IIT-Guwahati develops injectable hydrogel for cancer treatment Researchers developed an advanced injectable hydrogel for localised cancer treatment with fewer side effects than conventional treatments Targeted drug release can cut side effects kozhikode l friday l January 03, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Hydrogel is a water-based, three-dimensional polymer network that can absorb and retain fluids. It can act as a stable reservoir for anticancer drugs. It responds to high glutathione (GSH) levels, a molecule found in cancer cells. Upon encountering high GSH levels, it releases the drug in a targeted manner, not affecting nearby cells, leading to fewer side effects CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Head coach Gambhir’s ambiguous reply gives new twist to Rohit not figuring in the playing XI for Sydney Test saga ‘rested’ g o m e s h S @ Sydney With less than 24 hours to go for the Sydney Test, the India team did not know who would come out for toss. Or so it seems. “The answer remains the same.” That was what India team head coach Gautam Gambhir had to say when he was asked whether Rohit Sharma will be in the playing XI for the fifth and final Test between India and Australia that begins on Friday “We are . going to take a look at the wicket and probably announce our playing XI tomorrow,” Gambhir said moments earlier. Probably for any other player this would have been an apt answer but for a captain who has been appointed for a series this seemed little ambiguous. Whether resting was the decision of the team management or Rohit’s was also not clear. India begin their last match of the tour amid speculation of dressing room drama and Gambhir’s stern warning to players for not performing well. Even before a ball was bowled there seemed to be intrigue over Sharma’s position in the team. There were multiple indications, including his time in the nets, that suggest he is all set to be replaced. In fact, there are indications that he has told the team about his decision to opt out. This could be one of those rare instances when a captain has been dropped on poor form and for India this could be one of the first instances when a captain has been dropped or opted out. Gambhir made it clear during the briefing that performance alone matters. “Indian cricket’s transition is in safe hands as long as there are honest people in the dressing room. Only criteria to be in that dressing room is performance,” he said. In that case, Shubman Gill is set to walk in at No 3 and in-form Jasprit Bumrah will lead in the absence of Sharma, who has been out of form, scoring only 31 runs at an average of 6.2 from five innings so far. He lost two Tests after joining the team in Aus- tralia. With the home series loss against New Zealand, pressure was mounting on the Indian captain. If nets were any indication, Sharma, who was not much involved for the better part while India were training. He could be seen chatting with Washington Sundar, Bumrah, Gill before batting briefly along with the backup batters towards the end. It was not until most of the drill was over that Sharma and Gambhir were seen together alongside Bumrah. If Sharma gets dropped, which is most likely as of Thursday evening, MCG Test could be his last as a Test player. For India, a win in Sydney would help retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and keep World Test ChampionP11 ship hopes alive.  NSS slams CM over ‘shirtless temple entry’ remark Express News Service @Kottayam Evoking memories of the revolt that he had spearheaded against the Pinarayi Vijayan government over the Sabarimala women entry issue in 2018, NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair on Thursday unleashed a scathing attack on the chief minister on another contentious topic — men entering temples with shirts on. “It (removing shirt while entering temple) is a practice followed by people for ages, and it cannot be altered by a government or a particular community,” Nair said, referring to Pinarayi’s remark supporting Sivagiri Mutt head Swami Congress Working Committee member Ramesh Chennithala and NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair during the 148th Mannam jayanthi celebrations in Perunna on Thursday | Vishnu Prathap Satchidananda’s call to change the custom. “The CM should not have endorsed (Satchidananda’s) suggestion,” he said, while ad- dressing the inaugural session of the Mannam jayanthi celebrations at the NSS headquarters in Perunna. A charged-up Nair didn’t spare the Sivagiri Mutt either. “There are reports that somebody said the practice (of removing the shirt) is to ascertain whether the person entering the temple is a Brahmin. Why are these interpretations limited to Hindus and their customs alone? Such obsolete practices, particularly pertaining to costumes, exist in other religions, too. Does the Sivagiri Mutt or the chief minister have the guts to question such practices in other religions?” he wondered. The NSS is against changing age-old rituals and customs, he said. “Several temples are managed by various subdivisions in the Hindu community and each , temple follows its own customs and practices. While some temples permit darshan wearing shirts, others do not. In Sabarimala, there are no such restrictions. Hindus have the freedom to enter the premises without disrupting the customs and rituals of the respective temples. This is the stand of the NSS in this matter,” he said. NSS founder Mannathu Padmanabhan had opened his temple at Perunna for all people years before uprisings erupted demanding temple entry rights for all sections and subsequent proclamations, Nair added. MP town protests over Jayachandran Nair, veteran journalist, passes away at 85 Union Carbide waste A N URAAG SI N GH @ Bhopal PROTESTS erupted at Pithampur industrial town in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district on Thursday, hours after truckloads of toxic waste was brought from the defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. The hazardous waste collected from the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy site is scheduled to be disposed at the treatment, storage and disposal (TDSF) facility located at Tarapura village in Pithampur Industrial Area. Pithampur, which has a population of 1.75 lakh, on Thursday witnessed massive protests by various groups against the planned incineration of the chemical waste. Some groups have called for a total shutdown on Friday . “Send the waste generated by the American company back to the US. We don’t want it here. The bandh call is to save our future generations and agricultural crops,” read a pamphlet distributed by the protesters. According to local activists, 10 tonnes of toxic waste from Union Carbide was incinerated at the Pithampur TSDF in 2015 on a trial basis. The disposal contaminated the soil, groundwater, and water sources in the nearby villages; so, incinerating 337 tonnes of waste could inflict greater harm on the environment, they claim. E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ T’Puram It could well be a curious coincidence that he bade adieu exactly a week after legendary writer M T Vasudevan Nair breathed his last. For he could well be termed as MT’s favourite editor. It was he who first published MT’s magnu m o p u s R a n d a moozham in Kala Kaumudi, and later Varanasi in Samakalika Malayalam. Veteran editor, author, critic and screenplay writer S Jayachandran Nair, 85, who revolutionised magazine jour nalism in Malayalam, passed away in Bengaluru on Thursday As editor of Samaka. lika Malayalam Weekly, a sister publication of TNIE, Nair was instrumental not only in grooming young talents, but also bringing out notable works of senior writers. An editor par excellence, his ability to identify budding talents was well known, as writers like V P Sivakumar and Narendra Prasad began under him. Later as Samakalika Malayalam editor, he carried columns from a host of veteran authors like M N Vijayan, Madhavikkutty, O V Vijayan and Malayattoor Ram● More on P4 akrishnan.