Service Level Benchmarking for Management of Urban Services

In India out of the total population of 1210.2 million as on 1st March, 2011, about 377.1 million are in urban areas. The net addition of population in urban areas over the last decade is 91.0 million. 

The percentage of urban population to the total population of the country stands at 31.6. There has been an increase 3.35 percentage points in the proportion of urban population in the country during 2001-2011.The provisional results of Census 2011 reveals that there is an increase of 2774 towns comprising 242 Statutory and 2532 Census towns over the decade. Growth rate of population in urban areas was 31.8%. Municipal services viz., water, wastewater, solid waste, heating, and transport are the basic building blocks of efficient, healthy, and economically vital communities. Read more>>>>>>>>>>>>

Seed Abortion in Oroxylum indicum, A Commercial Medicinal Tree

Oroxylum indicum (L) Benth. Ex Kurz (Family: Bignoniaceae), commonly known as Tetu, is a deciduous species distributed widely in South-east Asia. This plant has several medicinal properties viz., anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer. 

This species is one amongst the Dashmul plants used in ayurvedic medicine, Dashmulaarista. Due to its medicinal properties, species has gained economic importance. Presently, large quantity of raw materials is being procured from natural forests to meet out the needs of pharmaceutical industries. Owing to its unscientific exploitation, species is becoming rare in their natural habitat. Therefore, the FRLHT (Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions), Bangalore has treated this species as vulnerable /endangered category in Southern India. Read more>>>>>>>>>>>>

There are a variety of disease states (Cancer, AIDS, Cardiac diseases) where systemic drug administration has poor efficacy due to low solubility, random body distribution and toxicity problems. 

Therefore, drug entrapped in polymeric beads offer novel drug delivery approach for an intended application, such as targeted locations and long-term delivery times (days, weeks, months, and even years). Multiparticulate drug delivery systems have various well known advantages over single unit dosage forms. The potential use of microspheres in pharmaceutical industry has been considered since the 1960s for the following applications.

• Taste and odor masking

• Conversion of oils and other liquids to solids for the ease of handling

• Protection of drug against the environment (moisture, light heat)

• Improvement of flow properties of powders

• Separation of incompatible materials. Read more>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Discovery of Potential Antitubercular Activity in on-Antibiotics Through Virtual Screening

Ligand based virtual screening is an extremely useful tool in identification of lead molecules, especially for less explored molecular targets. Amongst many techniques available, 3D pharmacophore model based virtual screening methods are most successful. 

Virtual screening of chemical libraries compiling known therapeutics has significantly helped in knowledge-based rational drug repositioning. It has been recently recognized as an effective strategy to aid novel drug discovery for rare and neglected conditions .3D Shape based screening method; Rapid Overlay of Chemical Structures (ROCS) found to be very successful in identification of chemically diverse compounds possessing similar bioactivity profile and hence used for our study.  Read more>>>>>>>>>>>