Google goes half-way `desi'

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Aug. 7 . The world's most widely-used Internet search engine, Google, appeared this week in Indian garb — interfaces in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil. Surfers trying to access the global search site www.google.com from India are being directed automatically to an

India-specific site: www.google.co.in which in turn offers buttons that lead to the five language interfaces.

However, the Indian language feature is presently restricted to a translation of the clickable and selectable tools on the page: The search and the results are still English-based. PC owners whose operating system is Windows XP will have no difficulty in reading these buttons in one of the five selectable languages.However, those who are still using the earlier versions, such as Windows 98, will be faced with some junk characters and a limited transliteration of the Hindi, Bengali or other words in Roman script.

Cybernews India On Line (CIOL) reports that this is because Windows XP supports some Indian language fonts — a feature that is not available with the earlier language versions. However such users can download the required fonts which are part of the "Brahmi" font set developed by the

Indian Language Technology Solutions group of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The fonts (Mangal for Devanagiri, Latha for Tamil and Gautam for Telugu) are available for free download at the website of ILTS http://brahmi.sourceforge.net.

It is not very clear, what real advantage the Google Indian language initiative brings, for those surfers who presumably do not have a command of English since there is as yet no way to search for Indian language documents or enter search terms in one of the languages. However, the work of an M.Tech student, now ongoing, at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, may facilitate the search for Indian language documents using Indian language keywords (see accompanying box).

In recent days Google has strengthened the `advanced' features in its search engine and Indian users can now restrict search to pages generated in the country.Meanwhile, the Google news website launched last year — the world's first computer selected and continuously updated online newspaper — has also spawned an India-specific service.The bottom of the www.google.com/news page now features links to a choice of country-specific news pages for Australia, Canada, Germany, France, New Zealand, U.K., U.S. and India.The India news site, concentrates on general, technology, business and entertainment news from the country and draws heavily on the web content of leading Indian newspapers, including The Hindu.

A useful feature available among the "advanced features" allows one to search for news items that have appeared in a particular publication.

The Google all-computer-generated news site is the brainchild of Krishna Bharat, who began work on a special algorithm for the purpose while he was with the Palo Alto Research Centre of what was then Compaq, and then refined it after joining Google last year as Principal Scientist.

IIT students trounce U.K.'s best

Chennai Aug. 7. The opening episode of `University Challenge' — the Indian version of a university-popular TV quiz show in the U.K. aired tonight — saw a quartet from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, trouncing the reigning British team from the London University.

The programme aired by BBC World and compered by India's quiz king, Siddhartha Basu, was a special curtain raiser: Future instalments will be `desi' affairs, involving teams from Indian universities and colleges..

Tonight's episode (the programme is telecast on Thursdays at 10 p.m.) can be viewed for the second time on Sunday at 10 a.m. The Indian students — Ajit Narayanan, Swaroop Venkatesh, Sreeraaman Subramanium and Mohan Ravichandran — can be seen beating the British lads 150 points to 85.

Tests confirm toxicity in sludge from coke plant

By P. Venugopal



A quantity of the sludge dumped at a spot about 4 km from the Coca-Cola bottling plant at Plachimada.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Aug. 6. Tests conducted by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) have confirmed recent media reports about the toxic nature of the sludge generated by Coca-Cola's bottling plant at Plachimada, in Kerala's Palakkad district.

The KSPCB undertook the tests following a report put out by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) last month that the sludge and drinking water samples collected from Plachimada contained "dangerous" levels of cadmium, a known carcinogen, besides lead, which can damage the human central nervous system.

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited had been distributing the sludge to the farmers of the area free of cost to be used as fertilizer, terming it a "humanitarian gesture to the local community". Thousands of tonnes of this waste material were off-loaded in the fields of the region over the last three years.Announcing the results of the analysis at a press conference here today, the Chairman of the KSPCB, Paul Thachil, said that the concentration of cadmium was found to be 201.8 mg in a kg of dry sludge.

This level is, in fact, far greater than that reported by the BBC after tests done at Exeter University in the United Kingdom. These tests had shown the concentration of cadmium as 100 mg a kg of dry sludge."A solid is classified as hazardous material if it contains over 50 mg of cadmium a kg. There is no doubt that the sludge is extremely hazardous. We have ordered the company to stop supplying it as manure to the farmers," Mr. Thachil said.

He said that in the analysis done at the KSPCB's Central Laboratory in Ernakulam, the presence of lead was found to be below the threshold limit. Lead concentration was found to be 319 mg a kg of dry sludge against a threshold level of 500 mg a kg as per standards prescribed in India.

The tests conducted at Exeter University had shown a lead concentration of 1,100 mg a kg."Results can vary from sample to sample. But the important point is that we have proof about the hazardous nature of the waste material. We have ordered the company to keep the sludge in leech-free tanks so that it does not contaminate the soil and water sources in the area. There should be a mechanism for proper disposal of this highly hazardous material," Mr. Thachil said.

Asked what the KSPCB proposed to do in the light of its findings, Mr. Thachil said: "We have already got the company to stop the dangerous practice of distributing the toxic sludge to the farmers.

A detailed probe is on to determine the source of the cadmium contamination."

He said the Health Department had been alerted about the findings. "We have subsequently collected water samples from the open wells in the colonies adjoining the bottling plant for analysis. The results are awaited. The question whether the soft drinks manufactured at the bottling plant are safe does not come under our purview. It is to be looked into by the Health Department," he said.

The bottling plant has been in the eye of a storm following complaints that it was exploiting the scarce water in the area, extracting it through borewells and open wells, leading to the depletion of the water table.The local panchayat recently withdrew permission for the plant to operate there.There have been complaints about contamination of well water in the area, but the company has stridently denied this.

Greenpeace demands action

Meanwhile, the global environmental action group, Greenpeace, asked the Kerala Government to direct Coca-Cola to collect back the entire hazardous waste it had distributed. It should be stored with proper precautions, the corporate campaign coordinator of Greenpeace, Ameer Shahul, said in a statement faxed to Thiruvananthapuram . No longer should the unsuspecting people of the region be exposed to the dangers of this waste, he added.Mr. Shahul said the Government should persuade the company to dispose of the sludge in a safe manner. "Coca-Cola has no right to defile this beautiful land with its hazardous waste.

The company should be forced to ship the sludge back to the U.S., its home country", he said.He urged the Government to convene a meeting of the affected people, representatives of non-governmental organisations and officials of the KSPCB and departments such as Health and Local Administration in order to formulate a plan to tackle the damage the company had done to the region.

UNI reports:

The issue figured in Parliament today in the context of charges regarding the presence of pesticide residue in a number of soft drinks, including Coca-Cola, when N. Krishna Das and A.K. Premajam (both MPs belonging to the CPI-M) highlighted the harm caused to crops in the area in Palakkad district following the dumping of waste on cultivable land.

Residues of toxic pesticides in 12 soft drink brands: CSE

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI AUG. 5. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) today announced that 12 soft drink brands collected for testing from in and around Delhi contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides — lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos. The multinational companies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo immediately challenged the report and indicated that they might consider legal action.

Presenting the findings at a press conference here today, the Director, CSE, Sunita Narain, said that in all the samples, the levels of pesticide residues far exceeded the maximum residue limit for pesticides in water used as "food'' as set down by the European Economic Commission (EEC).

She said that each sample had enough poison to cause long-term cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe disruption of the immune system.

The tested soft drinks include Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Mirinda Orange, Mirinda Lemon, Blue Pepsi, 7Up, Fanta, Limca, Sprite and Thums Up.

Ms. Narain said that according to the findings, Coca-Cola and Pepsi had almost similar concentration of pesticide residues. While contaminants in Pepsi were 37 times higher than the EEC limit, Coca-Cola overstepped the norm having 45 times the prescribed limit of pesticide contamination.

Faring the worst in the "health test'', according to her, was Mirinda Lemon followed by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Fanta, Mirinda Orange, 7Up, Mountain Dew, Limca, Thums Up and Sprite. It was also found that pesticides in soft drinks were similar to bottled water, which the CSE had tested earlier this year.

Releasing the report, Ms. Narain said: "The inference drawn from the tests is that groundwater used for making soft drinks is infested with pesticides. Another interesting find was the fact that the same brands found and tested abroad did not contain these pesticides.''

``Why these companies are never booked in India is simply because one cannot take them to court since the norms that regulate manufacture of cold (soft) drinks here are not well defined. The `food' sector is virtually unregulated,'' she said.

Reacting to the CSE report, both the multinational companies — Coca-Cola and Pepsi — described it as "unreliable'' and indicated that they might resort to legal action.

The chairman of PepsiCo, Rajiv Bakshi, said, "Our company is well within the limits of the pesticide residue norms set by the European Union for water used in products within public domain. We conform to all norms and are open to all testing by an internationally-accredited independent laboratory and by experienced people.''

The chief executive officer of Coke, Sanjiv Gupta, said, "Our product is world class and is the same we sell in Europe and the U.S. These are tested by top grade labs like Vimta in Hyderabad and TNO in the Netherlands.'' Claiming that this was a "bigger'' controversy than the previous drinking water report, Mr. Gupta said his company had not moved the court previously because it thought "the controversy did not directly threaten the reputation of the company''.

Indian origin doctor settles discrimination suit

Washington Aug 3. An Indian origin doctor has won $ 50,000 in damages and a written apology from a wing of the formidable U.S. Homland Security Department over his lawsuit alleging that armed air marshals detained him solely because of his dark skin.

The Transportation Security Administration, a wing of the Homeland Security Department, has agreed to change its procedures and pay $ 50,000 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit by Bob Rajcoomar, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. Dr. Rajcoomar, a naturalised American who was born in Guyana, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Government in April after he was detained by air marshals in a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia on August 31, 2002. — PTI