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The sprawling new Mall at MG Marg in Gangtok is now a major tourist attraction.
Pic - Shivadeep Rai

Virus to wipe out malaria mosquitoes

New York : In what could be deemed as a remarkable medical breakthrough, American researchers have discovered a virus which they claim is infectious to the Anopheles gambiae mosquito that is responsible for transmitting malaria.
According to them, the virus could someday be used to pass on new genetic information to the Anopheles mosquitoes as part of a strategy to control malaria, which kills over one million people worldwide each year.
In fact, the virus, AgDNV, is a densonucleosis virus or “densovirus”, which are very common to mosquitoes and other insects, but do not infect vertebrate animals such as humans.
Although the virus does not appear to harm the mosquitoes, the researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have determined that it is highly infectious to mosquito larvae and is easily passed on to humans. According to the study’s lead author Jason Rasgon, the discovery came about serendipitously while the research team was conducting experiments to determine whether Wolbachia bacteria could be used to infect An. gambiae mosquito cells. During the analysis, they noticed an “artifact” that appeared as a prominent band in the gel used to detect the bacteria.
“Finding artifacts such as this one during experiments isn’t uncommon, but we decided to investigate this one further since we kept observing it over and over. When we sequenced it we’re surprised to learn that we found a new virus,” he said.
“In theory, we could use this virus to produce a lethal toxin in the mosquito or instruct the mosquito to die after 10 days, which is before it can transmit the malaria parasite to humans. However, these concepts are many years away,” he said. (Media Watch)

Amitabh Bachchan got a standing ovation by a 20,000 strong audience here as he recited in his inimitable baritone dialogues from all time hits like Deewar and Agnipath as part of the star studded Unforgettable Show.
Bachchan became emotional while delivering dialogues from Deewar — in which he plays an agnostic role who goes to the temple for the first time asking God to save the life of his mother — and said: “Whenever I do the scene I get emotional about my mother whom I lost last year.”
Besides the three-hour long glitz, glamour of Bollywood songs and dance sequences, performed on Sunday night, Bachchan read out some of the poems from Agnipath (Path of Fire), penned by his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
The show partners with TERI project to light a billion homes across the globe.
“We (Unforgettable Show) have decided to light 1 billion houses (in the world). About 1.6 billion people in the world do not have electricity. The Lighting a Billion lives campaign provides solar lanterns to people living in villages that don’t have electricity,” Jaya Bachchan, said.
The event promoted by India’s Wizcraft International Entertainment, which marks Bachchans comeback to the stage after a gap of almost 20 years, will have its final event at Rotherdam in Netherlands on Aug 29. They have already performed in Toronto, Trinidad, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New Jersey, Chicago and New York. (Agencies)