poor soils, jacaranda, ferns and laurels have flourished under their cover in what some agronomists call one of the developing world’s most astonishing reforestation projects.
“A place like Gaviotas bears witness to our ability to get it right, even under seemingly insurmountable circumstances,” the American journalist Alan Weisman wrote in a 1998 book about Gaviotas.
One Gaviotera, as those born in this village are known, explained her theory. “We have survived,” said the resident, Andrea Beltrán, 25. “Maybe, at this time and place in Colombia,” she continued, “that is enough.” NYT NEWS SERVICE Aunique gree
Malnourishment & MMR lessons
TOI ,Crest ( 24/10/09)Welfare Inc
Multinational corporations are lining up products fortified with micronutrients to help fight malnourishment in rural India, but health experts warn against business interests swamping welfare work
REMA NAGARAJAN TIMES INSIGHT GROUP
Conventional wisdom would suggest that malnourished, poverty-stricken people living on less than $2 a day can hardly be of interest to the market. But conventional wisdom could be wrong. Giant multinational food companies are developing products meant to specifically tackle the fallout of prolonged hunger, such as micronutrient deficiency and anaemia. Think of any big name in food and you can bet it’s there in the throng reaching out to the starving billions.
But why would Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), Britannia and Danone be keen to sell beverage and food products containing micronutrients like vitamin A, zinc and iron at rockbottom prices?
The answer lies in the numbers. Over a billion hungry people globally, and more than two billion anaemic. India alone boasts the world’s largest undernourished population — over 200 million. To the food industry, these figures would mean the mantra of ‘low margin, high volume sales’ of fortified products is viable. As a bonus, the company would also be building brand value by undertaking the responsibility of helping those in distress.
Tying up with NGOs provides the entry point to create impact on the minds of rural India. For instance, Coca-Cola is marketing Vitingo, a micronutrient fortified orange-flavoured beverage, in partnership with Laxmi Priya Enterprises, a sister concern of Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA), a leading NGO micro-finance institution in Orissa, with a beneficiary base of over 5,00,000. The pilot project entails Vitingo sachets being distributed using self-help groups. Coca-Cola says the effort is aimed at building a sustainable, not-forprofit business “wherein we would market beverages enriched with micronutrients targeted at the bottom of the socio economic pyramid”.
Coke seems upbeat about its prospects after the success of a pilot in Sambalpur district of Orissa. Considering micronutrient deficiencies can impair cognitive development, lower resistance to disease in children and adults, and increase risks for both mothers and infants during childbirth, Coke would expect the new initiative to generate both goodwill and sales.
For most corporates, such rural initiatives are also a learning process, which helps them understand new markets that are extremely price sensitive or culture specific. Pepsi, too, is looking at the NGO route to push a drink to be launched next year, which it claims can reduce the incidence of anaemia among women in rural India. It is hoping to distribute the drink through local health centres.
The poor themselves might not be able to afford even these products despite the low pricing, but the companies have an eye on humanitarian agencies and government-run health programmes to market them. Bagging a government contract could mean immediate sales running into millions.
In recent years, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a private sector coalition, has been using its ties with UNICEF to persuade governments to allow more food fortification. The GAIN Business Alliance, chaired by Unilever, also helps conduct surveys to help member companies assess feeding practices and gauge the market for complementary and supplementary food. “Unilever has been working in partnership with GAIN since 2005, and has been very actively involved in food fortification programmes of GAIN in various countries, including India. As well as its strongly-principled stance, Unilever has a vested interest in the health, education and success of consumers in all our markets,” says a Unilever spokesperson.
But public health experts insist that such concerted efforts to combat malnutrition are only driven by business interests and lobbies rather than any serious attempt at addressing poverty, hunger and poor health. A paper published this month in the journal Lancet, titled ‘Nutrition in Early Life-Global Priority’, warns that the limited funding for combating undernutrition is being dominated by programmes for food aid and micronutrient supplementation. “Although such programmes have a definite role in some circumstances, one would also like to see strong investments in community-based approaches — like the promotion of breastfeeding and appropriate complementary foods — which have well-established effects on child survival and nutritional status,” says the paper.
Dr B Sasikeran, director of the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, says, “Obviously, they are not interested in the public good. They are commercial entities after all.” Whenever the institute has done clinical trials to determine the efficacy of micronutrient supplementation, the children’s group in the trial that was not given the supplement showed almost as much improvement as the group getting the supplement. Dr Sesikeran explains why this happens: “During a trial, you monitor both groups closely, ensuring they get the same kind of balanced diet, that the children undergo regular deworming and so on. With balanced food and good healthcare, even those without the supplements are bound to do well.” Dr Sesikeran adds that this only proved that public health/nutrition schemes could show substantial results even without supplements if only they were monitored and implemented properly.
Essentially, the case made by experts is for the need to build efficient public or community-based distribution mechanisms that can deliver commodities like oil, fresh vegetables and milk to supplement staple foods. “When we talk of food, we talk of rice and wheat, which only takes care of hunger. Once we take care of hunger, we have to talk of more oil and green vegetables in the diet to take care of micronutrient deficiency,” says Umesh Kapil, professor of Public Nutrition at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Nutritionists also point out that if there is no food in the stomach to provide the base, nutrients are of little use and hence supplements alone would not work for the hungry. But international agencies looking for ways to tackle undernourishment in large sections of the population are often accused of encouraging quick-fix solutions through promotion of fortified foods. Dr Neeraj Sethi, senior advisor (health), Planning Commission, pointed out at a conference on micronutrient deficiencies that emphasis is shifting to fortification and supplementation, ignoring the importance of sustainable child feeding practices like exclusive breastfeeding till six months, safe drinking water and sanitation, and deworming of children at regular intervals.
The arguments are yet to be resolved, but clearly the issue is one that will loom over the fate of future generations. After all, the largest section of the world’s undernourished population is in India and most of them are young children.
(With additional inputs
from Rupali Mukherjee and
Namrata Singh)
THE UNDERBELLY OF THE MARKET
Corporate majors are selling a range of fortified products at competitive prices or distributing them free of cost
COCA-COLA launched Vitingo, a micronutrient fortified orange-flavoured beverage in Orissa this year, jointly with an NGO micro-finance institution
PEPSI is expected to launch an ultra-cheap soft drink that could cost just Rs 1 or 2 per serve at the beginning of next year. The drink, it is said, will reduce incidence of anaemia among women in rural India
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER has launched Brooke Bond Sehatmand in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, a tea brand expected to fulfill vitamin needs in the lower strata of society. It claims three cups of the tea guarantee delivery of 50 per cent of the recommended dietary allowance of added B Vitamins required by a person
DANONE launched Shaktidoi, sweet curd fortified with iron and vitamins, in 2006 in partnership with Grameen in Bangladesh, selling it at five to seven taka per pot
BRITANNIA started working with an NGO to distribute fortified biscuits — Tiger with Iron-Zor — free of cost to children living in slums in Haryana. Its projects are primarily aimed at tackling iron deficiency in towns and rural areas. The iron-fortified biscuits are also sold elsewhere in the country
ECONOCOM FOODS sells Epap, a pre-cooked maize-based food, highly fortified with 28 nutrients, developed to address Africa’s food and nutrition problem
OUTLOOK ( 2/11/09)Women: Maternal Mortality-Expecting Hope
Bangladesh offers India a healthcare lesson by Amba Batra Bakshi
Lifestart
* The maternal mortality rate (MMR) in India is 254 per 1 lakh live births (2004-2006), down from 301 in 2001-2003
* India has set itself an MMR target of 109 by 2015, which Unicef says the country will not be able to achieve
* India wants to see how Bangladesh brought down MMR
* Indian health officials will travel to Bangladesh to study that country’s intervention models
Despite efforts by the government to arrest the alarming maternal mortality rate (MMR) in India, progress has been very slow in the past few years. Outlook has now learnt the government is considering taking a leaf out of Bangladesh’s efforts at containing maternal mortality. India’s MMR is currently 254 per one lakh live births; the target is to take that figure to 109 by 2015. Unicef’s ‘The State of the World’s Children’ report released this year estimated that “78,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth” every year in India and that the country was unlikely to achieve the 2015 target.
Amit Mohan Prasad, joint secretary in the Union ministry of health & family welfare, says, “The latest figures have shown that our MMR, which was 301 in 2001-03, has come down to 254 in the 2004-06 period. This is largely due to the success of Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY), which is being seen as a success internationally.” The JSY, which falls under the umbrella of the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM), covers all pregnant women belonging to households below the poverty line and above 19 years of age for up to two live births. JSY integrates ante-natal care, institutional delivery with cash incentives and post-delivery care. “We are open to learning and exchanging ideas,” says Prasad. “Many countries want to adapt some of our intervention methods and we don’t mind studying theirs.”
In Bangladesh, the Australian Aid Programme in 2008-09 achieved positive results in decreasing maternal mortality rates in a pilot project. A 13 per cent decrease in MMR was achieved, from 254 per one lakh live births in 2007 to 221 in 2008 (compared to the national rate of 320). This is seen as a giant leap in checking MMR in Bangladesh. Indian health ministry officials will be travelling to Dhaka to study Bangladesh’s initiative in detail to implement them back at home. “Bangladesh has had very intensified efforts in the areas that record high MMR. Results only come from the betterment of the overall medical system. And since their health system is weaker than ours, we want to study the few things that caused this positive outcome and hopefully implement it,” says a health official.
In India, efforts have focused on increasing the number of institutional deliveries in rural areas, spreading awareness on contraception and family planning and mobilising more skilled health workers. But it’s the cash incentives to delivering a baby in a hospital that have brought more women to hospitals. Prasad insists that since the project only started in 2005, the full results will only show in the next assessment. However, he did not want to comment on the chances of India failing to achieve its 2015 target.
For India, another struggle is against the huge gaps in the healthcare system from state to state. Two-thirds of all the maternal deaths in the country occur in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In these states, the administration of schemes has largely failed. Nepal, on the other hand, has made a giant leap, bringing down MMR from 540 to 280. This is being seen as a result of the legalisation of abortion in 2002. Also, Sri Lanka has the lowest MMR in South Asia at just 27 in 2002. A well-connected maternal healthcare system and a large number of institutional deliveries have led to these results. India could take a few tips from these countries too.
Multinational corporations are lining up products fortified with micronutrients to help fight malnourishment in rural India, but health experts warn against business interests swamping welfare work
REMA NAGARAJAN TIMES INSIGHT GROUP
Conventional wisdom would suggest that malnourished, poverty-stricken people living on less than $2 a day can hardly be of interest to the market. But conventional wisdom could be wrong. Giant multinational food companies are developing products meant to specifically tackle the fallout of prolonged hunger, such as micronutrient deficiency and anaemia. Think of any big name in food and you can bet it’s there in the throng reaching out to the starving billions.
But why would Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), Britannia and Danone be keen to sell beverage and food products containing micronutrients like vitamin A, zinc and iron at rockbottom prices?
The answer lies in the numbers. Over a billion hungry people globally, and more than two billion anaemic. India alone boasts the world’s largest undernourished population — over 200 million. To the food industry, these figures would mean the mantra of ‘low margin, high volume sales’ of fortified products is viable. As a bonus, the company would also be building brand value by undertaking the responsibility of helping those in distress.
Tying up with NGOs provides the entry point to create impact on the minds of rural India. For instance, Coca-Cola is marketing Vitingo, a micronutrient fortified orange-flavoured beverage, in partnership with Laxmi Priya Enterprises, a sister concern of Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA), a leading NGO micro-finance institution in Orissa, with a beneficiary base of over 5,00,000. The pilot project entails Vitingo sachets being distributed using self-help groups. Coca-Cola says the effort is aimed at building a sustainable, not-forprofit business “wherein we would market beverages enriched with micronutrients targeted at the bottom of the socio economic pyramid”.
Coke seems upbeat about its prospects after the success of a pilot in Sambalpur district of Orissa. Considering micronutrient deficiencies can impair cognitive development, lower resistance to disease in children and adults, and increase risks for both mothers and infants during childbirth, Coke would expect the new initiative to generate both goodwill and sales.
For most corporates, such rural initiatives are also a learning process, which helps them understand new markets that are extremely price sensitive or culture specific. Pepsi, too, is looking at the NGO route to push a drink to be launched next year, which it claims can reduce the incidence of anaemia among women in rural India. It is hoping to distribute the drink through local health centres.
The poor themselves might not be able to afford even these products despite the low pricing, but the companies have an eye on humanitarian agencies and government-run health programmes to market them. Bagging a government contract could mean immediate sales running into millions.
In recent years, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a private sector coalition, has been using its ties with UNICEF to persuade governments to allow more food fortification. The GAIN Business Alliance, chaired by Unilever, also helps conduct surveys to help member companies assess feeding practices and gauge the market for complementary and supplementary food. “Unilever has been working in partnership with GAIN since 2005, and has been very actively involved in food fortification programmes of GAIN in various countries, including India. As well as its strongly-principled stance, Unilever has a vested interest in the health, education and success of consumers in all our markets,” says a Unilever spokesperson.
But public health experts insist that such concerted efforts to combat malnutrition are only driven by business interests and lobbies rather than any serious attempt at addressing poverty, hunger and poor health. A paper published this month in the journal Lancet, titled ‘Nutrition in Early Life-Global Priority’, warns that the limited funding for combating undernutrition is being dominated by programmes for food aid and micronutrient supplementation. “Although such programmes have a definite role in some circumstances, one would also like to see strong investments in community-based approaches — like the promotion of breastfeeding and appropriate complementary foods — which have well-established effects on child survival and nutritional status,” says the paper.
Dr B Sasikeran, director of the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, says, “Obviously, they are not interested in the public good. They are commercial entities after all.” Whenever the institute has done clinical trials to determine the efficacy of micronutrient supplementation, the children’s group in the trial that was not given the supplement showed almost as much improvement as the group getting the supplement. Dr Sesikeran explains why this happens: “During a trial, you monitor both groups closely, ensuring they get the same kind of balanced diet, that the children undergo regular deworming and so on. With balanced food and good healthcare, even those without the supplements are bound to do well.” Dr Sesikeran adds that this only proved that public health/nutrition schemes could show substantial results even without supplements if only they were monitored and implemented properly.
Essentially, the case made by experts is for the need to build efficient public or community-based distribution mechanisms that can deliver commodities like oil, fresh vegetables and milk to supplement staple foods. “When we talk of food, we talk of rice and wheat, which only takes care of hunger. Once we take care of hunger, we have to talk of more oil and green vegetables in the diet to take care of micronutrient deficiency,” says Umesh Kapil, professor of Public Nutrition at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Nutritionists also point out that if there is no food in the stomach to provide the base, nutrients are of little use and hence supplements alone would not work for the hungry. But international agencies looking for ways to tackle undernourishment in large sections of the population are often accused of encouraging quick-fix solutions through promotion of fortified foods. Dr Neeraj Sethi, senior advisor (health), Planning Commission, pointed out at a conference on micronutrient deficiencies that emphasis is shifting to fortification and supplementation, ignoring the importance of sustainable child feeding practices like exclusive breastfeeding till six months, safe drinking water and sanitation, and deworming of children at regular intervals.
The arguments are yet to be resolved, but clearly the issue is one that will loom over the fate of future generations. After all, the largest section of the world’s undernourished population is in India and most of them are young children.
(With additional inputs
from Rupali Mukherjee and
Namrata Singh)
THE UNDERBELLY OF THE MARKET
Corporate majors are selling a range of fortified products at competitive prices or distributing them free of cost
COCA-COLA launched Vitingo, a micronutrient fortified orange-flavoured beverage in Orissa this year, jointly with an NGO micro-finance institution
PEPSI is expected to launch an ultra-cheap soft drink that could cost just Rs 1 or 2 per serve at the beginning of next year. The drink, it is said, will reduce incidence of anaemia among women in rural India
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER has launched Brooke Bond Sehatmand in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, a tea brand expected to fulfill vitamin needs in the lower strata of society. It claims three cups of the tea guarantee delivery of 50 per cent of the recommended dietary allowance of added B Vitamins required by a person
DANONE launched Shaktidoi, sweet curd fortified with iron and vitamins, in 2006 in partnership with Grameen in Bangladesh, selling it at five to seven taka per pot
BRITANNIA started working with an NGO to distribute fortified biscuits — Tiger with Iron-Zor — free of cost to children living in slums in Haryana. Its projects are primarily aimed at tackling iron deficiency in towns and rural areas. The iron-fortified biscuits are also sold elsewhere in the country
ECONOCOM FOODS sells Epap, a pre-cooked maize-based food, highly fortified with 28 nutrients, developed to address Africa’s food and nutrition problem
OUTLOOK ( 2/11/09)Women: Maternal Mortality-Expecting Hope
Bangladesh offers India a healthcare lesson by Amba Batra Bakshi
Lifestart
* The maternal mortality rate (MMR) in India is 254 per 1 lakh live births (2004-2006), down from 301 in 2001-2003
* India has set itself an MMR target of 109 by 2015, which Unicef says the country will not be able to achieve
* India wants to see how Bangladesh brought down MMR
* Indian health officials will travel to Bangladesh to study that country’s intervention models
Despite efforts by the government to arrest the alarming maternal mortality rate (MMR) in India, progress has been very slow in the past few years. Outlook has now learnt the government is considering taking a leaf out of Bangladesh’s efforts at containing maternal mortality. India’s MMR is currently 254 per one lakh live births; the target is to take that figure to 109 by 2015. Unicef’s ‘The State of the World’s Children’ report released this year estimated that “78,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth” every year in India and that the country was unlikely to achieve the 2015 target.
Amit Mohan Prasad, joint secretary in the Union ministry of health & family welfare, says, “The latest figures have shown that our MMR, which was 301 in 2001-03, has come down to 254 in the 2004-06 period. This is largely due to the success of Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY), which is being seen as a success internationally.” The JSY, which falls under the umbrella of the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM), covers all pregnant women belonging to households below the poverty line and above 19 years of age for up to two live births. JSY integrates ante-natal care, institutional delivery with cash incentives and post-delivery care. “We are open to learning and exchanging ideas,” says Prasad. “Many countries want to adapt some of our intervention methods and we don’t mind studying theirs.”
In Bangladesh, the Australian Aid Programme in 2008-09 achieved positive results in decreasing maternal mortality rates in a pilot project. A 13 per cent decrease in MMR was achieved, from 254 per one lakh live births in 2007 to 221 in 2008 (compared to the national rate of 320). This is seen as a giant leap in checking MMR in Bangladesh. Indian health ministry officials will be travelling to Dhaka to study Bangladesh’s initiative in detail to implement them back at home. “Bangladesh has had very intensified efforts in the areas that record high MMR. Results only come from the betterment of the overall medical system. And since their health system is weaker than ours, we want to study the few things that caused this positive outcome and hopefully implement it,” says a health official.
In India, efforts have focused on increasing the number of institutional deliveries in rural areas, spreading awareness on contraception and family planning and mobilising more skilled health workers. But it’s the cash incentives to delivering a baby in a hospital that have brought more women to hospitals. Prasad insists that since the project only started in 2005, the full results will only show in the next assessment. However, he did not want to comment on the chances of India failing to achieve its 2015 target.
For India, another struggle is against the huge gaps in the healthcare system from state to state. Two-thirds of all the maternal deaths in the country occur in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In these states, the administration of schemes has largely failed. Nepal, on the other hand, has made a giant leap, bringing down MMR from 540 to 280. This is being seen as a result of the legalisation of abortion in 2002. Also, Sri Lanka has the lowest MMR in South Asia at just 27 in 2002. A well-connected maternal healthcare system and a large number of institutional deliveries have led to these results. India could take a few tips from these countries too.
TOI ,Crest ( 24/10/09) -THE FAIR SEX - UP & DOWN.
The new guard
The rifles may have felt a little heavy the first time they slung it over their shoulders, but the BSF’s first female contingent of border guards is learning to live with the weight of the Insas and high expectations. The LoC may not have turned safer overnight, but the women in uniform sure are making a difference
RAMANINDER K BHATIA TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Every afternoon, Sukhwinder Kaur and her mother sat down to watch the afternoon soap in their sparsely furnished Hoshiarpur home but now that seems like a memory from another lifetime. Though Kaur and the other girls in her Khasa camp have been given a TV set, they are no longer interested in all the twists and turns of the family melodrama. The 22-year-old has plenty more to keep track of these days. Part of the BSF’s first female contingent of border guards, one of her main responsibilities is guarding the treacherous Indo-Pak border at Punjab’s Attari, and ensuring there is no smuggling of contraband.
“It feels different to have such a huge responsibility,” Sukhwinder says, brushing a speck off her crisp uniform. “Life has changed for all of us. So have the priorities and notions of fear and safety. The country is all we have time to care for.” The women took charge in September after receiving training in weapon handling, intelligence gathering, border management, unarmed combat, frisking and guard duties.
They rise at 5.30 am and after a quick breakfast, usually rotis and subzi at the Other Ranks mess, rush to collect their weapons from the armoury. They then report for duty, and are ferried to their respective posts. After an entire day of checking and frisking, they reach the Attari border checkpost in the evening to report for crowd control duty during the Beating of the Retreat ceremony. Back on campus by 7.30 pm, most are ready to hit the sack after spending a little quality time with their fellows.
“Who has the energy or interest to watch TV serials after all this?’’ asks Amandeep Kaur, another recruit from among the 640 women who graduated this year from the BSF’s subsidiary training camp at Kharkan, Punjab, after a 36-week preparatory period.
Though they took positions at the forward post to a tumultuous welcome from society and the government — followed, of course, by a media frenzy — most are still adjusting to a rough job at the 500 km-long border. A majority of them are barely out of their teens, excited as ever to wear a new nose ring or get their hands painted with henna.
The first shock came days after they began work. Four rockets fired from Pakistan landed in nearby villages, forming deep craters. Many had never seen such a thing before. There was more. Soon after the missile incident, a clutch of vernacular papers carried stories, apparently quoting a Pakistani news site, that insinuated the women had been drafted for the pleasure of the male soldiers. The motive was all too clear, but the bullet missed its target. “Those were attempts to demoralise us,” Sukhdeep Kaur says. “But they failed miserably. If they so much as try to eye our border, our guns are ready.”
As she frisks women farmers queuing up at gate number 112 in Daoke village, Amritsar, Sukhdeep orders one woman to let her hair down, and asks another to take off her shoes. “We have to do this,” she explains. “It is easy to hide a small phone or a SIM card and get it across the border,” she adds. The BSF has deployed women guards to improve security checks on the border, as women are being used increasingly to smuggle narcotics.
As an afterthought, Sukhdeep says, “The nearest Pakistani village, Kot Jaimal Singh, is barely a kilometre away from where we stand. You can even see farmers across the border tending to their almost-ripe crop. There is nothing to suggest these are two different countries. Even the height of the paddy on both sides is the same.”
But it’s not just the women who have to make adjustments. Their male counterparts too are busy getting used to women in their midst. “The men went through a reorientation programme and were briefed before the women were inducted. They are quite mindful of the women’s privacy while treating them as colleagues. Fortunately, nothing amiss has been reported till now,” said IG (BSF) Himmat Singh.
If there is anxiety in some quarters, there is reassurance from others. “The women are disciplined and eager to work for their country. How can we not acknowledge and respect that?” says assistant commandant Aman Tirkey. “They are like our daughters and sisters. And most of us, whether male or female, have come from a similar background.”
Apart from the crush and grind of daily work that unites them, there is something else that all the women agree on — being the first lot of women to guard India’s borders is a matter of huge pride. “I have two younger brothers, both still in school, and my father is a farmer who tills three acres of land in Mansa,” says Satveer Kaur. “I still remember what my father said the first time he saw me in my uniform. He said I was the eldest son. That meant everything to me. I don’t mind the arduous patrolling anymore. I come from a place where girls have traditionally been considered inferior, even killed in the womb for a male child.”
Chirpy and bright, 20-year-old Rajwant Kaur from Gurdaspur insists she’s got an even better compliment. A smile spreading across her pretty face, she says, “I met a child sometime ago at Raja Ka Pul village, a stone’s throw from the last Indian railway station at Attari. She said she wanted to be like me, wear a uniform and carry a gun, when she grows up.”
End of the line for Gujarat’s women coolies
For 130 years, women porters at Bhavnagar railway station battled both load and prejudice. Now, the ladies are about to be red-flagged
HIMANSHU KAUSHIK TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Saari duniya ka bojh hum uthate hai, log aate hain, chale jate hain. Hum yahin par khade reh jate hain.” (We carry the weight of the entire world, people come and go but we remain here)
— Amitabh Bachchan in Coolie
Thirty-six-year old Jayshree Vala, one of the 15 women coolies at the Bhavnagar railway station in Gujarat, is a huge Bachchan fan and likes to repeat this dialogue from the 1983 film. But unlike the actor who could firmly say coolies will always be at the station, Jayshree, perhaps the last of this city’s women porters, is losing confidence. Interestingly, Bhavnagar is the only city in the country where all the porters are women.
Butrailway authorities are now showing the red flag. Officials say that railway rules allow badges to be transferred only to male heirs. They also claim that those who have applied for renewal of licences have been told so in writing. In the eyes of the railways, therefore, the women porters are operating illegally.
There’s another reason why the railways want to recruit male coolies.
Bhavnagar station is expanding to accommodate increased passenger traffic and the general consensus is that women cannot transport goods from the original platform to the two new ones which are now being used for passenger trains. Divisional manager Deepak Chabra says, “It is physically not possible for women to carry heavy luggage from one platform to another.”
The 130-year-old tradition of women porters began in 1880 when the original group of firebrand women coolies stormed this male bastion and got their badges from the Maharaja of Bhavnagar, Krishna Pratapsinhji. The king had, in a revolutionary move, decided to employ three women porters at the station.
In time, it became a tradition for women porters to hand down their badges or armbands to their daughters or daughters-in-law. Today, the badges are considered a legacy passed on through generations — something to be flaunted on their arms with pride. Jayshree, who was given her badge by her mother-in-law Tara Amrutlal, said, “When she was on her death bed, she handed over this badge and her red sari to me. She made me promise that I would keep the tradition alive.”
Vasant Jamnadas, 50, who got her badge from her mother Gangaba, agrees that theirs is a labour of love. “We make just about Rs 30 per day and can earn much more if we work as domestic help. But we have carried on this tradition because we value this work and cannot imagine life away from the railway station,” she said. Vasant does not have children and has decided to give her badge to her brother’s daughter-in-law.
For Hira Jaikrishna, the oldest porter at the station at 70, the imminent death of Bhavnagar’s glorious tradition is also a great loss to the city’s culture. “When I first started working, the station was surrounded by woods and only horse-driven tongas operated here. The forest has now given way to a busy marketplace and the tongas to taxis. Everything has changed, but the women coolies have stayed on. However, I am not sure if we will be here much longer,” she said sadly.
There is still hope in the hearts of a few of the women, like Jayshree, who say they are trying hard to get the badges transferred to their names. But they may be fighting a losing battle.
The rifles may have felt a little heavy the first time they slung it over their shoulders, but the BSF’s first female contingent of border guards is learning to live with the weight of the Insas and high expectations. The LoC may not have turned safer overnight, but the women in uniform sure are making a difference
RAMANINDER K BHATIA TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Every afternoon, Sukhwinder Kaur and her mother sat down to watch the afternoon soap in their sparsely furnished Hoshiarpur home but now that seems like a memory from another lifetime. Though Kaur and the other girls in her Khasa camp have been given a TV set, they are no longer interested in all the twists and turns of the family melodrama. The 22-year-old has plenty more to keep track of these days. Part of the BSF’s first female contingent of border guards, one of her main responsibilities is guarding the treacherous Indo-Pak border at Punjab’s Attari, and ensuring there is no smuggling of contraband.
“It feels different to have such a huge responsibility,” Sukhwinder says, brushing a speck off her crisp uniform. “Life has changed for all of us. So have the priorities and notions of fear and safety. The country is all we have time to care for.” The women took charge in September after receiving training in weapon handling, intelligence gathering, border management, unarmed combat, frisking and guard duties.
They rise at 5.30 am and after a quick breakfast, usually rotis and subzi at the Other Ranks mess, rush to collect their weapons from the armoury. They then report for duty, and are ferried to their respective posts. After an entire day of checking and frisking, they reach the Attari border checkpost in the evening to report for crowd control duty during the Beating of the Retreat ceremony. Back on campus by 7.30 pm, most are ready to hit the sack after spending a little quality time with their fellows.
“Who has the energy or interest to watch TV serials after all this?’’ asks Amandeep Kaur, another recruit from among the 640 women who graduated this year from the BSF’s subsidiary training camp at Kharkan, Punjab, after a 36-week preparatory period.
Though they took positions at the forward post to a tumultuous welcome from society and the government — followed, of course, by a media frenzy — most are still adjusting to a rough job at the 500 km-long border. A majority of them are barely out of their teens, excited as ever to wear a new nose ring or get their hands painted with henna.
The first shock came days after they began work. Four rockets fired from Pakistan landed in nearby villages, forming deep craters. Many had never seen such a thing before. There was more. Soon after the missile incident, a clutch of vernacular papers carried stories, apparently quoting a Pakistani news site, that insinuated the women had been drafted for the pleasure of the male soldiers. The motive was all too clear, but the bullet missed its target. “Those were attempts to demoralise us,” Sukhdeep Kaur says. “But they failed miserably. If they so much as try to eye our border, our guns are ready.”
As she frisks women farmers queuing up at gate number 112 in Daoke village, Amritsar, Sukhdeep orders one woman to let her hair down, and asks another to take off her shoes. “We have to do this,” she explains. “It is easy to hide a small phone or a SIM card and get it across the border,” she adds. The BSF has deployed women guards to improve security checks on the border, as women are being used increasingly to smuggle narcotics.
As an afterthought, Sukhdeep says, “The nearest Pakistani village, Kot Jaimal Singh, is barely a kilometre away from where we stand. You can even see farmers across the border tending to their almost-ripe crop. There is nothing to suggest these are two different countries. Even the height of the paddy on both sides is the same.”
But it’s not just the women who have to make adjustments. Their male counterparts too are busy getting used to women in their midst. “The men went through a reorientation programme and were briefed before the women were inducted. They are quite mindful of the women’s privacy while treating them as colleagues. Fortunately, nothing amiss has been reported till now,” said IG (BSF) Himmat Singh.
If there is anxiety in some quarters, there is reassurance from others. “The women are disciplined and eager to work for their country. How can we not acknowledge and respect that?” says assistant commandant Aman Tirkey. “They are like our daughters and sisters. And most of us, whether male or female, have come from a similar background.”
Apart from the crush and grind of daily work that unites them, there is something else that all the women agree on — being the first lot of women to guard India’s borders is a matter of huge pride. “I have two younger brothers, both still in school, and my father is a farmer who tills three acres of land in Mansa,” says Satveer Kaur. “I still remember what my father said the first time he saw me in my uniform. He said I was the eldest son. That meant everything to me. I don’t mind the arduous patrolling anymore. I come from a place where girls have traditionally been considered inferior, even killed in the womb for a male child.”
Chirpy and bright, 20-year-old Rajwant Kaur from Gurdaspur insists she’s got an even better compliment. A smile spreading across her pretty face, she says, “I met a child sometime ago at Raja Ka Pul village, a stone’s throw from the last Indian railway station at Attari. She said she wanted to be like me, wear a uniform and carry a gun, when she grows up.”
End of the line for Gujarat’s women coolies
For 130 years, women porters at Bhavnagar railway station battled both load and prejudice. Now, the ladies are about to be red-flagged
HIMANSHU KAUSHIK TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Saari duniya ka bojh hum uthate hai, log aate hain, chale jate hain. Hum yahin par khade reh jate hain.” (We carry the weight of the entire world, people come and go but we remain here)
— Amitabh Bachchan in Coolie
Thirty-six-year old Jayshree Vala, one of the 15 women coolies at the Bhavnagar railway station in Gujarat, is a huge Bachchan fan and likes to repeat this dialogue from the 1983 film. But unlike the actor who could firmly say coolies will always be at the station, Jayshree, perhaps the last of this city’s women porters, is losing confidence. Interestingly, Bhavnagar is the only city in the country where all the porters are women.
Butrailway authorities are now showing the red flag. Officials say that railway rules allow badges to be transferred only to male heirs. They also claim that those who have applied for renewal of licences have been told so in writing. In the eyes of the railways, therefore, the women porters are operating illegally.
There’s another reason why the railways want to recruit male coolies.
Bhavnagar station is expanding to accommodate increased passenger traffic and the general consensus is that women cannot transport goods from the original platform to the two new ones which are now being used for passenger trains. Divisional manager Deepak Chabra says, “It is physically not possible for women to carry heavy luggage from one platform to another.”
The 130-year-old tradition of women porters began in 1880 when the original group of firebrand women coolies stormed this male bastion and got their badges from the Maharaja of Bhavnagar, Krishna Pratapsinhji. The king had, in a revolutionary move, decided to employ three women porters at the station.
In time, it became a tradition for women porters to hand down their badges or armbands to their daughters or daughters-in-law. Today, the badges are considered a legacy passed on through generations — something to be flaunted on their arms with pride. Jayshree, who was given her badge by her mother-in-law Tara Amrutlal, said, “When she was on her death bed, she handed over this badge and her red sari to me. She made me promise that I would keep the tradition alive.”
Vasant Jamnadas, 50, who got her badge from her mother Gangaba, agrees that theirs is a labour of love. “We make just about Rs 30 per day and can earn much more if we work as domestic help. But we have carried on this tradition because we value this work and cannot imagine life away from the railway station,” she said. Vasant does not have children and has decided to give her badge to her brother’s daughter-in-law.
For Hira Jaikrishna, the oldest porter at the station at 70, the imminent death of Bhavnagar’s glorious tradition is also a great loss to the city’s culture. “When I first started working, the station was surrounded by woods and only horse-driven tongas operated here. The forest has now given way to a busy marketplace and the tongas to taxis. Everything has changed, but the women coolies have stayed on. However, I am not sure if we will be here much longer,” she said sadly.
There is still hope in the hearts of a few of the women, like Jayshree, who say they are trying hard to get the badges transferred to their names. But they may be fighting a losing battle.
TOI ,Crest, ( 24/10/09) Interesting tit bits.
‘Shara’a Simsim’ teaches Palestinian kids they can achieve their dream of a Palestinian state through tolerance, education and national pride — and not anti-Israeli violence through puppetry among other things.
Farmers in Las Gaviotas, a Colombian village founded in the arid eastern plains 40 years ago, use a special tool to plant pines that produce resin for biofuel.
Farmers in Las Gaviotas, a Colombian village founded in the arid eastern plains 40 years ago, use a special tool to plant pines that produce resin for biofuel.
TOI ,Crest ( 24/10/09) -SMS LINGO.
This ain’t TMI, sorry for the confuzzlement
Like George Orwell, GenNow believes the function of language is to communicate clearly. And quick messaging requires crunching and compressing words. But what on earth does tenjewberymuds mean?
MAHAFREED IRANI TIMES NEWS NETWORK
GLOSSARY
Epic fail/Uber fail: Interjection to show disapproval
Win: Interjection to show approval
Traffucked: To be stuck in traffic
Moobs: Man boobs
TMI: Too much information
Noob: A newbie
Wing it: To do something with no preparation
FLK: Funny little kid
HLC: Hot looking chic
PWN: To defeat, outdo or outmatch someone
Defriend: Social networking terminology for deleting a friend from your network Facepalm: To hit one's own forehead with your hand/palm, and drag it down one’s face; most often done in frustration or agitation
OCSL: On Chair Stifling Laughter
Lollercaust: When a large group of people are ROFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off) at the same joke or event
Tenjewberymuds: Thank you very much
Awesomeness: The quality of being awesome
Confuzzled: Being confused and puzzled
Like George Orwell, GenNow believes the function of language is to communicate clearly. And quick messaging requires crunching and compressing words. But what on earth does tenjewberymuds mean?
MAHAFREED IRANI TIMES NEWS NETWORK
GLOSSARY
Epic fail/Uber fail: Interjection to show disapproval
Win: Interjection to show approval
Traffucked: To be stuck in traffic
Moobs: Man boobs
TMI: Too much information
Noob: A newbie
Wing it: To do something with no preparation
FLK: Funny little kid
HLC: Hot looking chic
PWN: To defeat, outdo or outmatch someone
Defriend: Social networking terminology for deleting a friend from your network Facepalm: To hit one's own forehead with your hand/palm, and drag it down one’s face; most often done in frustration or agitation
OCSL: On Chair Stifling Laughter
Lollercaust: When a large group of people are ROFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off) at the same joke or event
Tenjewberymuds: Thank you very much
Awesomeness: The quality of being awesome
Confuzzled: Being confused and puzzled
TOI, Crest ( 24/10/09)-Diabetes
Fast Facts
• People with pre-diabetes have impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), or both — conditions where blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes
• People with pre-diabetes are five to 15 times more likely to develop Type II diabetes than people with normal glucose values
• Progression to diabetes among those with prediabetes is not inevitable
• People with pre-diabetes who lose body weight and engage in moderate physical activity of at least 150 minutes per week can prevent or delay diabetes and even attain normal blood glucose levels
• If one parent has diabetes, the child has a 33 per cent higher risk of becoming diabetic after the age of 40
• Around 35 per cent of those who suffer from IGT go on to develop diabetes in a period of eight years
• Over the course of a lifetime, as many as 85 per cent of people with IGT, who neither lose weight nor engage in moderate physical activity, will develop diabetes
• The risk of coronary heart disease is at least two to three times higher in patients with pre-diabetes
• Indians convert faster to diabetes from pre-diabetes
How can you reverse pre-diabetes?
Healthy choices of food: Restrict your diet to food with low fat and low calories. Increase your intake of fresh fruits and high fibre vegetables
Lifestyle modification: Keep yourself as active as possible. Use the stairs instead of an elevator. Walk for at least 45 minutes a day and, if possible, practise yoga
Maintain an ideal body weight: People who are overweight develop more complications in the maintenance of normal blood sugar level, so control your weight
Eat smart
Drink at least eight glasses of water a day
Include wholegrains, nuts, raw vegetables and dairy products in your diet
Eat at least five fruits every day, the best being pomegranate and citrus fruits
Try to consume more cucumber, lettuce, onion, garlic, carrot and spinach
Eat a high-fibre diet to lower your body’s need for insulin
Take half a teaspoon of cinnamon twice a day; it has the potential to reduce blood sugar by as much as 50 points
Take bitter gourd (karela) as a juice or in cooked form to boost body glucose tolerance
Include herbs like fenugreek, mustard, neem, turmeric and cumin in your diet to help regulate your blood sugar levels
Foods to avoid
Refined sugar, syrups, jam, ice-cream, cakes, sweet biscuits, chocolates, soft drinks, condensed milk, cream and fried foods
Fats like butter, ghee and hydrogenated vegetable oil should also be avoided
Salt consumption should be reduced to a minimum. Reduce caffeine and alcohol. Have green tea instead
• People with pre-diabetes have impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), or both — conditions where blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes
• People with pre-diabetes are five to 15 times more likely to develop Type II diabetes than people with normal glucose values
• Progression to diabetes among those with prediabetes is not inevitable
• People with pre-diabetes who lose body weight and engage in moderate physical activity of at least 150 minutes per week can prevent or delay diabetes and even attain normal blood glucose levels
• If one parent has diabetes, the child has a 33 per cent higher risk of becoming diabetic after the age of 40
• Around 35 per cent of those who suffer from IGT go on to develop diabetes in a period of eight years
• Over the course of a lifetime, as many as 85 per cent of people with IGT, who neither lose weight nor engage in moderate physical activity, will develop diabetes
• The risk of coronary heart disease is at least two to three times higher in patients with pre-diabetes
• Indians convert faster to diabetes from pre-diabetes
How can you reverse pre-diabetes?
Healthy choices of food: Restrict your diet to food with low fat and low calories. Increase your intake of fresh fruits and high fibre vegetables
Lifestyle modification: Keep yourself as active as possible. Use the stairs instead of an elevator. Walk for at least 45 minutes a day and, if possible, practise yoga
Maintain an ideal body weight: People who are overweight develop more complications in the maintenance of normal blood sugar level, so control your weight
Eat smart
Drink at least eight glasses of water a day
Include wholegrains, nuts, raw vegetables and dairy products in your diet
Eat at least five fruits every day, the best being pomegranate and citrus fruits
Try to consume more cucumber, lettuce, onion, garlic, carrot and spinach
Eat a high-fibre diet to lower your body’s need for insulin
Take half a teaspoon of cinnamon twice a day; it has the potential to reduce blood sugar by as much as 50 points
Take bitter gourd (karela) as a juice or in cooked form to boost body glucose tolerance
Include herbs like fenugreek, mustard, neem, turmeric and cumin in your diet to help regulate your blood sugar levels
Foods to avoid
Refined sugar, syrups, jam, ice-cream, cakes, sweet biscuits, chocolates, soft drinks, condensed milk, cream and fried foods
Fats like butter, ghee and hydrogenated vegetable oil should also be avoided
Salt consumption should be reduced to a minimum. Reduce caffeine and alcohol. Have green tea instead
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