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Cardiac Surgeons and Their Feuds: DeBakey and Cooley

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The second half of the twentieth century was the heyday of cardiac surgery. Inspired by many pioneers working mainly in Europe and North America, new techniques of surgery and even more importantly, new techniques of bypassing the circulation of the heart and lungs, led to a flowering of cardiac surgery which is one of the most important triumphs of medicine. Cardiac surgeons are famously said to be extremely egoistic. I had a teacher who insisted that they had every right to be so, as they were the only humans who could stop and restart the human heart at will. The only other entity who had this ability, he said, was God. Two such egoistic surgeons who were legends in their lifetime and will remain so for centuries to come were Dr Michael De Bakey and Dr Denton Cooley. Dr DeBakey was a decade senior to Dr Cooley. He graduated from Medical School in 1932 and spent time in the Army during the Second World War rising to the post of Colonel. He developed many techniques and was the fi...
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Ramblings in the Darjeeling Terai: The Death of a River

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 (This  was written last year in July)   The monsoon has set in over the past week. It has rained off and on this week and when we leave home the clouds are heavy, threatening to rain at any time. Our first destination today is the Chanta River. According to information available on the internet, it originates in the Mahananda sanctuary, but a Google Earth search suggests that it can be traced up to the Dahukuria area somewhere in the Dagapur region. We turn off from the main road to Shiv Mandir to a smallish road. Initially the road is crowded, small houses and a few apartment buildings. Slowly it becomes a little less crowded and the Chamta River can be seen flowing beside the road. The river is small but there is a good flow. The recent rains have helped to fill the river right up to its banks. A little more rain and it might overflow. Houses have spring up here and there and the river winds around and behind them and there are swampy areas which are more water t...
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Sport and Our Politics

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  Vinesh Phogat  ( from Vinesh Phogat disqualified: What we know so far on Indian wrestler's CAS hearing. 10 points (msn.com) When the Indian wrestler, Vinesh Phogat, was disqualified from her event in the Olympic games, it led to ill-concealed mirth among a section of Indians who are sympathetic to the ruling alliance. The underlying sentiment appeared to be “serve her right”, for having dared to defy the government and one of its minions who used to run the Wrestling Federation of India. The opposition, on the other hand went to town hinting that there was a conspiracy to do her in by the establishment with the tacit encouragement of the powers that be. It reminded me of the last World Cup. Or to be more accurate, the last-to-last World Cup. Cricket World Cups come so thick and fast nowadays that one loses count. I mean the one in which India did so well throughout but lost spectacularly in the finals in its own den. The Prime Minister who had come to bask in the succ...
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Ramblings in the Darjeeling Terai: Elephants in my Backyard

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  This week, three of us visited the Prerna Educational Center in Salugara. The authorities were extremely troubled. On Sunday night, a couple of elephants had entered their grounds, breaking the gate and an adjacent wall. Having done that, they stayed for a long time as the students and staff cowered in the main building. After eating mangoes(!) and jackfruit from the trees in the garden behind the main building, they left as quietly as they had come. Not unnaturally, the authorities were worried. They are in charge of many visually handicapped children. While all the children that we met seemed to be thrilled at their experience, the people in charge of their wellbeing understandably found it frightening that such a thing could occur. And this was not the first time, apparently. Such incursions have been common over the past three years. They had not faced such problems earlier this even though their institution was one of the first in the area when all around them was either g...
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Ramblings in the Darjeeling Terai: A Heronry in Naxalbari

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    Naxalbari is the name that all Indians know. It is surprising really, because it is a small village in the Siliguri Subdivision of the Darjeeling District. It lies close to the Mecchi river and is just a hop, skip and jump away from Nepal. The population, Wikipedia informs me, was 1618 in 2011 when the last census was held. (We have dispensed with the census apparently together with many other things). The reason why everybody knows this name is that this was the place that started the famous Naxalite movement which was to be the Revolutionary Movement that would turn India red. Now it seems risible, but for those who lived through those days, especially in West Bengal still remember the panic created by the CPI (ML) cadres who fought the police, killed indiscriminately in the name of eliminating class enemies and were finally eliminated themselves in a paroxysm of state terror which remains a nightmarish memory and finished off so many young, bright, if misguided young ...
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Rambles in the Darjeeling Terai 1 : The Birth of a River

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  The Darjeeling terai is part of the larger Terai region that extends across the southern foothills of the Himalayas, encompassing parts of northern India and southern Nepal. It is the area lying between the Teesta and Mechi Rivers. It is characterized by the Himalayan foothills, scrub savannah, sal forests, and clay-rich swamps. The region is crossed by several rivers, some of which are perennial and the rest seasonal. This region with all its huge diversity of plants and animals are very accessible to anybody living in Siliguri. However, one needs to have a guide. Those who have lived all their lives in Siliguri are familiar with most of these landscapes but for us Johnny come lately’s it is useful to have someone familiar with the tea gardens and rivers and forests of the region with us. Last year, the monsoon was delayed. In fact, there was practically no rain right from October 2022 until almost the end of June 2023, unlike this year where the rain gods have been kinder. Th...
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Interview : Dr Eklabya Sharma, Ecologist and Padma Shree awardee

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    I interviewed Dr Eklabya Sharma, just a couple of days after the news broke that he had been awarded the Padmashri On behalf of the North Bengal Bird Newsletter. He was very busy, his phone was continuously ringing and on the particular day that we interviewed him, the Chief Minister of Sikkim was scheduled to come to his flat for lunch. Even so, he was kind enough to allot 30 minutes to us for this interview. We sat in the verandah of his third floor flat at Silver Oaks in Matigara with the welcome February sun warming us. It was a free ranging discussion and lasted a lot more than the time he had set aside for us. He talked freely about his journey to this level, his concerns about the environment and his ideas about the mitigation of climate effects (among other things).       NBBN: On behalf of the North Bengal Bird newsletter, allow me to congratulate you on the award of Padmashri. I am sure that I am joined with all our readers and well-wishers...
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Life on the Moon" the first media hoax

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  Sir John Herschel  Sir William Herschel was born in the Electorate of Hanover in what is now Germany, but found fame and fortune in Britain where he emigrated at the age of 19. He is remembered as the person who discovered Uranus and several moons of Saturn and was instrumental, together with his sister Caroline in charting the stars with the help of superb telescopes that he and his sister constructed in their home in Bath, England. His son, Sir John Herschel was also an astronomer and, in a sense continued where he left off. However, today’s story is not of their scientific discoveries, but of how the son, Sir John was used by an unscrupulous newspaper in New York to perpetrate a hoax that led to a sensation in   the United States and the rest of the world and sold more newspapers than any other story in the past. Richard Adams Locke This was the era of the penny press, when cheap, easily available newspapers first began to come into the market. These newspapers wer...
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