India's bin laden
October 1 in Srinagar was not as dramatic as September 11 in the US. But the attack on the J&K Assembly emphasises the reality that India continues to be a permanent victim of jehad, that the author of the blast is the bin Laden of Kandahar vintage.

Reclaiming The Faith
Despite Pakistan's extremist image, the country is home to a wide cross-section of people holding moderate views on religion. After the terrorist attacks on the US, it is this non-confrontationist lobby that is waging a coup against the militant and vocal religious extremists.

Ready To Strike
The US strategy to strike the Taliban includes making use of the Northern Alliance, favoured by Russia and Iran and distrusted by Pakistan. In its military pact with the front, the US should keep in mind the future power equations in Afghanistan.

NEWSNOTES

Electronic Bloodhound: An "electronic nose" which can detect and identify pathogens in the blood will cut by half the time taken for analysing blood samples. Students at the Illinois Institute of Technology, US, have developed the nose on the principle that microscopic organisms like e.coli bacteria give off "signature" gases. The nose, which is an array of sensors, detects these and relays the information to a computer which compares the signature to those of known pathogens. The test results are out in 24 hours using this method, down from the current 48. It is still necessary to culture the blood sample until a large enough number of pathogens builds up.

Beam Us Up Scotty: Scientists at the University of Aarhus in Denmark have managed to entangle two clouds of trillions of caesium atoms, according to a recent report in New Scientist. Events affecting one cloud would instantaneously affect the other. This implies that faster-than-light communication and even teleportation may be possible. The experimenters exploited a loophole in Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle. Full entanglement lasted only a million-billionth of a second, but the team kept up partial entanglement for half a millisecond-ages by quantum standards.

Sex with Strangers: The number of offspring produced by an adult animal increases with the degree of genetic difference between its parents, say scientists at Cambridge University. The number of grandchildren an animal has is a measure of genetic success, so different is better. The team used genetic markers to measure the similarity of each individual's parents, using the principle that related animals often carry the same rare traits. So inter-racial marriages are made in genetic heaven, officially.

HEALTH

THE INTERNET
Relief Connection

For everything from common cold to cancer and herbal medicines to heart attack, Indians are increasingly turning to the Internet for medical data. Logged on, one can reach out to medics thousands of miles away and get more information than one doctor could ever provide. Apart from instant guidance, it is a source of reassurance to many. Sandeep Verma, 35, is a deputy general manager with Daewoo Motors Ltd. Forced to visit a doctor after sudden pains, he was diagnosed with gall stones and recommended surgery. Verma was apprehensive. "I wanted to know why I had it and what options I had," he says. He got the information from the Net.

In a society going nuclear, the web is fast replacing grandma for practical nuggets to keep young parents on the right side of disaster as they negotiate their way through nappy rash and teething troubles.

The wonder web, however, is not without shortcomings. Since the Net doesn't discriminate in the information it throws up and the layman can't cull it selectively, it leads to unnecessary anxiety. "Every drug has some minor side-effect. Doctors balance the pros and cons and decide on the most effective option. Patients can't do that," says Sandeep Budhiraja, a general physician at Max Medcentre, Delhi.

Besides, the Internet is a hypochondriac's haven. There's always a disease to match every ache. It encourages self-diagnosis, sometimes with serious repercussions. The take home message: the Net can complement, not substitute, the doctor.

—Supriya Bezbaruah

ENVIRONMENT

Driving Us Out: If present trends continue, our cities are going to become worse places to live in. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's people will live in cities and the worldwide vehicular population will have crossed a billion, says a survey. Worst hit will be Asian megacities-Kolkata and Mumbai along with Beijing and Shanghai. Up CNG, down Viagra.

Carry a Bag, Not a Carrybag: The slogan has finally begun to make sense in Delhi with the ban on use of plastic bags from October 2. The prohibition is only on the manufacture, sale or use of "recycled" plastic bags. Though a step in the right direction, this won't silence environmentalists who have been seeking a blanket ban on plastic bags, recycled or not.

Comeback Cat: For a country that loses one tiger a day to poaching and habitat loss, there could not be better news-the tiger population in the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh has grown from two to three per 100 sq km to seven to eight over the same area now. The growth is a result of a project that looked at new management practices and monitoring methods.

—Compiled by Samrat Choudhury and Mridula Chettri Singh

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Bangalore Gallery: Gallerie Zen

Delhi Handicrafts: Crafts Museum

With a dramatic fall in the viewership of Kaun Banega Crorepati, Star makes a last-ditch effort to prop up its ratings. INDIA TODAY's Himanshi Dhawan analyses the revival struggle of the pasha of programmes in
Survival Of The Fittest