Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273465551?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
AT&T to update Samsung Galaxy Note II with Multi-Window tomorrow
Most US models of the Samsung Galaxy Note II have already been updated with Multi-Window -- a split-screen feature that allows users to view two apps at once -- but AT&T is the last of the four national powers that hasn't pushed the feature out to its customers. That will change tomorrow, as AT&T has confirmed to us in an email that it will roll out the new build over the air at some point during the day. We're happy that users won't have to rely on Samsung's proprietary Kies desktop software to update their devices, but minor downloads like this are typically facilitated OTA. There's no word on if the ROM will be pushed out in phases to minimalize the impact on AT&T's servers, but don't be terribly worried if you don't get notified right away. Continue below to read the carrier's official statement on the matter.
Continue reading AT&T to update Samsung Galaxy Note II with Multi-Window tomorrow
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Samsung, AT&T
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Rk23TxcpqlM/
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health and fitness: What Is Cosmetic Surgery
By Steven G. Levine
Cosmetic plastic surgery is preferred by individuals who prefer to boost their physical appearance and strengthen their self-esteem. This kind of surgery treatment is different from reconstructive surgery that's meant to repair or replace areas of the body which have been changed due to ailment, injury and other surgeries. Cosmetic surgery provides emotional and physical advantages; nevertheless, it may feature some risks. Due to this, it is vital for a patient to select a very skilled surgeon to do the process.Functions of Cosmetic Plastic Surgery
Cosmetic surgery is meant to replace or enhance bodily features which are deformed or undesirable. Compared to other types of surgical procedures, cosmetic surgery is extensive when it comes to areas and methods. The aim of this kind of process is usually achieved by getting rid of bone fragments or fat adding compounds including silicone so that fullness is made. This can also be performed by using chemical substances or injections which are designed to remove skin layers or paralyze different muscles in your body. Majority of cosmetic surgical procedures must be done in a hospital and patients can often recover in days or even weeks. Nonetheless, there are less unpleasant processes that can be performed in a doctor's clinic wherein the individual can also go back home right after the procedure.
Different Kinds of Cosmetic Surgical Treatments
Most parts of an individual's body can go through a cosmetic plastic surgery; however, it's the face that is the most common site. In the case of kids, they often go through a repair of a cleft palate or lip and ear-pinning process. There are several types of cosmetic surgery procedures that include rhinoplasty, mammoplasty, eyebrow lifts, breast reduction and also augmentation, chin surgery, scar reduction or even removal, otoplasty along with facelifts. Men often go for tummy tucks, hair loss transplants and also eyelid surgery. Both women and men may prefer liposuction procedures which can be done in an outpatient environment.
Significant Benefits of Cosmetic Surgery
People who undergo cosmetic plastic surgery such as those offered by Miami cosmetic surgeons, will often claim that they feel much better, gain more self-confidence and look youthful after their operation. This kind of surgical treatment is capable of correcting physical defects while allowing others to make social confidence which they never had. Treatments just like ear pinning can provide children the opportunity to suit themselves with their peer group and help save them from feeling humiliated which most children with deformities may suffer.
Points to consider When Wanting a Cosmetic Surgery
Cosmetic surgery is normally opted to delay or eliminate the aging signs that will speed up the natural process of aging. To deal with this, some people will undertake the procedure consistently. But, there are numerous procedures which had resulted in unnatural appearance and poor outcomes. Also, this kind of surgical procedure may also cost a lot of money. While there could be funding provided by some surgery offices, procedures which are more expensive can still cost a person a minimum of $15000. Before an individual chooses a cosmetic plastic surgery, he must talk with his physician all elements of the surgical procedure that include the procedure, complication rates as well as charges. Furthermore, it is also best if you plan for the process and recovery beforehand simply because some procedures may lead to complications that will need weeks or months of rest. In fact, there can be surgical treatments executed in a medical center setting that may come with some risks particularly in individuals with diabetic issues. Complications may vary from pain and inflammation to infections, neural damage, scarring as well as death. The pitfalls of getting problems from a cosmetic plastic surgery are very likely if it is conducted in a physician's clinic. That's the reason it's vital to select a very experienced surgeon who is known to conduct successful surgical procedures.
Source: http://goodfitness103.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-is-cosmetic-surgery.html
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Sonos Playbar appears at the FCC (update: WiFi explained)
Sonos is the de facto choice for multi-room audio, but even some of its biggest proponents will grumble about the lack of built-in WiFi -- going wireless in any way has meant tacking a Bridge on to the cost of an already expensive system. An FCC filing for an upcoming device, the Playbar, hints that common sense might have the upper hand. While there's few details of the audio system itself, there's explicit mentions of dual-band 802.11n WiFi inside. Just what that WiFi does is another matter. Sonos prefers using its proprietary network to cut back on lag and interference, so the Playbar's additional wireless may extend functionality rather than simplify our lives. With approval out of the way, there's a better chance we'll know the full story in the near future.
Update: We've done some digging, and the WiFi may be more innocuous: Sonos' proprietary network is actually WiFi that's just invisible most of the time. Android users have access to settings that expose Sonos' WiFi network and make it usable. As such, the Playbar may be more conventional than first thought, although its exact role in the home is still a mystery.
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Source: FCC
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/iPjMoNQ9oxA/
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide
About one in three children in the U.S. are now overweight, and since the 1980s the number of children who are obese has more than tripled. But a new study of 26.7 million young children from low-income families shows that in this group of kids, the tidal wave of obesity might finally be receding.
Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese--and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid's life, have been especially high among lower-income families. "This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline," the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.) The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher--for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male--compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance. A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010. Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive. Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home). The newly revealed trends "indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children," the authors noted. "These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood." Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese--and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid's life, have been especially high among lower-income families. "This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline," the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.) The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher--for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male--compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance. A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010. Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive. Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home). The newly revealed trends "indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children," the authors noted. "These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood." Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/early-childhood-obesity-rates-might-slowing-nation-wide-215900133.html
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Mexico bishop inspires, infuriates with activism
FILE - This Dec. 22, 1999 file photo shows Bishop Raul Vera in San Cristobal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Vera arrived in Saltillo as Bishop in 2000, with a reputation as a social crusader. Vera?s realm is a wide swath of Coahuila, a state bordering Texas that?s become a hideout for the brutal Zetas cartel. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
FILE - This Dec. 22, 1999 file photo shows Bishop Raul Vera in San Cristobal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Vera arrived in Saltillo as Bishop in 2000, with a reputation as a social crusader. Vera?s realm is a wide swath of Coahuila, a state bordering Texas that?s become a hideout for the brutal Zetas cartel. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
FILE - In this March 10, 1998 file photo, Bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, Samuel Ruiz, right, and auxiliary Bishop Raul Vera give a blessing at the Tzeltal Indian community of Chanal in the Chiapas highlands of Mexico. Vera arrived in Saltillo as Bishop in 2000, with a reputation as a social crusader. Marked by his unvarnished speech, Vera's voice now carries beyond his diocese here, especially when he weighs in on issues such as drug violence, vulnerable immigrants and gay rights. (AP Photo/Pasqual Gorriz, File)
MONCLOVA, Mexico (AP) ? The white-haired bishop stepped before some 7,000 faithful gathered in a baseball stadium in this violence-plagued northern border state. He led the gathering through the rituals of his Mass, reciting prayers echoed back by the massive crowd. And then his voice rose.
Politicians are tied to organized crime, Bishop Raul Vera bellowed while inaugurating the church's Year of Faith. Lawmakers' attempts to curb money laundering are intentionally weak. New labor reforms are a way to enslave Mexican workers.
How, Vera asked, can Mexicans follow leaders "who are the ones who have let organized crime grow, who have let criminals do what they do unpunished, because there's no justice in this country!"
In a nation where some clergy have been cowed into silence by drug cartels and official power, Vera is clearly unafraid to speak. That makes him an important voice of dissent in a country where the Roman Catholic Church often works hand-in-hand with the powerful, and where cynicism about politics is widespread and corrosive.
Vera's realm is a wide swath of Coahuila, a state bordering Texas that's become a hideout for the brutal Zetas drug cartel. It's where the current governor's nephew was killed in October and the former governor, the victim's father, resigned last year as leader of the political party that just returned to power with newly inaugurated President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Marked by his unvarnished speech, the Saltillo bishop's voice carries beyond his diocese here, especially when he weighs in on hot issues such as drug violence, vulnerable immigrants and gay rights.
In late 2007, Mexico City's Human Rights Commission denounced death threats against Vera and a burglary of the diocese's human rights offices. The following year, after Coahuila became the first Mexican state to allow civil unions for gay couples, a move the bishop endorsed, Vera was invited to speak at a U.S.-based conference for a Catholic gay and lesbian organization. In 2010, he was awarded a human rights prize in Norway.
Anonymous critics have hung banners outside the cathedral asking for what they called a real Catholic bishop. And last year, the 67-year-old was summoned to the Vatican to explain a church outreach program to gay youth.
Natalia Ni?o, president of Familias Mundi in Saltillo, told the Catholic News Agency last year that Vera had placed too much focus on supporting the gay community.
"A pastoral commitment to homosexual persons is necessary and welcomed, but not at the expense of the family and a solid pastoral plan for marriage and family, which is unfortunately being neglected in the diocese," she said.
Vera, who has had government bodyguards before, said he was foregoing similar security despite the criticism and threats. Such measures were rare and frowned upon in Saltillo, he said.
"I'm not the only one exposed, there are lots of people exposed who work with immigrants, with the missing," Vera said. "How do I cover myself? Them?"
Mexico's Bishops Conference did not respond to repeated requests for an interview about Vera. The church's hierarchy in Mexico did issue a statement in 2010 congratulating Vera on his human rights prize, and last year, the church condemned anonymous threats against him.
Vera's office often lends more weight to his words, especially when he speaks up about human rights, said Emiliano Ruiz Parra, a Mexican journalist and author of a new book that portrays Vera and other "black sheep" of the church in Mexico.
"Among the defenders of human rights he is the one who hedges the least, he says things the way they are," Parra said before Pena Nieto's Dec. 1 inauguration. "He's not afraid, for example, to take on the president, the one who's leaving or the president-elect."
Vera's homily on an October Sunday in Monclova included a lengthy diatribe about an alleged vote-buying scheme involving grocery store gift cards critics say were distributed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. Citing press reports, the bishop told the crowd organized crime paid for the scheme and helped Pe?a Nieto's victory. He also labeled as "collaborators" anyone who took a gift card in exchange for their vote.
"What we're seeing now is nothing other than the reaccommodation of the criminal groups with the new government teams," Vera said later as he raced back to Saltillo for another Mass. "The criminal groups always have their agreements with those who are in the state governments, in the federal government."
An industrial hub on the high desert about an hour west of Monterrey, Saltillo had long been known as a quiet haven in Mexico, distinguished by its auto manufacturing and a modern museum exhaustively detailing the surrounding terrain.
In recent years, however, the area has fallen victim to the drug violence plaguing other parts of Mexico. In 2011, 729 murders hit the state, compared to 449 the year before and 107 in 2006, according to preliminary figures released by the government this summer. Four bodies were found hanging from a Saltillo overpass earlier this month.
Until the nephew of Gov. Ruben Moreira was killed in early October, the political class had showed little concern for violence, Vera said.
"Fear of the conditions that Mexico is going through with the insecurity, with so much violence, makes us silent, and Don Raul is a strong voice who says what the rest of us are too scared to say," said Maria Luz Lopez Morales, a Vera friend and self-professed atheist who runs literacy programs for women in rural areas outside Monclova.
Vera arrived in Saltillo in 2000, after serving as the co-bishop in a deeply divided diocese in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, where Zapatista rebels were battling government troops. He came with a reputation as a social crusader.
"Ever since I arrived here, as I came from Chiapas and I wasn't a person who was going to support the government, since this moment they decided that my image needed to be restrained," Vera said. He pointed to critical coverage from a local television network where a host once displayed Vera's picture surrounded by flames of eternal damnation. Vera said he believed the host was paid to do the government's bidding.
In February 2006, Vera celebrated Mass at the Pasta de Conchos coal mine where 65 miners had perished and spent days with their families hammering the mine's owners, government officials and union leaders for dangerous working conditions.
Five months later, he traveled to Castanos, a small town near Monclova, where soldiers had been arrested in connection to the sexual assaults of more than a dozen prostitutes. He and his longtime collaborator Jackie Campbell started their own investigation, leading the diocese's human rights office to successfully push to try some of the soldiers in civilian courts, where several were sentenced.
Mysterious cars followed Vera and Campbell during that time. Campbell's home phone line was cut and Vera was threatened. Campbell eventually moved to Argentina for three years to escape the harassment and to pursue graduate studies.
Vera has also demanded investigations into the thousands of migrants who have gone missing while passing through the state and clamored for a DNA database to identify bodies. In an email, the Rev. Pedro Pantoja, who oversees the diocese's migrant programs, said he's enjoyed total support from Vera and called his commitment to social causes "prophetic."
What's drawn perhaps the most controversy has been Vera's stand on gay rights, which even called Rome's attention. In 2001, the Rev. Robert Coogan, an American priest in Saltillo ordained by Vera, suggested starting an outreach program to gay youth, after a teenager came to him when his parents threw him out of the house. Vera lent his support to the program, called Comunidad San Elredo, and later escaped reprimand when called to the Vatican to explain it.
"It flows out of his conviction: The church is for everyone," Coogan said.
Parishioner Julia Castillo, of Saltillo, said Vera wasn't just making headlines with his bold stands. He was also inspiring Mexicans at a time when many are feeling besieged.
"He talks about all of the injustice there is right now, of all the danger there is, that we have to stick together to fight against the corruption, above all in the government and the police," Castillo said. "We like the way he is."
___
Associated Press writer Galia Garcia-Palafox in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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Indian land program shows tech's limits
BANGALORE, India (AP) ? For years, Karnataka's land records were a quagmire of disputed, forged documents maintained by thousands of tyrannical bureaucrats who demanded bribes to do their jobs. In 2002, hopes emerged that this was about to change.
The southern state, home to India's technology hub in Bangalore, unveiled Bhoomi, a program that digitized Karnataka's 20 million handwritten land records. At the time, it was hailed as a landmark use of computers to cut through bureaucracy and corruption.
But a decade later, Karnataka remains plagued by land disputes that merely migrated from paper to the database, and even the program's creator says it could take 30 more years to sort it all out.
As the Indian government puts increasing faith in technology to help solve the nation's thorniest problems ? including a complete tech-based overhaul of its welfare system ? Bhoomi presents a cautionary tale: that technology, even at its most successful, can only be a part of the solution.
"(Officials) kind of look at technology to be a panacea for everything, which cannot be. The political will is the most important thing," said Rajeev Chawla, the government administrator who created Bhoomi.
For Yashoda Puttappa, Bhoomi merely marked another setback in her family's six-decade struggle to recover a plot of 1.6 hectares (four acres) she said was illegally taken from her grandfather in the 1940s as supposed repayment of a loan from a wealthy upper-caste neighbor. She feels that Bhoomi cemented the competing claim.
"In the computer, the name is of that man, the dominant caste, which is only going to make this harder," said Puttappa, a land rights activist.
Bhoomi is good, she said, for preventing future land disputes, by making it more difficult to forge documents, but it also gives a patina of legitimacy to old land grabs.
"Whatever we lost, we can't get back," she said.
In this country, a third the size of the U.S. and four times as populous, land supports hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and is often the only inheritance they pass to their children.
It has also become a hugely profitable investment, as India's expanding cities grow desperate for new space for office complexes and housing developments.
But land ownership has long been controlled by corrupt bureaucrats beholden to powerful land mafias that dispossessed the downtrodden and spawned millions of disputes.
In Karnataka, 10,000 village accountants presided over piles of stapled, crossed-out, erased and rewritten documents that had been revised so often it was nearly impossible to trace back how land was transferred ? or stolen.
Wealthy families routinely took land documents as collateral for usurious loans to the poor, Puttappa said. Upon default, they took the land, often illegally. Even if the loan was repaid, many would trick illiterate debtors into putting their thumbprints on sale documents they couldn't read, she said.
"You couldn't even fight in the courts, because you didn't have the records," Puttappa said.
Bhoomi, which means "land" in the local Kannada language, changed that. The land records were transferred to a database and the tattered paper documents declared invalid.
Farmers who used to wait days and pay bribes to village accountants to get a copy of their land records, crucial for bank loans, can now get an instant printout at 200 government kiosks across the state for 10 rupees, less than two U.S. cents. When they want to sell their land, they register at the kiosks, which put their requests in a first-come, first-serve queue that makes it far harder for officials to drag their feet in hopes of soliciting a bribe.
But even as the World Bank and others praised Bhoomi as a pioneer in e-governance, the project faced criticism.
In presenting Bhoomi with a U.N. public service award, Cabinet minister Jairam Ramesh criticized the program as "garbage in, garbage out," saying it should have cleaned up the records before digitizing them.
"We all knew it was garbage," Chawla said. "But if I tried to clean this garbage, it may take donkey's years for me, and by the time I cleaned it, more garbage would come into the system."
Instead, by putting safeguards in place to ensure the same piece of land is not sold to multiple buyers and by making the system of land sales more transparent, he hoped the garbage would slowly be squeezed out of the system as land was sold over the years.
But that could take decades, he acknowledges.
The land fight in Karadigere Kaval, a tiny village 85 kilometers (53 miles) from Bangalore, has raged since 1952, when the government gave a little under a hectare (two acres) apiece to hundreds of dalits ? so downtrodden they have no caste.
It was rich earth ? what they called "golden land" ? where almost anything could grow. But repeated droughts forced many to move away. In the late 1970s, the government redistributed the land, giving the 90 remaining families 1.6 hectares (four acres) each, according to residents and a local land rights group.
Upper-caste families insisted they had bought some of the land from migrating farmers and it was rightfully theirs. The two sides fought in the fields and in the courts.
Three dalits were killed in a battle over the land in 1980. Six years later, the upper castes won eviction notices against some dalits. The dalits convinced local officials not to serve the notices, and got a court to agree to preserve the status quo and leave them on the land. An upper caste farmer fenced off about 18 hectares (44 acres). The dalits rounded up hundreds of allies, ripped down the fence and sold off the barbed wire. Finally, in 2002, a court ruled in favor of the dalit villagers, the residents said.
Yet when Gangarangamma, a 65-year-old widow who uses one name, went to the Bhoomi office to check her land record, it showed the four acres she and her husband had farmed for decades were registered to the government, a sign the land remained in dispute. She has repeatedly complained, she said.
"(Officials) all the time say this will be fixed, but we haven't got it," she said in exasperation. "All of my generation is dead, only three of us are left, I can't say with any confidence this will be resolved before I die."
G.N. Nagaraj, a state Communist Party leader, hailed Bhoomi as "wonderful software," but it was only of "very, very small, limited help." The land mafia can still pressure the officials entering the records into the computer to help them steal land, he said.
Chawla said Bhoomi was designed to prevent new disputes from entering the system, but he acknowledged it wasn't foolproof. Officials were still required to process land sales. They could be bribed and so could witnesses identifying sellers, he said.
Bhoomi's transparency did help Goutham Venki in his fight to get back land that had been taken long ago from his great grandfather by a powerful landlord.
He and about a dozen from his community of migrant stoneworkers looked up their dispossessed land at the Bhoomi office in 2004 and found it had been registered to a real estate developer, who had just bought it from the landlord.
Venki sued ? and won. But he still had to borrow 120,000 rupees (about $220) at 60 percent interest from a loan shark to bribe bureaucrats to change the Bhoomi record back into his name.
A month later, the real estate developer appealed. And the decades' old land dispute drags on, like so many of Karnataka's land battles.
___
Follow Ravi Nessman at twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman
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