DOCTOR GIVES BREATH OF FRESH AIR
By G. Anuradha
Bangalore: Enter the new millennium with a new kind of bar — not the alcoholic kind but the revitalising kind at Oxyvital — the first oxygen bar in the city. Here, instead of ordering a pint of ale, you can go for a new kind of high with a whiff of pure oxygen.
Walk in, choose from a menu of funky Oxyvital menu conceived by Dr Kiran and relax as a thin oxygen disposable pipe is fitted to your nostrils. One session of inhaling pure oxygen lasting for about 15 to 20 minutes is enough to make you feel alive, calm and rejuvenate your cells which have been bombarded by polluted air, according to Dr Kiran, who has brought this new concept to the city.
The concept of an oxygen bar which first began in 1997 triggered the interest of Dr Kiran a physician by profession, to try something different in the line of treating people.
After a quick seven-day training course in Hong Kong, Dr Kiran has thrown open the Oxyvital Bar at Vasantanagar to the citizens of Bangalore. "Each patient will be first screened and a brief medical history recorded so that I can help them to choose the kind of oxygen therapy suitable to them," Dr Kiran says.
Menu for the therapy categorised under aroma cocktail menu and fruit cocktail menu contain at least seven varieties of therapy each. While the Travellers Rest helps in negating jet lag, exhaustion, confusion and self doubt, Grape is ideal for headaches, hangovers, general pain symptoms and high blood pressure, according to Dr Kiran.
Any person with or without respiratory disorders can make use of this therapy says Dr Kiran pointing out that the long term effect of this treatment could prevent respiratory diseases. The basic logic of this therapy is that cells degenerate due to lack of oxygen thus making a person susceptible for respiratory disorders especially when exposed to high pollution levels. Brief therapy sessions with super oxygenated air is believed to rejuvenate the cells giving them the much needed oxygen and thus help prevent respiratory disorders.
On the rate per session, Dr Kiran said "My basic aim is to make it accessible to all levels of people. So I am planning to charge Rs 50 to Rs 75 per session. Each person can have minimum two sessions per week to feel the difference that the therapy makes to the body system."
Dr Kiran also plans to approach the traffic police authorities to suggest a proposal to have such oxygen bars at intervals in polluted road junctions to enable traffic constables who are highly exposed to air pollutants to take whiffs of fresh oxygen and revitalise their cells.
Asked whether such a new concept of buying oxygen would find popularity in the city, Dr Kiran said ,"When water was first sold in bottles, people laughed at the idea of paying for water. Likewise, once the necessity of such a oxygen bar is understood people will not hesitate to pay for healthy clean air."
Oxyvital is located at No. 20, 1st cross, 12th main, Vasantanagar.

STATE SYSTEMS CLEAR Y2K TEST
By Bhaskar Hegde
Bangalore: The Kaiga atomic power plant was not shut down on December 31 in response to a "precautionary call" given by United Nations to avoid possibility of any major disaster due to Y2K bug, and is successfully generating power, claimed the station director, Mr N. Raja Sabai. When contacted, Mr Sabai told The Asian Age, "We have already issued a press release saying we are Y2K complaint now. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to shut the plant."
The United Nations, as a precautionary measure to avoid possibility of any disaster due to Y2K bug, called for shutting down the atomic power plants and other such computer-oriented operations across the world for at least two days from December 31. Mr Sabai pointed out that the plant, on an average, has been generating 2.1 million units of power every day and so far, the plant has added 26 million units to the state grid after the plant has been launched for full-scale production.
When his attention was brought to the technical snag that had cropped up in the turbine section a few days ago, Mr Sabai said the excess vibrations reported in the turbine was rectified. He refuted reservations expressed by anti-nuclear activists who claimed the problem occurred as it was for the first time that the BHEL turbines have been used in a nuclear power plant. He said, "We have used the BHEL turbines in Kalpakam and Tarapur atomic power plants also. It is absolutely wrong to say that we are using BHEL turbine for the first time in Kaiga atomic plant."
About the NGOs’ demand that an independent review committee should be set up to monitor the radiation level in environment and to look into rehabilitation demands, Mr Sabai sought to distance himself from both the issues saying, "As of now, I am not aware of the demands."
During the second week of November, anti-nuclear activists along with local people, staged a dharna near the atomic power plant demanding rehabilitation for people in Devkar village, free access to people to radiation measuring stations set up in the surrounding areas and setting up an independent committee to monitor radiation level. Even in the district level meeting presided over by district in-charge minister R.V. Deshpande at the deputy commissioner’s office during last week November, it was strongly felt that Kaiga project authorities should take steps to set up a monitoring committee.

NEW YEAR PARTY ENDS AFTER HOAX BOMB CALL
Bangalore: A bomb hoax call spoiled the new millennium party at The Club in the city’s outskirts on Mysore Road.
The police control room received a call from an anonymous caller at around 15 minutes past midnight on Saturday saying that a bomb would explode in the club premises on Mysore Road. Soon after this, the police rushed a bomb disposal squad and dog squad to the venue and stopped the millennium party much to the disappointment of the guests who had gathered there to revel.
An intensive search yielded no results. Earlier, the club management had announced that the millennium party will go on upto 5 am. But the party was stopped at around 1.30 am due to the bomb threat.
The police did not reveal about the threat call while asking people to move out of the club. "If we had announced about the bomb threat, it could have led to a stampede as a strong crowd of 5,000 had gathered at the club," a police officer said.
However, the guests who were unaware of the threat call, argued with the organisers for stopping the party early. The club management had obtained permission from the excise department to serve liquor till 2 am.

IIM STUDENT CONSULTANTS ON THE WEB
By Ayesha Khanum
Bangalore: Six students of the Indian Institute of Management here have developed a website on management consultancy to advise companies and small firms on how to improve business and earn profits. Since the website’s launch in September, the students have received enquires from within India, Denmark and the United States of America seeking suggestions on company management.
Anurag Jain, one of the students involved with the project, told The Asian Age that the site was hosted with an aim to fill in the gap between consultancy managements and organisations that are small and medium sized. "Management consulatncy is very expensive and many small and medium companies cannot afford the services. Our website will cater to their management requirements at no cost," he said. The companies and business schools also have no interaction with regard to consultancy he said. "Our project was basically aimed at industry and institution reaction, through we can get good exposure on the subject and at the same time develop professional skills," Mr Jain said. The basic objective is to help industry with our expertise and knowledge in respective areas, he added.
The website unix2.iimb.ernet,in~ajain/consult.html called the free consulting group was set up in collaboration with students from different areas such as marketing finance operations, income tax and management information. The group promises to offer any kind of advice for company management. "We have the capability to combine these different backgrounds and think about a situation from as many perspectives as possible, " they claim. The group comprising Abhishek Saraf, Jai Ganesh, Hari Nataraja, Manish Chowdhary, and Neeraj Shah specialise in various branches.
Management consultancy basically deals with specific area needs and consultants give direction on how to expand business and what business is profitable. However the exorbitant cost offered by management consultancies is out of reach of small or medium companies. The website thus comes as a boon for such companies to improve business.
The site which purely started as a project for these students generated enquires from the companies on specific businesses in India and abroad. The students have also got assignments from Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Bangalore-based companies.
The clients feed basic data about their companies and the FCG helps them by applying their knowledge on consultancy and offer advice and suggestions for business improvement.
"We have also forged a relationship with a Delhi-based company run by IIM and Xavier Labour Research Institute graduates for the same purpose. Though these companies are in market for business, the FCG does not wish to utilise their service on a profit basis.
"We are working on other business ideas which we will pursue for business purposes but the FCG will not run on a profit basis," asserts Mr Jain.