According to a team of doctors from the MIOT Hospital in Chennai, forty two million Indians suffer from chronic Hepatitis B infection, the virus of which is responsible for 60 percent of liver cancer cases in the country.

The leading gastroenterologist said they found that no school children in India have been vaccinated against HBV. The director of the hospital said India has 400 million people chronically infected by the HBV, 40 percent of whom will end up with cirrhosis and liver cancer.

The MIOT Team is on a blitzkrieg to spread awareness against HBV, a disease that they say is as bad or worse than HIV/AIDs.

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Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi flew to US for surgery for an undisclosed ailment and is expected to be away for 2 to 3 weeks. Her destination has been kept a secret because of the concerns of the Special Protection Group that guards her.

During her absence the responsibility of overseeing the affairs of the party has been assigned to a group of 4 that includes her son Rahul Gandhi.

Reports say Mrs Gandhi was operated at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, but sources deny this and the hospital would not confirm her presence. Sonia was advised by her doctors to go abroad for the surgery because they felt she would convalesce better sans the throng of visitors who would have clamoured to see her and her presence in a hospital would have inconvenienced other patients.

Other members of the group of 4 tasked with the responsibility of looking after the affairs of the party are defence minister A K Antony, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi and Sonia's political secretary Ahmed Patel.

Rahul's inclusion in the group is regarded as an indication of his readiness to take on larger responsibilities.

Reports say Mrs Gandhi's surgery was a success.

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Kerala plans to introduce a Right to Services law to ensure that timely essential services are available to its people, much as Bihar and Punjab have done.

CM Oommen Chandy has started consultations with people to formulate a bill that will be introduced in the Assembly shortly.

The Services will include land documents, income certificates, birth/death certificates and other services and will be similar to the Right to Information Act.

When the Bihar and Punjab governments introduced the law people welcomed it. The Punjab bill provides for delivery of 50 services within a specified time.

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Hundreds of farmers who happily sold their land to make way for India's new Formula One circuit and for the cushy life of a millionaire are now feeling the pinch. They are miserable.

The farmers gave up their tough but simple way of life for the Rs.5 million ($112,600) they were paid, but now construction of the $350 million circuit outside Delhi, which is to host the first Indian Grand Prix on October 30, has turned their lives upside down. One farmer admits they got the money but it was a raw deal, because their means of livelihood was sold with their land. They have no land to farm and their livestock graze in rubbish strewn areas.

The resettlement for some 500 ex-farming families near the capital is being constructed. But malcontent and mistrust is growing among the villagers who believed that the money would last for a lifetime and bring them happiness.

In fact it has made some of their people indolent and complacent, with nothing to do but lounge around beer parlours and live an disappointing unproductive existence. The millionaires are now miserable.

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Apuraj Barooah of Assam has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the longest scratch art piece.

Scratch art or Scratchboard art is a technique whereby art is created by using knives and tools to etch into a thin layer of white China clay that is coated with black ink.

Barooah developed a new process that he calls Bromide Scratch Art, that involves scratching bromide paper with a razor blade to uncover reds, oranges, yellows and whites beneath the exposed black face of the paper.

In confirming Barooah's entry into the Guinness Book, Jack Brockman confirmed that Barooah's piece contains 40 pictures of world folk dances including the Bihu dance of Assam.

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