2 year old who smokes 40 cigarettes a day

Taking a deep drag on his cigarette while resting on the steering wheel of his truck, he looks like a parody of a middle-aged lorry driver.

But the image covers up a much more disturbing truth: At just the tender age of two, Ardi Rizal's health has been so ruined by his 40-a-day habit that he now struggles to move by himself.

The four-stone Indonesia toddler is certainly far too unfit to run around with other children - and his condition is set to rapidly deteriorate.

But, despite local officials' offer to buy the Rizal family a new car if the boy quits, his parents feel unable to stop him because he throws massive tantrums if they don't indulge him.

His mother, Diana, 26, wept: 'He's totally addicted. If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick.'

Ardi will smoke only one brand and his habit costs his parents £3.78 a day in Musi Banyuasin, in Indonesia's South Sumatra province.

But in spite of this, his fishmonger father Mohammed, 30, said: 'He looks pretty healthy to me. I don't see the problem.'

Ardi's youth is the extreme of a disturbing trend. Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 per cent of those active smokers.

The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up increased from 0.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2004, the agency reported.

A video of a four-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube in March, prompting outrage before it was removed from the site.

Child advocates are speaking out about the health damage to children from second-hand smoke, and the growing pressure on them to smoke in a country where one-third of the population uses tobacco and single cigarettes can be bought for a few cents.

Seto Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia's child protection commission, blames the increase on aggressive advertising and parents who are smokers.

'A law to protect children and passive smokers should be introduced immediately in this country,' he said.

A health law passed in 2009 formally recognizes that smoking is addictive, and an anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.

But a bill on tobacco control has been stalled because of opposition from the tobacco industry.

The bill would ban cigarette advertising and sponsorship, prohibit smoking in public, and add graphic images to packaging.

Benny Wahyudi, a senior official at the Industry Ministry, said the government had initiated a plan to try to limit the number of smokers, including dropping production to 240 billion cigarettes this year, from 245 billion in 2009.

'The government is aware of the impact of smoking on health and has taken efforts, including lowering cigarette production, increasing its tax and limiting smoking areas,' he said.

Mr Mulyadi said a ban on advertising is key to putting the brakes on child and teen smoking.

'If cigarette advertising is not banned, there will be more kids whose lives are threatened because of smoking,' he said.

Ubiquitous advertising hit a bump last month when a cigarette company was forced to withdraw its sponsorship of pop star Kelly Clarkson's concert following protests from fans and anti-tobacco groups.

Read more: Dailymail.co.uk

Thousands gather for Khalsa Day parade Canada

In spite of Sunday’s gloomy grey skies, Toronto was ablaze with bright blues and oranges as thousands of festively-attired Sikhs celebrated the birth of their religion and its values of peace, harmony and kindness.

“It was nice to come out and see the unity,” said Brampton’s Sonia Pabla, who attended the Khalsa Day celebrations with her husband and two children. "This type of atmosphere is what we mostly are all about: peaceful togetherness."

Toronto’s annual Khalsa Day parade celebrates the birth of Sikhism in 1699 and Sikhs from as far as Montreal and Windsor travelled to join friends and family in the GTA. The day kicked off with traditional music, hymns and prayer at the CNE grounds before taking to Lake Shore Boulevard for a parade.

Police estimate some 12,000 people attended the parade and another 30,000 gathered at Queen’s Park for the event's conclusion; organizers, however, claim a total attendance of some 100,000.

Sunday’s festivities were in stark contrast to recent violence plaguing the local Sikh community. A prominent lawyer was stabbed outside a Brampton temple April 12, allegedly with a kirpan, the ceremonial dagger Sikhs are required to wear at all times as an outward symbol of their religion. Two weeks later, a brawl broke out at another temple in Brampton where machetes, hammers and construction knives were brandished.

The incidents were on the minds of some of the celebrants.

“To be honest, I’m really ashamed of what happened,” said Amar Singh, 26, who travelled from Guelph to attend the parade. He says he only uses his kirpan for ceremonial purposes, the last time being a year ago when he dipped the dagger into prasad, which he described as a treat made of sweet flour, clarified butter and water. “If you dip the kirpan into it, the guru eats it,” he explained.

But for event organizers, the destructive behaviour of just a handful of individuals does not represent the greater Sikh community.

“This year, amongst all the negativity, what we came out with was such a positive aspect of Sikhism and that’s what you saw firsthand,” said event coordinator Manjit Parmar, who is with the Ontario Sikh and Gurdwara Council.“We represented what Sikhs are (today).”

Other OSGC event organizers also did not want to discuss the kirpan issue at all.

“We’re not talking about these things today. We are celebrating,” said Beant S. Charma.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, federal NDP leader Jack Layton, federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and immigration minister Jason Kenney were among those attending; all covered their heads with saffron head scarves, or romalas, as a gesture of respect. Blue — the colour of meditation — was also prominently displayed by Khalsa Day participants.

There was some speculation McGuinty — who ignited outrage earlier this month by welcoming Indian minister Kamal Nath to Ontario, a man accused of participating in the 1984 massacre of more than 3,000 Sikhs in the wake of the assassination of Indian leader Indira Gandhi — might skip out on this year’s festivities

In his address to the crowd, McGuinty alluded to the incident but did not issue an apology, as some members of the Sikh community had hoped.

“Just a few weeks ago, I conveyed my sympathies to my fellow Ontarians who still feel the pain of the atrocities that occurred in 1984,” McGuinty said. “Thousands of lives were lost and that pain is still felt very deeply today. In Ontario, we are thankful that together we condemn extremism and intolerance and we never forget those who lost their lives.”

Jagdip Grewal of Brampton would have liked to hear the premier apologize for welcoming Nath to Ontario, adding the incident had left him “disgusted.”

“That’s like inviting someone who was involved in other war crimes, like a Nazi or something . . . that’s how bad it was for us,” he said. “I was hoping McGuinty would go down that path and apologize but it just didn’t happen.”

But Grewal, who celebrated Khalsa Day with his wife and baby, still had fun at the celebrations, saying he especially enjoyed Layton’s attempts at speaking to the crowd in Punjabi.

“It was good,” he said of the day. “My newborn, he’s almost three months, so it’s his first parade.”

Toronto’s Khalsa Day celebration has grown from 2,000 people since its inauguration in 1986 to become Toronto’s third-largest parade after Pride and Caribana.

Charity is an important component of the Sikh faith and prasad, samosas, sweet rice and hot beverages were distributed free among the crowd as they trudged through the rain under umbrellas and plastic raincoats. Donations for charity were also collected.

Source: Thestar.com

Radioactive Material at Delhi Market

Friday April 9, 2010, New Delhi: An unassuming market in West Delhi turned into the location of a high-drama search-and-seize. The target: radioactive material in a scrap shop that has led to five people being hospitalized. Experts say this is possibly the worst case of radiation exposure in India, with levels a thousand times higher than permissible limits.

Half a kilometer of the market was cordoned off by the Delhi Police. Inside, specialists from the Department of Atomic Energy, armed with Geiger counters to detect radiation, looked through metal scrap in dozens of shops. Sixteen hours later, the area was declared safe.

"We have isolated the metal wires which came into contact and they have all been loaded onto a truck...we are not sure where the material has come from, maybe it came from outside, we are still investigating, " said S K Malhotra, the spokesperson of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

The potentially-contaminated items were loaded onto a carefully-shielded lead container and taken to the Narora Atomic Station where they will be further analyzed to find out where it could have come from.

A week ago, Deepak Jain, who owns two metal scrap shops showed signs of radiation poisoning: dizziness, hair loss, burn and rash marks on his hands. He was admitted into hospital, and then on Thursday night, four other workers at his shop developed similar symptoms. When they arrived at a government hospital, the authorities were alerted and the Department of Atomic Energy moved in to investigate.

Cobalt-60, a radioactive compound used in hospitals where cancer patients are treated, was found in Jain's shop.

Ahead of the Commonwealth Games this year, three government hospitals in Delhi have been equipped and trained to look after patients who've been exposed to radiation. In addition to the safety lapses, what was worrying in this case was the slow reaction of doctors
and the DAE in recognizing the signs of what could have widened into a much bigger crisis.

Source: Ndtv.com

Lalu attacks Baba Ramdev, calls him 'Senile'

Once an admirer of Baba Ramdev, RJD chief Lalu Prasad went hammer and tongs against the Yoga Guru for attacking politicians and nurturing political ambitions and said he has gone 'senile'.

The former Bihar Chief Minister said it is not good for Ramdev, who recently announced that he would float a political party, to criticise every politician in the country.

"It is not good that Ramdev is criticising every politician in the country to prove himself good," Prasad said at a function here yesterday targeting the noted Yoga Guru.

"I have advised him against joining politics. In fact, Ramdevji bauwra gaye hai (Ramdevji has gone senile)," he said.

Ramdev had blamed politicians for some of the problems facing the country.

But Lalu's tirade against Yoga Guru Ramdev did not go well with the BJP chief Nitin Gadkari.

Gadakri came out in defence of Ramdev and ticked off Lalu saying his language was inappropriate and that it was not warranted against such a "veteran spiritual leader".

Initially telling he would not like to comment on the issue, Gadkari later opened up saying Lalu should have "refrained from using such language against Ramdev."

"His comments on such a respected person are disappointing," he added.

At the function, Lalu said "We once saved him (Ramdev) or else he would have been beaten up."

Lalu was apparently referring to the strong support he had extended as railway minister to the Yoga Guru when the latter was attacked by CPM leader Brinda Karat who had alleged that animal bones were being mixed with the ayurvedic medicine produced by an institution established by Ramdev at Haridwar.

Lalu had stressed that even if human bones were mixed with medicines, it was justified as they proved to be effective in curing people.

He also criticised Ramdev for claiming to cure cancer.

"In this research age, it is nothing but cheating and befooling people," he said.

Lalu and Ramdev had been mutual admirers earlier. He praised the Yoga Guru for teaching him 'aasans' which cured his high blood pressure and blood sugar. Ramdev had also praised Lalu for doing `hasya (laughing) aasan' frequently and keeping himself healthy.

Source: ibnlive.in.com