Singapore-based Leben Care has raised angel funding from IP Ventures. The funds have been bagged to fight avoidable blindness. Leben Care provides Artificial Intelligence (AI) based diagnostic and screening solutions, primarily known for automated, fast and affordable retinal screening. As per the officials report, the firm will utilize raised funds to strengthen its product, sales and marketing teams.

Speaking on the development, Mitesh Shah, Co-founder of IP Ventures said, “In our country and even worldwide, there is a huge supply deficit when it comes to screening and diagnostic ophthalmology services. Leben Care is using AI and scalable technology to address this problem. Leben Care has a competent team and some great strategic partnerships. We are very excited to partner with them.”

Leben Care’s first flagship AI Platform Netra.AI uses cutting edge algorithms with a 4 step Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN). Netra.AI enables automated and point of care Retinal Image Analysis by reducing incidence of blindness by timely identification of patients at risk and offering insights to medical practitioners thus enabling improved diagnostic outcome.

“We see tremendous value in being able to access the industry experts in IP Ventures team in this phase of building our company. Even the conversations during the entire due diligence process have helped us tremendously in shaping our approach. We are on a mission to fight avoidable blindness using AI and hope to make this technology available to millions who struggle to get access to basic screening. Our platform Netra.ai is intended to be the go to place for all Ophthalmology related AI solutions.”

Leben Care enables automated analysis of retina image using AI algorithms that can be used by technicians, nurses, optometrists to conduct basic screening with minimal specialist intervention, delivering real-time reports. The company will also cater to areas such as Glaucoma and age-related macular edema.

Mentored by

The company is mentored by experts at Sankara Eye Foundation who have been closely involved in the product development cycle. It has already made a market entry in India, Japan, China, Singapore, Africa and Australia through partnerships with distributors & ophthalmology centers across these countries. The company also counts St.Johns Medical College, Giridhar Eye Insititute, Mach7, Telomeres, Cosmotec  and Tonghua Eye Hospital as some of its partners.

Market capturing

With over 700 million people worldwide at the risk of retinal damage, 200 thousand ophthalmologists and only 35 thousand retina experts, there is a significant supply gap that LebenCare intends to fill with its scalable technology.

Khushboo Karva who is India’s first Mrs. Universe 2018 has just hit the bullseye. With representing India amongst hundreds of talented participants her determination and tremendous efforts of polishing her skills and working on her abilities made her sway away from the crown-making India proud on an international platform.

Khushboo who has been a homemaker, a nurturer, a mother always had a dream to accomplish not only to have her hands in Bollywood but also owning a successful venture which made her one the ace entrepreneur in her own field.

Having to know a number of dance forms and being a fitness diva Khushboo believes in never stopping or falling and continuing the effort to grow towards success.

Khushboo has been featured in a number of well-renowned magazines like Femina, Savvy and many more appreciating her tremendous will power and ability to have an eye of the tiger. Khushboo still continues to persuade acting classes in order to polish her skills, taking up voice modulation to enhance her speaking abilities and also working on theatre.

Sources say that ‘ Khushboo is in cahoots for her digital debut having to be a leader in an upcoming web series under a big banner production’

A study of the recorded rainfall data and simulation studies of the past 100 years has contradicted traditional notions of rainfall patterns in the country. This observation is important because it contradicts the traditional notion of dry areas becoming drier and wet areas becoming wetter in response to climate change.

Using recorded rainfall data and simulation studies, the research team from Indian Institutes of Technology at Madras and Bombay gained surprising insights that are critical not only for understanding geographic variations in seasonal rainfall in India but also for framing long-term water management policies of the country. Their work has been published in the reputed peer-reviewed journal PLOS.

“Our study shows that the amount of rains has decreased in river basins with surplus water and has increased in basins with deficit water,” explained Dr. Sachin Gunthe from IIT, Madras.

The first author of the PLOS paper Dr. Subimal Ghosh of IIT Bombay added, “The results of the investigations were intriguing and contradictory to common belief.”

The researchers caution that the reasons for the unusual pattern of rainfall remain unclear and rigorous hypothesis-driven models and process studies are required. The observations by the IIT Bombay-IIT Madras team would undoubtedly serve as a launchpad for future scientific investigations on the root causes of regional vagaries of rainfall.  Concerted and logical approaches based on these observations would greatly benefit national-scale climate-water adaptation and regional preparedness.

The research team comprised Dr. Subimal Ghosh and Dr. Subhankar Karmakar from IIT Bombay, Dr. K.S. Kasiviswanathan, Dr. K.P. Sudhir and Dr. Sachin Gunthe from IIT Madras along with their research students.

Supported by the Max Planck Partner Group at IIT Madras, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, this multi-institute team used rainfall data across the entire country over the past century to show the trends and variations in monsoon rains. 

The Indian summer monsoon that falls between June and September contributes approximately 80 percent of the annual total rainfall of the country and plays a decisive role in the country’s agricultural output. Sixty percent of Indian agriculture depends upon monsoon rain for irrigation, which in turn decides the economy because agriculture accounts for eighteen percent of India’s gross domestic product. 

Recent observations, both at the meteorological level and from local perceptions, that monsoon has grown more unpredictable than before, bodes ill for a country whose societal and economic wellbeing is critically linked to seasonal rains. Extreme events such as the floods in Kerala and the ongoing zero-water situation in the adjoining state of Tamil Nadu stand testimony to the recent vagaries of the Indian summer monsoon.  

The collaborative team from IIT Madras and IIT Bombay seeks to understand the nature of these variations in Indian summer monsoon rainfall and the impacts of climate change on the temporal and spatial rainfall patterns through analysis of historical data and simulation studies.

Speaking about this Research, Dr. Sachin S Gunthe, Associate Professor (Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Division), Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “The regional aspects of the Indian summer monsoon rain pattern are difficult to understand because it is affected by many factors. In order to discern rainfall patterns reliably, we (researchers) used IMDB’s daily rainfall data for the years 1901–2004 and performed simulations taking into consideration, phenomena such as maximum temperature, minimum temperature, rainfall and wind velocity. The model was validated with satellite-based observation from the European Space Agency- Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI) soil moisture data.”

It is common knowledge that geographic variation of extremes in rainfall occurs due to convection – the movement of moisture-laden hot air upwards, followed by cooling at higher altitudes and shedding of the moisture as rain.  Convection-based rains would mean that regions, where there is excess moisture in the air, should experience more rainfall.  This, however, was not seen in the rainfall pattern analyzed by the research team. 

Adults who take several prescription medications are more likely to experience serious falls, say Yale researchers and their co-authors in a new study. This heightened risk can affect middle-aged individuals — a population not typically viewed as vulnerable to debilitating or fatal falls, the researchers said.

To identify factors that put adults at risk for serious falls, the research team used patient data from the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), a national study of individuals who receive care through the Veterans Health Administration (VA). They identified 13,000 fall cases and compared them to controls of similar age, race, sex, and HIV status. The fall risk factors included prescription medication use, and alcohol and illegal drug use.

The researchers found that falls were a problem for middle-aged patients. “Providers typically think about falls in people over age 65. But these people were primarily in their 50s and falls were an important concern,” said Julie Womack, lead author and associate professor at Yale School of Nursing. 

The study also noted that the simultaneous use of multiple medications, known as polypharmacy, plays a significant role in serious falls among patients who are HIV positive and those who are not. The researchers examined HIV status because people treated for HIV take several medications and often at a younger age.

Medications that were associated with serious falls included those commonly used to treat anxiety and insomnia (benzodiazepines), as well as muscle relaxants and prescription opioids.

Another important finding is the role of alcohol and illegal drug use in falls, Womack said.

The study suggests that programs designed to prevent serious falls in older adults may need to be modified to address risks for middle-aged adults. “Fall risk factors are highly prevalent in the Baby Boomer generation more generally. The next step is to look at interventions for the middle-aged,” said Womack. Those interventions could address drinking and illicit drug use in addition to polypharmacy. “When we’re thinking about fall prevention programs we have to think about alcohol and substance use. We need to help individuals cut back.”

Reducing falls in middle-aged and older adults is vital because falls contribute to increased risk of injuries, hospitalizations, and death, said Womack.

The study was published online ahead of print in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (JAIDS).

Other study authors are Terrence E. Murphy, Christopher T. Rentsch, Janet P. Tate, Harini Bathulapalli, Alexandria C. Smith, Jonathan Bates, Samah Jarad, Cynthia L. Gibert, Maria C. Rodriguez-Barradas, Phyllis C. Tien, Michael T. Yin, Thomas M. Gill, Gary Friedlaender, Cynthia A. Brandt, and Amy C. Justice.

This work was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research, National Center for Research Resources and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institute on Aging, and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

When it comes to heart disease, the health of the scaffold where cardiac cells grow may be a much bigger factor than previously believed.

Stuart Campbell, associate professor of biomedical engineering & cellular and molecular physiology, led a team of researchers examined the effects of a diseased extracellular matrix (ECM) — the scaffolding material that organizes cells into tissue — on the behavior of healthy heart cells. They found that the ECM appears to play a major role in the progression of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a genetic condition that causes thickened heart muscle. The study appears July 24 in the journal JACC: Basic to Translational Science.

HCM is often caused by gene mutations that affect muscle contraction. Drug treatment can correct the effects of these mutations, but it doesn’t completely reverse the disease. Suspecting that an unhealthy ECM is a culprit, Campbell’s team first obtained diseased ECM from a pig model of HCM. The heart cells were chemically removed from the tissue and replaced with healthy human heart muscle cells. They later compared these cells with cardiac muscle cells grown on a healthy ECM and found that those grown on the diseased ECM showed prolonged contractions and poor relaxation.

“This is really surprising because these cells contain identical genetics and yet they have completely different behaviors just by virtue of which matrix they were growing on,” Campbell said. “It’s almost as if the diseased matrix remembers that it was part of an unhealthy heart. These findings are essentially teeing up the question: How can we fix the matrix and potentially make a big difference in this disease?”

In the study, the researchers observed that the tissue on the diseased matrix required twice the force to stretch to the same length as the tissue on the healthy matrix. That, Campbell said, indicates that the stiffness of the diseased matrix itself is reprogramming active muscle contractions. To counteract the stiffer matrix, the cells appear to grow larger — perhaps mimicking the excess growth of the heart tissue seen in HCM.

“What’s fascinating is that if you take the diseased ECM and put some healthy cells on it, they suddenly have the hallmarks of the patient with poor diastole — the heart’s relaxation phase,” Campbell said. “The implication is that we have to address problems with the matrix to cure this disease once it has emerged — or better yet, be really confident about who’s going to get this disease and treat it before it happens.”

Harpreet Talwar (Kabir Talwar), an Entrepreneur and the owner of one of the most popular clubs in New Delhi. He owns RSPV, Jazbaa and Play Boy Club in Delhi. The restaurant and club Jazbaa and Playboy are at Samrat Hotel under his Firm Fit Fresh Food (India). Harpreet Talwar (Kabir Talwar) was a Delhi University graduate with financial family background. He launched Fit Fresh Food under which they acquired RSVP, Jazbaa and Playboy Club, Delhi. He is also the owner of other companies under which he imports furniture, footwear, and jewelry. 

Harpreet Talwar (Kabir Talwar) says about his Fit Fresh Food, “Fit Fresh Food offers a complete dining and lounging experience and is dedicated to offering a premium experimental dining experience to its clientele. In this new era of fitness consciousness, we offer people healthy-eating options which are our major plus point.”  

For Fit Fresh Food he awarded Times Power Icon award for his contribution to Food and Nightlife by Times in 2018.

Now, Harpreet Talwar (Kabir Talwar) is coming with Emiway Bantai in his Playboy club in Delhi. Emiway Bantai is one of the best rappers out there. He will be coming on 26th July at Harpreet Talwar’s (Kabir Talwar), Playboy Club. Emiway fans don’t gonna miss this. So if you wanna book your tables just visit on Instagram @kabirtalwar or @playboyclubdelhi profile.

Nafih Mohammed Naser, born on 13th December, in the year 1988 in Kasargod district of Kerala is currently appointed as the Social Media Coordinator of the Youth Congress, Bangalore district. He did his schooling from Saadiya Senior Secondary school and his under graduation with bachelors in commerce from PA college, Mangalore. He has a rather dynamic appeal to his approach in the representation of Indian politics, in the day and age where the younger generation detests politics and the corruption that revolves around it, here is a personality who brings out the more Positive, Powerful and impactful social reforms through constant engagement in public service.

Having a huge following on Instagram on his @nmnnafi, portrays a lifestyle which the youth identify, inspire and could relate with. This apart, Nafih Mohamed Naser has been actively involved in efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic reform with the desire to make changes in society. He has participated in many rallies and campaigns as a social activist and propagandas like the Anti-drug campaign, to spread awareness and curb its usage among the youth. 

He has also been actively involved in spreading awareness of the political campaigns, meetings, propagandas of the congress party and their contribution to the welfare of society through social media, print media etc.

His followers on social media can see the actual behind the scenes working of a politicians life? He’s breaking the stereotype in more than ways, with adopting lifestyle manners that the youth can identify and also aspire to be like.

Rishabh Sachdev is the owner/partner of Jyoti Group. He hails from Mumbai and is very successful in his line of business. Rishabh is a B.com graduate and knows very well how the market works in order to remain in the top position. 

Under Jyoti Group, Rishabh Sachdev runs Jyoti developers, Jyoti Surgical, Jyoti hotels and much more. In Mumbai, more than 100 buildings are considered by Jyoti group in the last 25 years. They’ve been working majorly in Mumbai’s Andheri area.

Rishabh wants to expand his work more. He will be producing a Bollywood action movie soon. That will mark his debut as a producer in the film industry.

Rishabh said, “I always wanted to venture into films. Now that I have stable and good growth in my business, I can broaden my horizons and invest in films which were always my area of interest.”

Bananas are rich in Vitamins, Iron, Magnesium and many other minerals that are beneficial for our health. But what if you are charged four hundred and forty-two rupees for two bananas in a hotel? Won’t you go bananas?

The well-known actor and India’s national Rugby player, Rahul Bose, took to Twitter to share this obnoxious incident where he demonstrated in a video that how JW Marriott at Chandigarh charged him 442.50 rupees for two bananas.

In the video, he said, “So I am shooting at Chandigarh on this beautiful suite of JW Marriott where they give you all these freebies and elegant cookies…While I was at the gym working out, I asked for two bananas…Of courses I got the bananas but, look at the bill.”

To View Click Here Rahul Bose Twitter

The actor was levied 9% UTGST and CGST. The banana invoice break-up read the food platter costs rupees 375 with taxes of 33.75 each on two sets of same slab GST.

Twitter couldn’t digest this cost of two bananas and went bananas after this revelation.

Here are some snapshots from Twitter..

Let’s supply banana to @JWMarriottChd now that we know what they sell at..I see a business venture for myself.” Tweeted @aartithakurjha

@astitvadhyan tweeted, “Kele ka chilka vapas de dete bhaiya kuch discount milta..”

Another one wrote: “They must have made special gold infused.”

@soumya_tweet wrote, “It’s not banana, it’s ullu banana.”

Actor Rahul Bose in his tweet wrote, “You have to see this to believe it. Who said fruit wasn’t harmful to your existence. Ask the wonderful folks at JW Marriott.”

Early education or pre-primary schools are vital for the preparation of children for a healthy and successful primary education. Many parents feel that children at that age are still too small to attend school and should be spending more time having fun at home. While this is true it is important that their early play and exploration is engaging, educative and stimulating. A well designed early years curriculum provides many stimuli and works towards seeing measurable growth in the child during his time at school. Some of the key benefits that you can expect from sending your child to an early years program will be:

Gives young children socio-emotional growth

One of the first things we need to teach our children is how to separate from their primary caregivers. For a child, knowing that he can separate from his parents into a new environment with new caregivers and have them come back for them a few hours later reinforces healthy separation and emotional security. This is fundamentally helpful for the child to feel comfortable, confident and engaged when they finally move on to full time schooling. A good early learning program focuses on building this independence in a child and measures for factors that show this growth. Interacting, observing and playing with other children also teaches a child how a social group operates and makes them comfortable amongst their peers in school.  

Foundation for numeracy and language skills

Early learning focuses on basic numeracy and language skills. While these are also taught at the primary level, it has been seen that students who engage in early learning are able to have a deeper and more conceptual experience rather than learning the basics. Children start to learn a language at a very young age and in fact, in India, they are often learning multiple languages at home. A good early learning or pre-primary program reinforces these skills. Children are also taught numeracy through different senses.  For example, counting can be taught by moving beads, watching a teacher or singing a song. This engages all of their senses in learning and awakens the child’s interests.  

Fine and Gross Motor development

Early learning or pre-primary programs also engage the physical needs of a child. Through play and special learning toys, teachers are able to create situations in which the child can engage their fine motor (fingers, hands, eyes) or their gross motor skills (running, jumping and crawling).  Exposure to a variety of environments and surfaces gives the child an opportunity to develop their muscles and prepare themselves for life.    

Engagement and exploration

All humans are constantly learning and children in their early years are learning at an extremely rapid pace. Thus it is important to expose them to new environments, people and peers. A new teacher, friend or friend’s parent may be able to give an important and personality forming experience to the child.  These experiences will help them grow into strong confident children who are able to navigate the world and become model citizens.  

Take your time and pick the right program, but remember, that by choosing the right early education or pre-primary school you can give your child that head starts to be successful. 

About the author: Rohan Parikh has a BSc in Economics from Wharton Business School, an MBA from INSEAD, and has more than 10 years of experience in the Real Estate and Hospitality industries. In 2013 Mr. Parikh entered the field of education by founding The Green Acres Academy in Chembur, and simultaneously pursuing a Master’s degree in Education through Johns Hopkins University.