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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
ABYTE OF LIFE
FREE CIRCULATION
Vol. 3No. 74
Adrian Sutil came close to securing his first championshippoints for Force India at the Chinese Grand Prix, only toagonisingly spin out five laps from the finish. Notperturbed with the near miss, the German isready to push harder for that elusive point.
CAR CRASHES,NOT HOPES
»
PAGE 08
SOMETHING ABOUT SUSAN
MADRASBIOTECH
Does Susan Boyle of 
Britain’s Got Talent 
need a makeover? An all-women micro-biology unit
 1103
 
ERGO
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
NAMMA CHENNAI
02
Coconut Caress or MalliMélange?
Indulge yourself with an exotic spa packageat Courtyard by Marriott this summer. Thespecial Summer Spa package encompasses avariety of massages to choose from. The‘Coconut Caress Massage’ is ideal for dryskin and comprises a blend of freshly gratedcoconut and sweet cardamom.‘Malli Mélange Massage’ is another soother.Freshly-picked jasmine mixed with finely-grounded sea salt ispolished onto thebody to removeexcess oil andsimultaneouslybalance and soothethe skin from thedamaging effects ofthe coastal sun.To add on, ‘HolisticHealth’ is a Thai ,while Jet LagSoother gives theoptimum amount ofblended essentialoils. The Swedish massage is a Europeantherapy that improves circulation andrelaxes the muscles. The full-body massagesare priced at Rs. 1,800 and the half-bodymassage starts from Rs.1,000 onwards (plustaxes).You can bring along your friend and availof a special discount of 30 per cent at anyof the spa massages. The offer is valid tillApril 2009. The special summer offer is validfrom April to June.Also, you can choose from any one of themassages, followed by steam bath, relax inthe Jacuzzi and even work out at the gym.This package comes for Rs. 1,100 plus taxes.This can be availed of between 8 a.m. and 4p.m. This offer is valid till June.For reservations contact 66764000.
P
olice are still clueless about the daring rob-bery case in Kilpauk where unidentifiedmen took way an entire Automotive TellerMachine (ATM) with Rs 87,500 cash in it onFriday night.The ATM located in a kiosk on Ormes Road,Kilpauk belonging to the Indian Overseas Bank  was targeted around 11.30 p. m. on Friday by threeor more men who had reached there on a van or apick up truck. Pretending to be ATM maintenance workers, they loaded the machine with cash intothe vehicle and drove away unnoticed.The shocking robbery came to light only on Sat-urday morning after the IOB branch next to the ATM opened for operations and found the com-puter connectivity to the machine was snapped.Bank authorities alerted the Kilpauk police whoreached the spot and conducted preliminary investigations.Speaking about the incident M. Pandian, Depu-ty Commissioner of Police, Kilpauk said that the ATM kiosk stands in an isolated location in thenight and doesn’t even have security guard postedinside. “The ATM was installed 9 months back and wasn’t cemented to the floor of the kiosk. More-over there was no CCTV camera installed inside,”said the Deputy Commissioner.Police also said that there was a delay on thepart of the bank in informing the police about theincident as the complaint was lodged only on Sat-urday afternoon.Two special teams formed to investigate thecase have questioned many known defaulters inthe city. Fingerprint experts have lifted three fin-ger prints from inside the kiosk and a search for amatch is underway.
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ERGO CORRESPONDENT
 feedback@goergo.in
 ATM robbers stillat bay 
 A 
40-year-old man died on Sun-day night, allegedly following aheavy dose of alcohol . Adding tothat, the deceased man’s fatherimmediately died of a heart at-tack after seeing his dead son’sbody. According to Vadapalani po-lice, the deceased Manoharan, who was running a grocery storein Kodambakkam, had thrown analcohol party for his friends onSunday evening at a wine shop in Venkatachalam Street as he hadbought a new washing machinefor his home. After drinking heavily in theparty, Manoharan had gone toTambaram along with two of hisfriends Rajendran and Thangad-urai for another drinking session.He had blacked out there andhis friends carried him into anautorickshaw and dropped himhome. After desperate attemptsby his family members to wake adrunken Manoharan failed, they rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced‘brought dead’.Manoharan’s father Appadurai(79), who had gone to the hospi-tal, fell down and died of a heartattack after seeing his son’s deadbody, police added. Vadapalani police has regis-tered a case and are investigating the incident.
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Man dies of alcohol, fatherdies after seeing son’s body 
Manoharan’s fatherAppadurai, who hadgone to the hospital,fell down and died ofa heart attack afterseeing his son’s deadbody
 
Tuesday,April21,2009
03
L
ike many students in bio-tech and biochemistry whoget depressed due to lack of employment opportunities,S Gita (name changed) too wasone such individual who almostgave up her career in this field,but thanks to Madras Biotech,an all women unit, she couldcontinue her work in her desiredarea and forte.The company which was start-ed in 2003, by Shobhana S, a bio-chemistry graduate from theMumbai University, and LalithaGopalan, philanthropist, em-ploys only women.This has helped to bridge gapbetween employment opportu-nities and deserving candidates. Ask Shobhana why she focusedon a microbiology unit, “Out of our research, we realised thatthere are very few companies inIndia who make biochemistry/biotech related products andmost of them are imported. Istrongly felt that we should be-come self-sufficient in this field.I could easily identify great po-tential in manufacturing indige-nous reagents and products forBiotech teaching and research. We wanted to give a platform togirls to engage them in good re-search and development whichis also commercially viable.”Over the years, the company that initially made 6 DNA andprotein products has now 50products that are sent to variousschools, colleges and researchinstitutes of bio chemistry andbiotechnology. Though it was arough climb for Shobhana andher team, Dr Radha Ramachan-dran, technical coordinator andtrainer at the unit says, “Sincethis industry is still emerging inour country, it took us aboutthree years to break even. Ourpotential clients were reluctantto try out our products as we were new in the market, but wekept giving reminder calls andalso few free trials. We also start-ed to customize our productsbased on their requirements which helped us to bridge thegaps. We sponsored collegeevents to create awareness. With a vision to popularisethis industry, their office turnedinto a mini academic school few  years ago, now imparts hands-on, practical and theoreticaltraining in molecular biology and biochemistry techniques intheir laboratory and mini classroom. Shobhana says, “Many students felt that the practicaltraining sessions in their colleg-es is not sufficient and hence wehave organised separate training programmes that assures perso-nal attention to every student. We also help them in their col-lege projects. The fees for theprogrammes vary from Rs 2000to Rs 4000, depending on thestudent’s study module require-ments and schedule.” When asked about her futureplans, she said, “We plan to ex-pand in terms of space, and incourse of time start a soft skilltraining course which will high-light presentation skills, labora-tory work and the requiredtechnical knowledge. This willmake the candidate confident toface the corporate world. We ap-peal to the concerned author-ities in the government forspecial benefits to be sanctionedto all such units mainly run by  women.”
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Shobhana and her team’s vision to make India self- sufficient in biotech made them start an all-women unit inthe same field 
DEEPA VENKATRAMAN
Shobhana Shankar along with her team members.
PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN
“Out of our research,we realised thatthere are very fewcompanies in Indiawho makebiochemistry/ biotechrelated products andmost of them areimported. I stronglyfelt that we shouldbecome self-sufficientin this field.”
Biotech diversified
Bhandarkar’s Durga
Catch Madhur Bhandarkar’s
Durga
aspart of the ‘Heroine - zindagi ke pannose’ series on Sony EntertainmentTelevision on Thursday, April 23 at 10p.m.
of 00

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