Four-year-old Sanjay Balakrishnan died of influenza A (H1N1) infection at a private hospital here Monday, becoming the sixth swine flu victim in the country.
Sources at Neta Hospital, where the boy was admitted, said he had been hospitalised with fever and diarrhoea last week. Later, he was diagnosed with kidney failure and chest congestion.
On Saturday, Balakrishnan tested positive for swine flu. The next day, he suffered multiple organ failure and was put on ventilator. He died Monday morning.
B. 1908, D. 2004
Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne, France
Henri Cartier Bresson is considered to be the father of modern photojournalism, an early adopter of 35mm format, and the master of candid photography.
He helped develop the “street photography” style that has influenced generations of photographers that followed.
His sharp-shooter’s ability to catch “the decisive moment,” his precise eye for design, his self-effacing methods of work, and his literate comments about the theory and practice of photography made him a legendary figure among contemporary photojournalists.
His approaches to photography and works have exercised a profound and far-reaching influence. His pictures and picture essays have been published in most of the world’s major magazines during three decades, and Cartier-Bresson prints have hung in the leading art museums of the United States and Europe (his monumental ‘The Decisive Moment’ show being the first photographic exhibit ever to be displayed in the halls of the Louvre).
In the practical world of picture marketing, Cartier-Bresson left his imprint as well: he was one of the founders and a former president of Magnum, a cooperative picture agency of New York and Paris.
Taken prisoner of war in 1940, he escaped on his third attempt in 1943 and subsequently joined an underground organization to assist prisoners and escapees. In 1945 he photographed the liberation of Paris with a group of professional journalists and then filmed the documentary Le Retour (The Return).
From 1968 he began to curtail his photographic activities, preferring to concentrate on drawing and painting. In 2003, with his wife and daughter, he created the “Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson” in Paris for the preservation of his work. Cartier-Bresson received an extraordinary number of prizes, awards and honorary doctorates. He died at his home in Provence on 3 August 2004, a few weeks short of his 96th birthday.
Awards
1986 Novecento Premio
1981 Grand Prix National de la Photographie
1975 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie
1975 Culture Prize
1964 Overseas Press Club of America Award
1960 Overseas Press Club of America Award
1959 Prix de la Société Française de Photographie
1954 Overseas Press Club of America Award
1953 A.S.M.P. Award
1948 Overseas Press Club of America Award
Credits/Sources: http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/bresson.htm
http://www.magnumphotos.com/archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.Biography_VPage&AID=2K7O3R14T50B
Decisive Moment: This term became associated with Henri Cartier Bresson after his book “Images à la sauvette” was released in 1952 and its English edition was titled “The Decisive Moment.”
Henri said, “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.”
“Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”
Decisive Moment is the moment in an event which makes the instant and the image ever-lasting. It is the photographer’s ability to intuit that moment and click the camera at the perfect time.
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ability to catch the moment in which an event is about to take place, made him a legendary figure in photojournalism.
At least 49 new swine flu cases were reported Saturday in this Maharashtra city, as a doctor and a pharmacist, both influenza A(H1N1) patients, continued to be critical for the second day, health authorities said.
A swine flu patient in Mumbai has also turned critical, according to the officials.
The authorities shut down four more colleges and a school in Pune for a week after some students tested positive for influenza A(H1N1).
The educational institutions that were ordered to be shut Saturday are S.P. College, ILS College, VIT College, Dehu Road College and Bishops School, said S.R. Pardeshi, head of Pune Municipal Corporation's health department.
These are in addition to the Symbiosis Campus Senapati Bapat Marg that was ordered shut Friday after an 18-year old female student tested positive, Pardeshi said.
The condition of the Symbiosis student is stable and improving, according to Faculty of Health Science Dean Rajiv Yeravdekar.
In the past few weeks, nearly 40 schools in Pune and one in Pancghani, a hill station in adjacent Satara district, have been hit by the flu cases.
Among the 116 patients in different Pune hospitals, a medico and a pharmacist have been put on ventilators as they continued to be critical, the official said.
Maharashtra has reported over 260 cases and 160 are from Pune, the city that has been declared pandemic.
In Mumbai, 28-year-old businessman Sandeep Gaikwad, who was admitted to the Hiranandani Hospital after developing swine flue symptoms last week, turned critical yesterday and was put on a ventilator.
As a precautionary measure, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has opened five new swine flue screening centres, a health official said.
They include: M.T. Agarwal Hospital, Mulund, Rajawadi Hospital, Ghatkopar; Bhabha Hospital, Bandra; Siddharth Hospital, Goregaon; and Bhagwati Hospital, Borivli, even as Kasturba Hospital continues to be the main centre for treatment.
In Pune, the government opened two more cenrtres for swine flu treatment.
"Apart from the regular Naidu Hospital, we have started treating swine flu patients at Sassoon Hospital and the Aundh Hospital, too," Swine Flu Control Room head Pradeep Awate told IANS.
Five people, including a five-year old girl, have been admitted to the intensive care unit of the Sassoon Hospital. The girl's condition is "stable", according to Awate and besides swine flu symptoms, she is also suffering from pneumonia.
A 53-year-old woman died of swine flu here Saturday evening, as the influenza A(H1N1) virus claimed its second victim in India in less than a week, officials said.
The woman, identified as Fehmida Panwala, a Mumbai resident, died at Kasturba hospital here, Maharashtra's Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Sharvari Gokhale told IANS.
A resident of Jogeshwari suburb in northwest Mumbai, Fehmida was Tuesday admitted to a hospital near her residence for diabetes and hypertension problems.
On Friday, she was admitteed in the Lilavati Hospital for a few hours. Her condition worsened and she was rushed to the Kasturba Hospital in the evening. Her sample was taken Saturday morning and she was diagnosed with influenza A(H1N1) in the afternoon.
"She tested positive for swine flu and passed away this (Saturday) evening," Gokhale said.
This is India's second swine flu death after 14-year-old Reeda Shaikh succumbed to the disease in Pune Monday.
Accodring to official figures, over 720 people in India have tested positive for swine flu so far, though over 500 of them have been discharged after being treated.
Maharashtra has reported over 260 cases and 160 are from Pune, the city that has been declared pandemic-hit. A doctor and a pharmacist, both influenza A(H1N1) patients, continued to be critical for the second day Saturday.
In Mumbai, 28-year-old businessman Sandeep Gaikwad, who was admitted to the Hiranandani Hospital after developing swine flue symptoms last week, turned critical Friday and was put on a ventilator.
Following Reeda's death, the state and central governments have announced strict guidelines to deal with suspected swine flu cases.
A team of international astrophysicists has found a new explanation for the early composition of our solar system.
The team has found that radioactive nuclei found in the earliest meteorites, dating back billions of years, could have been delivered by a nearby dying giant star, six times the mass of the sun.
Maria Lugaro from Monash University said the findings could change our current ideas on the origin of the solar system.
"We have known about the early presence of these radioactive nuclei in meteorites since the 1960s, but we do not know where they originated from. The presence of the radioactive nuclei has been previously linked to a nearby supernova explosion, but we are showing now that these nuclei are more compatible with an origin from the winds coming from a large dying star," Lugaro said.
The conclusion was reached by combining stellar observations from telescopes with recently developed theoretical models reproduced on powerful computers of how stars evolve and which nuclear reaction occurs within their interiors.
"Within one million years of the formation of the solar system the radioactive nuclei decayed inside the rocks where they were trapped, releasing high-energy photons, which caused the rocks to heat."
"Since much of earth's water is believed to have originated from these first rocks, the possibility of life on earth depends on their heating history and, in turn, on the presence of radioactive nuclei." Lugaro said.
"What we need to do now is investigate the probability that a dying giant star could have actually been nearby our then young solar system and polluted it with radioactive nuclei," he said.
The findings have been published in Meteoritic and Planetary Science.
For an Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter pilot chasing a target at Mach 2.5 or more than twice the speed of sound and yet not managing to play catch seems like something out of a sci-fi film. But for Air Marshal S. Mukerji, chasing the sun's shadow during the total solar eclipse on Oct 24, 1995, that's exactly what happened.
Heralding the IAF's participation in scientific study of total solar eclipse, Mukerji, presently the Air Officer-in-Charge Personnel at Air Headquarters and the then commanding officer of IAF's only MiG-25 reconnaissance squadron based at Bareilly, undertook a sortie in the giant plane to record the celestial event. He got the rare opportunity to film the Sun's corona from an astounding altitude of 80,000 feet.
"We flew at Mach 2.5 in the path of the eclipse at 80,000 feet along the planned central axis of the eclipse over Neem ka Thana (in Rajasthan's Sikar district)," recalled Mukerji of his historic sortie.
The sortie finds a mention in his flying log book simply as "Supersonic Profile".
"The weather and visibility were not any constraints as clarity at stratospheric levels is far better than that nearer the ground," he said.
After the total solar eclipse of 1898 over India, the next occurrence took place in 1980. And in the subsequent total solar eclipse in 1995, the IAF assisted the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in their quest to film this celestial alignment. This was possible with aviation speeds streaking way past the supersonic barrier.
With a manual camera mounted above the instrument panel, a special lead and button provided to the other pilot, Wing Commander Y.S. Babu, seated in the front cockpit, the duo, with special solar filters on their visors flew straight towards the Sun for a minute and 24 seconds, photographing never-before seen images of the spectacle during the total solar eclipse.
"A lot of preparation went into the sortie. It had to be charted and axis programmed on the inertial navigation system, with briefings by scientists armed with NASA charts. The aircraft was first jacked up and the angle-of-attack simulated on the ground to harmonize the camera along the axis.
"In addition, the aircraft's belly camera could capture the shadow beneath that was 85 km in width," Mukerji explained.
During Wednesday's eclipse, a 10-member team of scientists and a camera team will be flying in an AN-32 transport aircraft from the Agra airbase in an endeavour to film the event. The aircraft will fly along the central axis on a north-westerly direction at an approximate altitude of 25,000 feet, turn around at Khajuraho and land back at Agra.
This apart, a Mirage-2000 trainer will also take off from the Gwalior airbase and the pilot in the rear seat will take photographs as the fighter flies on an angular track to the central axis of the Sun's shadow.
Did you know animals and birds often prepare for sleep or behave confusedly during total solar eclipse? Well, here are some other little known facts about solar eclipse.
- The longest recorded duration for a total solar eclipse is 7.5 minutes.
- A total solar eclipse will not be visible until the sun is more than 90 percent covered by the moon.
- When the sun is covered 99 percent, day becomes night in the areas where the eclipse is visible.
- In the 5,000-year period - between 2000 BC and 3000 AD - the earth is supposed to witness 11,898 solar eclipses.
- There can be a maximum total five solar eclipses, partial, annular or total in any year, and there are at least two solar eclipses every year somewhere on the earth.
- Total solar eclipses occur once every year or two years and only during a new moon.
- Every eclipse begins at sunrise at some point in its track and ends at sunset about half way around the globe from the starting point. Wednesday's total solar eclipse will start at sunrise in India and end at sunset in the eastern hemisphere.
- Nearly identical eclipses (total, annular or partial) occur after every 18 years and 11 days, called the Saros Cycle.
- During a solar eclipse, moon shadow travels at a speed of 1770.28 km per hour at the equator and up to 8,046.73 kmph at the north and south poles.
- During an eclipse, the moon's shadow is at the most 273.59 km wide, and in the path of totality, local temperatures can drop by as much as 20 degrees Celsius during a total solar eclipse.
- Prior to the advent of modern atomic clocks, studies of ancient records of solar eclipses enabled astronomers to detect a 0.001 second per century slowing down in earth's rotation.
Major Hindu temples across India will shut their doors for a day July 22 to ward off the negative energy said to be generated by the total solar eclipse, which, priests and spiritual gurus say, weaken the natural "positive aura" of idols in shrines.
While the Venkateswara temple in Tirumala will close its gates at 9 p.m. July 21 to 8 a.m. July 22, the Lakshmi-Narayan temple in the capital, also known as the Birla Temple, will remain closed during the period of the eclipse .
"The temple usually opens at 4.30 a.m. But on Wednesday, it will open at 7.30 a.m. During the eclipse, we will keep tulsi leaves, holy water from the Ganges, kusha (grass) and rudraksha inside the sanctum as a shield. After the eclipse, we will sprinkle water from the Ganges to purify the temple before getting on with the morning rituals. The scriptures day it is inauspicious to invoke the deities during eclipse because the shadow on the sun depletes psychological strength," Ravindra Nagar, the head priest of the Birla Temple, told IANS.
All Birla temples across the country will remain shut during the eclipse.
A statement by the Tirumala Turupati Devasthanam, which manages the famous temple at Tirupati, said 'ekantham' or service to the lord, performed in the morning, will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
The famous Sri Kanakdurga temple at Indrakeeladri hill in Vijaywada, Brahmarambika Mallikarjuna Swamyvari Devasthanam at Srisailam, Sitaramachandra Swamy temple at Bhadrachalam and Satyanarayana Swamy temple at Annavaram in Andhra Pradesh and almost all temples in Kerala will remain closed.
"However, the dhyanalinga shrines remain open. As all temples in India are energy centres, the extreme pull exerted by the combined energies of the sun, moon and the planets during solar eclipse makes it a good time for devotees to visit Dhayanlinga temples and make use of the energy. Dhyanalinga temples are usually meditation space," spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, head of the spiritual organisation, Isha Foundation, told IANS from Coimbatore.
As the core of the Dhyanalinga deity, usually Lord Shiva, is solidified mercury, eclipse activates the energy centre and makes it more easily avilable to people, he explained.
In most temples across south India which will remain shut druing the eclipse, the idols and sanctums will be covered by organic material like "grass, leaves of the neem or vila trees or raw silk shroud to prevent the natural aura from being destroyed", the seer from Coimbatore said.
Usually, deities in temples which have been consecrated by mantras and rituals have an external energy field around the form which combined pull of the sun and moon during the can weaken during the eclipse.
-Indo-Asian News Service
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