Peri-Urbanism in Globalizing India: A Study of Pollution, Health and Community Awareness.

This paper examines the intersection between environmental pollution and people's acknowledgements of, and responses to, health issues in Karhera, a former agricultural village situated between the rapidly expanding cities of New Delhi (India's capital) and Ghaziabad (an industrial district in Uttar Pradesh). A relational place-based view is integrated with an interpretive approach, highlighting the significance of place, people's emic experiences, and the creation of meaning through social interactions. Research included surveying 1788 households, in-depth interviews, participatory mapping exercises, and a review of media articles on environment, pollution, and health. Karhera experiences both domestic pollution, through the use of domestic waste water, or gandapani, for vegetable irrigation, and industrial pollution through factories' emissions into both the air and water. The paper shows that there is no uniform articulation of any environment/health threats associated with gandapani. Some people take preventative actions to avoid exposure while others do not acknowledge health implications. By contrast, industrial pollution is widely noted and frequently commented upon, but little collective action addresses this. The paper explores how the characteristics of Karhera, its heterogeneous population, diverse forms of environmental pollution, and broader governance processes, limit the potential for citizen action against pollution.

Diagnostic tool for Glanzmann's thrombasthenia clinicopathologic spectrum.

OBJECTIVE: To platelet aggregometry and describe the clinical spectrum of Glanzmann's thrombasthenia diagnosed by platelet aggregometry. STUDY DESIGN: A case-series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: This study was carried out at the clinical laboratories at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi from January 2003 to January 2006. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients irrespective of age and gender presenting with bleeding symptoms and having normal platelet count were evaluated. Demographic details, relevant clinical history along with results of complete blood count, bleeding time and platelet aggregation studies were retrieved through computerized data base and evaluated for the diagnosis of Glanzmann's thrombasthenia. RESULTS: During the study period, 50 out of 2317 patients (2.2%) were diagnosed as Glanzmann's thrombasthenia by platelet aggregometry with male to female ratio of 0.85:1 and median age of 10.2 years (ranging from 3 months to 27 years). Common symptoms were epistaxis, oral and gingival bleed, bleeding from minor cuts and trauma that were observed in 46% of the patients; while 18%, 8% and 10% of them also complained of bruising, hematuria and bleeding per rectum respectively. Majority i.e. 86% had a bleeding time greater than 10 minutes. All patients had received blood or blood products for their bleeding episodes. CONCLUSION: Platelet aggregometry is a useful diagnostic modality for the assessment of Glanzmann's thrombasthenia. The disorder presents with muco-cutaneous bleeding and was found to be a common cause of bleeding in our setup.