Puducherry: N Anand, fondly called "Bussy' Anand, is a busy man. A firsttime MLA, he was elected from the Bussy assembly constituency in the Union territory in 2006 and hence the prefix. And when the 44-year-old legislator of Puducherry Munnetra Congress is not pushing for schemes, meeting voters or discussing local politics over a cuppa, he's clearing garbage, cleaning clogged drains and spraying mosquito repellent across the town. And he does this with his own money, spending Rs 75,000 to Rs 85,000 every month from his earnings.

Campaign To Save African Kids From Malaria Finds Favour With Young Americans Donald G McNeil Jr Donating $10 to buy a mosquito net to save an African child from malaria has become a hip way to show you care, especially for teenagers. The movement is like a modern version of the March of Dimes, created in 1938 to defeat polio, or like collecting pennies for Unicef on Halloween.

Over 200 people have been attacked by gastroenteritis in several villages under Namsai sub-division of Lohit district in Arunachal Pradesh over the past few days. Official sources said here today that no deaths were reported from any of the affected villages so far. Many villages, including Philobari, Silatoo, Lekang and Khowji, had been hit by the disease. Local medical officers visited the affected areas and treated about 200 patients. However, proper treatment could not be provided, following the lack of adequate medicines.

Officer-in-charge at the National Institute of Malaria Research-Goa Dr Ashwani Kumar and Dr Hemant Kumar are upbeat over their experiments with bed nets treated with deltamethrine that have shown excellent results in controlling malaria. Says Dr Ashwani Kumar, "A total of 18 sites were taken up in the experiments out of which at nine places bed nets treated with deltamethrine were distributed. At the nine sites malaria cases have shown a decline, while at the other nine locations where no nets were given the situation has not seen much difference.'

Hospitals in the Capital have been asked to check and prevent breeding of mosquitoes on their premises to ensure that malaria and dengue are kept under control this year.

The North East Institute of Science and Technology released the technology for making mosquito repellent incense sticks for commercial production to a Sivasagar-based Agro Industry on the occasion of the observation of National Technology Day here, today. "Clean Out is a herbal agarbati made from indigenous plant materials and is totally free from hazardous chemical constituents,' a scientist of NEIST related while handing over the technology to Shamsul Haque of Premier Agro Products, Sivasagar.