Human food is a good supplement to a dog’s diet ...responds to queries raised by animal lovers across the city

Human food is a good supplement to a dog’s diet

...responds to queries raised by animal lovers across the city

How do I choose a dog bed or a dog house? A household pet needs only a padded box or basket. Put the box in an out-of-the-way corner of a room. When you allow your puppy to sleep on your bed, remember as an adult it will demand the same privilege. A dog kept outdoors, requires a house to protect it from heat, wind, rain and cold. The house should be big enough for your pet to stand up and turn around in easily, but not so large that its body heat will not keep it warm. Loose bedding and a cloth flat over the door can help keep your dog snug in cold weather. The house should be built for easy cleaning so that it does not fill up with ticks or fleas. But, no tying up the dog to its house. The dog should go in and out as it pleases. Is human food bad for pets? Not necessarily. Some foods; onions, garlic, raisins, grapes and chocolate can be poisonous for dogs. Especially rich or high-fat foods can trigger a disease called pancreatitis, which is painful, causes vomiting and diarrhoea, among other signs. A lot of salt is also harmful. But human food is a good supplement to a dog’s diet. You can give vegetables, whole grains, yogurt, and biscuits made of wheat. My dog has been licking its paws, scratching a lot, and biting its fur. Why is this? These are all possible signs of allergies or parasite infestation. Look for fleas or ticks or round ringworm circles and then take the dog to a veterinarian for testing for mange mites. What should I do about my cat’s matted fur? Matted fur is a perfect breeding ground for parasites and encourages inflammatory skin diseases. If your cat has matted fur, do not try to cut it off as you may injure the cat. Mats are difficult to comb out and may be painful. You might try bathing and putting a conditioner on the hair so that it becomes softer to comb. But you may have to have the vet shave the cat. Afterwards, brush or comb her daily to prevent mats. How do I keep my cat from scratching furniture? Pepper (black, white, or cayenne) can be applied to furniture and plants to discourage scratching. This does not deter all cats. You can also cover areas with double-sided tape to discourage unwanted scratching. Provide an alternative scratching item. It has to be fairly smooth and shouldn’t be a material that their nails get stuck in. If that happens, they may not use the post anymore. Natural fibre rope wrapped tightly around the post appeals to many cats. Some cats like plain wood; a two-by-four made available may work well. Other cats prefer the kind of “scratching posts” that are horizontal rather than vertical.

EVERY MONSOON brings with it a variety of issues that affect our health. The pitta in the environment increases at this time of year, along with an imbalance of the vata dosha. The monsoon is the best time to balance and pacify both elements in the body.

EVERY MONSOON brings with it a variety of issues that affect our health. The pitta in the environment increases at this time of year, along with an imbalance of the vata dosha. The monsoon is the best time to balance and pacify both elements in the body.
DON’T BE WASHED OUT 

The monsoon is the time for warm vegetable soup and broths (above), as well as bhutta or roasted snacks The imbalance in the pitta dosha can lead to pimples, small skin eruptions, frequent skin infections, oily and scaly scalp and excessive hairfall. Here are some health guidelines for the season.

NUTRITION TIPS
Foods that are ideal for the monsoon include those that promote cooling of the stomach to pacify the pitta dosha, as well as foods that are warm and contain salt, which pacify the vata, and finally, foods that cleanse the body.
Warm vegetable broths and soups are ideal for this time of year. Foods like oat rotis and rotis made with wheat flour and barley are ideal as they help the body lose excess water. Barley is specifically a monsoon food.
Bhutta or roasted snacks are also monsoon-friendly foods. At this time of year, indulge in a variety of snacks like homemade steamed momos, roasted or baked chana, murmura, roasted dals, popcorn and homemade bhelpuri.
Bitter vegetables like neem, bitter gourd, parwal, cluster beans, apple gourd (tinda) and fenugreek are also suitable for the rainy season.
Avoid excessive coffee and tea as it dehydrates the body. Instead, opt for herbal decoctions like tea with ginger powder or mint leaves.
Also, don’t eat too little or too much. It is best to eat five small meals to keep the digestive system at ease.

WHILE EATING OUT
The monsoon is the breeding time for all organisms. Consume only popular items on the restaurant menu and only hot items from street vendors to minimise the risk of infection. Avoid pickles, chutneys and sauces that are sweet and have been kept for a while at room temperature as they could be loaded with harmful microorganisms. Frozen foods like ice cream must be consumed fresh out of the freezer as milk is a very rich ground for breeding bacteria.
Avoid non-vegetarian food in the monsoon. Drink clean and pure water as waterborne monsoon diseases like diarrhea and gastrointestinal infections are common. Drinking boiled water at home is strongly recommended as opposed to tap water.

FOR UPSET STOMACHS
Drink plenty of liquids like nimbu paani with a pinch of salt and a little sugar or coconut water (it has the best electrolyte balance).
Always keep oral rehydration salts sachets handy to prevent dehydration.

FOR COUGHS AND COLDS
These natural remedies are excellent:

Add half tsp of turmeric (haldi) to one cup of milk, consume thrice daily.
Add a small piece of crushed ginger or a few tulsi and mint leaves to tea.
Inhaling steam with neem and tulsi leaves helps in clearing up sinuses. Gargle with salt water thrice a day. Drink fresh radish juice.

HAIR TIPS
Avoid using too many hair products and use a mild herbal shampoo and gentle conditioner.
Use a salve/mask of aloe vera, neem, triphala powder, mehendi and shikakai on hair.
Eat a protein-enriched diet along with plenty of fruits and vegetables.

SKIN TIPS
Use a natural mung dal paste face scrub twice a week to exfoliate skin.
Avoid heavy moisturising creams or oily foundations and cream-based colour makeup.
Walking in dirty water during the rainy season can lead to numerous fungal infections that can affect toes and nails. Always keep your feet dry and clean.

PRACTICAL ADVICE
Wash your hands before eating or feeding kids, or use hand sanitisers.
Wash fruits and vegetables properly to clean dirt and bacteria from them. Leafy vegetables should be cleaned with more attention as they may contain worms and larvae.
Opt for a light nutrition diet, including cereals, and cook vegetables in minimum oil. Oily, fried food is difficult to digest.
To avoid water retention, do not eat sour food like pickles, tamarind and chutneys which add zing to the meal but become heavy in the body.
Add pipali and rock salt to warm water to reduce mucous formation. This can be the best natural cure for monsoon ailments.

It really doesn’t matter what you wear; you can be a feminist in both a sari and a skirt

It really doesn’t matter what you wear; you can be a feminist in both a sari and a skirt

 WOMEN AND clothes. It really doesn’t get more complicated than that. There’s conflicting advice coming from every corner. Everyone has an opinion on what you should or should not wear (and where you should or should not wear it). There are people who seem to believe that your choice of outfit has a direct connection with your personal safety. But no matter how much care you take to dress every morning – or evening – you can rest assured that there will always be someone out there who believes that in those clothes, you are simply asking for it.
NOT ME, REALLY! At work, I veered towards sartorial safety. I couldn’t be that girl in shorts, who thought she was striking a blow against patriarchy by showing off her legs As for me, all through my life, I have tended to take the path of least resistance when it came to clothes. Growing up in Calcutta, where I went to a school and college run by nuns, there was a certain assumption that ‘good girls’ always dressed conservatively. And quite frankly, I never had a problem with that. I wore salwar kameezes and churidar kurtas routinely and felt incredibly grown-up whenever I wore a sari on special occasions.
Looking back, I often wonder why more of us Loreto girls didn’t rebel against the unspoken dress code that even outlawed something as tame as pedal-pushers (if you have no idea what these are, consider yourself lucky). My guess is that it was mostly because we never really paid that much attention to what we wore. We didn’t see clothes as a means to making some sort of political statement. And I most certainly didn’t think that they defined who I was in any manner.
Clothes definitely did not make this woman, I would have said if I had given any thought to the matter. But quite honestly, I never did. I had more important things to think about (like when I would finally get through the interminable James Joyce opus; and why I could never keep all the characters in War and peace straight in my head).
After college, I began working at the ABP group, which – in those days at least – was a bastion of orthodoxy. All the women wore saris to work (only one lady with a particularly racy reputation would wear tight kurtas with trousers, which was regarded as the height of daring) and I duly took my cue from them before relaxing into the odd salwar-kameez and finally graduating to that old journo standby, blue jeans.
However I may have dressed on my time off, at work I always veered towards the line of sartorial safety. I would no more have worn jeans and a T-shirt to cover an election rally in a rural area than I would have worn a bikini to an official banquet at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The idea was always to blend in, to seem non-threatening. If I was going to be the proverbial fly on the wall, then I had to be a cipher, nondescript enough to disappear into the background. I couldn’t be that girl in Bermuda shorts, who thought she was striking a blow against patriarchy by showing off her legs.

But then, these are choices that most women of my generation made because we wanted to be taken seriously – and we had bigger battles to fight. So, we wanted attention to be focused on our brains rather than our bodies. And we wanted the conversation to be about our talent and professional abilities rather than our clothes.
I guess we’ve come a long way from that (er, baby, as the sexist Sixties line would have it). And in a way it is comforting that we now take enough of our freedoms for granted to finally be able to have that conversation about clothes. At some level, I suppose it must be seen as a sign of progress that women are all charged up to fight for their right to wear a mini-skirt and not be leered at.
But speaking for myself, I still find the idea of a SlutWalk risible in the Indian context, when women in rural areas who are wrapped up in six yards of fabric get sexually molested, assaulted and raped every day. And call me sexist if you will, but I find it hard to sympathise when women complain of being leered at after putting their breasts out on display in their latest push-up bras. Hell, there are times when even I gawp in horrified fascination at those acres of cleavage on display, so I’m not one to point fingers.
When it comes to clothes, though, I think the common-sense argument is the most compelling one. Of course, you can wear what you like. Of course, you can go where you like while you’re wearing it. And of course, nobody has the right to molest or rape you because of the way you’re dressed. But there is such a thing as ‘appropriate dressing’, and we would be fools to deny it just to sound politically correct. For instance, I still wouldn’t wear a short skirt to a political press conference. And I certainly wouldn’t wear a skimpy top while reporting from a rural area.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that clothes are really not that important. Because what you wear is not who you are. So, let’s not make the mistake of believing that our identity is wrapped up in our clothes. It is possible to be a feminist in a sari as well as a skirt – and we should never

THE GREAT TABLET SHOOTOUT BEGINS...

The success of Google’s Nexus 7 will ensure more innovative products at competitive prices

 THE WEEK started off with a bang with two particular headlines that stood out. The first: Samsung has sold 10 million Galaxy S3 phone units. This was big news not just because of the astounding numbers but also because it was done a week before the target was to be achieved. The claim now by Samsung is that they will manage selling 19 million phones by autumn (just around the time the iPhone 5 should be out). Thus the ‘Best Phone in the World’ title now has two big contenders.
The other piece of news that made the world sit up was the discovery that the Google Nexus 7 Tablet is almost sold out. The 16GB is all gone and the 8GB stock is nearly all out.
It appears as if Google either wasn’t expecting such runaway success or that production can’t keep up to demand. Either way, this is great news for consumers as serious contenders in the Tablet market will make sure that the competition will bring in even more innovative products at better prices.

But within this ‘happy news for consumers’ headline were buried many questions and other concerns.
The Google Nexus 7 has truly set the cat amongst the pigeons. It’s an almost no-compromise Tablet at an extraordinary price, and has thus shaken the foundation of all other players. Even those that would never have dreamed of an Android device are looking forward to giving it a shot.
In the last month, the questions I’ve been asked – incessantly, and without a break – is when does this device come to India, how does it really compare to the other big guns and is it really all it’s hyped to be?
Here’s a comparison shootout chart of the top contenders in the Tablet market, now and in the future.

A few things stand out in the chart:
The iPad is still king of the displays with its eyebending retina screen and astounding PPI (pixels per inch). But the real marvel in the new iPad may well be its battery. Nothing comes even close. Look at the mAh they’ve packed into that case. Battery life will be an important criterion for all future Tablet buyers. The Nexus is number 2 here.
Tablet cameras more or less suck. Some don’t even have one, some have a front or back one and that too a very average one. Once again, just the iPad has something worthwhile in specs – but in real life even the new iPad camera doesn’t perform well. The Nexus 7 has a front camera (which is good), but it isn’t an optical wonder.
Most Tablets don’t really have much scope to go thinner and frankly there’s really nothing to choose from as each, irrespective of screen size, is almost the same as the other.

The market will get divided into 7-inchers and bigger. The weight of a 7-incher is almost half (see chart) of that of a bigger screen device. Thus it’s not just size but weight that will also tilt the scale in terms of true portability. Apple will have to come out with a 7-inch Tablet soon, as will Microsoft.
The Nexus 7 is the lightest at just 340 gms, and at this price point is the only Tablet to have a quad-core processor.
Thus, the above does prove that the Nexus 7 has some things that truly stand out and some that are adequate to take on the competition. Thus the much hyped term ‘the no-compromise economy Tablet’ is fitting for it. Also floating in are concerns that many Nexus 7 units have dead pixels and also the screen isn’t fitting into the case very well. Early reports are saying these manufacturing problems are very isolated, yet it does bring up the other big question. Can Google really continue to deliver a perfect device at this perfect price? Should you wait for the Nexus 7 to launch in India? Will it be worth waiting it out? At about the
R10,000 mark – this device has literally no competition. Will they be able to control quality as well as deliver devices in tune with demand? Now that is the billion dollar question!

Let the kids take on responsibilities

Let the kids take on responsibilities

Parenting gets better, perhaps easier as the kids get older… or does it really? We no longer have to hold their little hands when they are crossing the road — instead we just end up doing different things for the bachchas who are now in a different age bracket. One thing that happens as they grow older though – and this is happening at a younger age than earlier – is that children seem to think that they have control of their lives, and can so control the world and its aunt around them. Control – the operative word that drives our lives in almost all its aspects, and most so in our relationship with our kids. As they are growing up, it is only natural for us to initially control what they eat, then what they do, what they watch on TV and sometimes even the friends they make. Our subtle and not so subtle control works well (or so we think) until they realise (which is also now happening earlier than before) that they can exercise a choice. Children do this from even before they can speak – indicating their likes and dislikes by crying. In their infant stage, since we are busy inculcating a routine and most important values, we tend to take it in our stride, interpreting their signals/words the way we want. Giving in sometimes, at others making the kid toe our line of what is right and what is wrong. It is when they are old enough – and mature enough – to know right from wrong, correct from incorrect – then perhaps we have done our job well and can breathe easy. Till then parenting is a rollercoaster – albeit an enjoyable one. For soon you realise that they have grown up enough to be treated as equals. Recently, two occasions showed me how – despite our daily volcanic eruptions, long distance arguments and busy-with-my-schedule routines – mutual affection knits us together. A few weeks ago, I turned a year older… and since it was a landmark year, Aakanksha turned up in town braving an immense toothpain. A visit to the dentist, which she did alone, indicated an emergency extraction was needed. She had it done, returned home, and after a short nap, plunged happily into the business of celebration. So what if while we ate pasta and garlic toast, she was ingesting soft curd rice? D-day thankfully loomed better and the feasting continued to a family lunch on Sabbath. A flurry of activity between the three (Aakanksha, Gaurav and my niece Jyotsna) resulted in a cake with a lovely message on it. They had written all the ways I have been addressed over the years on it….. “Mom, don’t cry!” they sternly warned before the waterfall erupted. Ah, kids! Just last week, I went down with viral infection. One evening – the day Mumbai got caught in traffic snarls – I reached home after a two hour drive with fever. Two of Aakanksha’s friends – Tanvi and Mitalee – took me to the hospital for a blood test, and while I was waiting there, my daughter called. After giving her a quick update, I wished aloud that she were here. “Mom,” she said, “It is your son who has called me up and told me you are ill.” The kids’ network sustained me right through till I was back to my normal irritating ‘Mommy’ self. This is only to say that in nuclear families where most of us live with our children, it becomes but natural that roles change when kids begin to realise their responsibilities. From the kiddy game of playing ‘House, house’, they seamlessly take on more responsibilities when the need arises. All we need to do is let them do their bit. It is only then that they will learn and realise what needs be done – and whether we say it or not, we are proud of them.

Which are the world’s smartest countries?

Which are the world’s smartest countries? Which country has the highest percentage of people with post-secondary education? Apparently college and university graduation rates have increased in half a century by almost 200 percent, but the rates among countries vary greatly. An interesting ranking was recently reported by Yahoo News, on the ten smartest countries of the world. Listed below are the world’s 10 smartest countries.

Canada:

Canada ranks first on the list when it comes to the smartest and educated countries. Half of the country’s adult population has a post-secondary degree, certificate or diploma. According to Yahoo, 68 percent of Canadians aged 15 and above had a post- secondary education. In 2011, 53 percent of Canadians aged 15 and over had trade certificates, college and university degrees. Each year, public and private expenditure on education amount to 2.5 percent of the GDP. Also, 71 percent of women- aged 25-44 had completed their university or college education as compared to 65 percent of men of the same age group. Meanwhile, the percentage of individuals with university degrees rose from 10.9 percent in 1990 to 22.5 percent in 2012.

Israel:

Surprisingly, Israel ranks second on the list when it comes to smartest and educated countries. Just 64 years ago, higher education was reserved for a selected few. According to the Council for Higher Learning, there were about 1,600 students who enrolled in post-secondary education. By 2010- 2011, that number skyrocketed to 206,000, 61 percent of whom were studying in the country’s universities. In fact, in 2006, 46 percent of adults aged 25-64 had tertiary education. Today Israeli graduates are known for being among the world’s leaders in the fields like engineering, physics, computer science, economics and social sciences. Some of the Israeli scholars who have made their name in science are Naum Akhieser and Amikam Aharoni.

Japan:

The kind of technological and scientific innovations that come from Japan, it is not hard to believe that the country ranks third in the list when it comes to most educated and smartest countries. According to the reports by MSN News, 44 percent of the country’s 127.9 million people have gone on to pursue higher education. The country had produced 15 noble laureates in fields like physics, chemistry and medicine, and is the undisputed world leader when it comes to robotics. Some of the noble laureates are Akira Suzuki, a noble prize winner in Chemistry in the year 2010 and Makoto Kobayashi for Physics in 2008.

United States:

United States ranks fourth on the list of the smartest and the most educated countries. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2009-2010, there were 4,495 colleges and universities across U.S. Interestingly, more and more women have been a part of higher education. Overall, women have surpassed men when it comes to completing secondary and post-secondary education. In 2005 and 2006, women earned 58 percent of the country’s bachelor degrees, 60 percent of Masters Degree and 49 percent of Doctorates. Some of America’s noble laureates are Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, the Noble Memorial Prize winner in Economic Sciences (2001) and John Lewis Hall, Noble Prize in Physics in 2005.

New Zealand:

New Zealand ranks fifth for the smartest and educated countries. The rate of adult literacy in the country is 99 percent. While, 40 percent of the entire population has a university degree. In 1961, the University of New Zealand was the only university in the country. Today, New Zealand has six independent universities and colleges, and some more institutions have started to cater to the country's four million inhabitants.

South Korea:

South Korea ranks sixth in the lists after New Zealand. Education in this country is extremely strict. Employment and Status are based on university studies and academic excellence, thus creating a sense of competition among the students. Due to these reasons only, 39 percent of the population has a university degree. South Korea is also one of the two countries, other than Finland- in which most popular fields of study are not social sciences, law and business. In South Korea, students choose to study humanities and arts as their choice, as reported by Skeptikai, a institution based in Japan.

Norway, Finland, United Kingdom, Australia:

The seventh place for the smartest country in the world is shared among these four countries. In Norway and Finland, 37 percent of the population has university degrees because in these countries, tuition fee is free. In Norway, 23 percent of the expenditure is spent on tertiary education. In Norway, more than 60 percent of all tertiary graduates were in a bachelor’s program, well more than the U.S. In Finland majority of the students take up engineering, manufacturing and construction studies.

Australia draws a large number of international students. In Australia, 37 percent of the population has university degrees. Australian universities have a deserved reputation for high international quality. United Kingdom also draws a large number of international students. Like Australia, 37 percent of the population in UK has university degrees and here too the university standards are very much high.

Estonia and Ireland:

The eighth place is shared by Estonia and Ireland. In these two countries, 36 percent of the population holds university degrees. Estonia has an impressive number of institutions which offers wide range of courses like environmental sciences, material technology and semiotics. Ireland meanwhile has a history of producing intellectuals some of whom include Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry, John Tyndall, who discovered the Tyndall effect which explains why the sky is blue and George Jhonstone Stoney, who introduced the term ‘electron.’

Luxembourg and Switzerland:

Luxembourg shares the ninth spot with Switzerland. The country has only one university, yet 35 percent of the population has a university degree which is remarkable achievement.

Switzerland also boasts alone as a seat of important international organization like the United Nations, World Health Organization and serious intellectuals at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Denmark:

Well this might be interesting because in Denmark not only is the tuition fee free, but the state pays the students to go to the university. But this rule mostly applies to Danish citizens, a shock to all the foreign students. Even with all these benefits, it is surprising to learn that only 34 percent of the population chooses to pursue higher education. There are many management courses in the country? like Hotel Management.

Cartoon Girls

Awareness key to fight Hepatitis B The transgender community has a potent killer in the virus

Awareness key to fight Hepatitis B

The transgender community has a potent killer in the virus

Twenty one-year-old Divya (name changed) is a transgender who often indulges in sex with multiple partners. However, Divya did not know that she ought to get vaccinated against Hepatitis B to prevent spreading the virus. Experts say that the transgender community, which is extremely vulnerable to contracting the virus, has not been adequately educated to ward off its ill effects. Estimates suggest that more than 20,000 transgenders live in Mumbai, many of whom indulge in commercial sex work to earn their living. “Some seemingly straight men have a tendency to get attracted to us. Due of unawareness, the Hepatits B virus could be dormant in our body, which could then spread to the general population. Even during the health target intervention meetings, vaccination against Hepatitis B is rarely discussed,” confessed Divya. Hepatitis B is a virus that is transmitted through the body fluids, namely blood, semen, tears or sweat. Pallav Patankar, HIV programme director of Humsafar Trust, said, “No one talks about Hepatitis B as a potent virus which can kill a person. Close to 40% of transgenders in Mumbai are HIV infected, and the number of those infected by Hepatitis B can be pegged much higher. If transgenders express a wish to get vaccinated, they are administered vaccinations at our clinical centres.” A 2007 study conducted by the state government stated that even as 42% of the city’s transgender population was HIV infected, the population affected by sexually transmitted diseases (STD) was as high as 58%. “With rising awareness, a majority of transgenders have got vaccinated. However, 20% of the community is still not vaccinated,” said Urmi Jadhav, a member of the Humsafar Trust. Doctors warn that not getting vaccinated against the disease can have lethal implications. “Hepatitis B can lay dormant in the body of a patient for some years, and later manifest in cirrhosis of the liver, which can be fatal. It only needs a person to take three doses of vaccines over six months to prevent the virus attack. Even as transgenders are more vulnerable to the virus, the entire population of the city should get vaccinated,” said Dr Rajesh Jaria, head of the Intensive Care at Kohinoor Hospital in Kurla.