Is it in their blood? Gujarat and its people, who top on many indices, clinch the spot here too: in donating blood. In a list released in July this year, the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) put Gujarat as no. 1 in major states in terms of blood donors per thousand of its population.

Units of blood collected by blood banks supported by the Gujarat State AIDS Control Society (GSACS) and Gujarat Council for Blood Transfusion have shown a steady rise, bringing the State on top of the charts for donated blood in the country.

Year 2005 saw a whopping 5,13,203 units of blood collected, which is 11.4 per cent of the nation and highest from single state. This marked a near three-fold increase over the 1996 figure of only 1,96,125 units (of this, 1,16,000 came from Ahmedabad alone).

This year too, keeping with the flow, the State’s people till June have already donated 2,34,475 units, with a good 66.21 per cent coming through voluntary donations. The voluntary component was a meagre 33 per cent in 1996. Efficiency too has increased from a little over seven per cent separation in 2000. Now, more than 35 per cent blood is separated into its various components.

The State has 7.74 persons per thousand donating blood voluntarily, with only Andaman & Nicobar Islands (8.07) and Mizoram (8.02) ahead. “Our target is to cross last year’s figure and to bring the voluntary component to 70 per cent,” says GSACS head Dr D M Saxena. The achievement has been possible owing to a sustained campaign to increase awareness.

“From the beginning we promoted voluntary blood banks in the private sector which helped us reach a wider section of people,” he adds. But most important has been the Gujaratis’ giving and enterprising nature. An example is Vadodara’s Dr R B Bhesania, a self-confessed blood donation zealot who never misses an occasion to hold donation camps, be it at wedding or at funerals.

“At a wedding, it’s out of happiness, at a funeral, it’s to pay homage to the departed soul. The motivation is important and such events help bring more than 50 units on an average,” he says.

Then there is senior bureaucrat and former health secretary S K Nanda, who has been organising camps for the last two years in memory of his father who died of cancer. Presently Principal Secretary (Civil Supplies) elieves that philanthropy inherent in the Gujarati spirit is the reason behind the achievement. “How else can you explain the fact that despite a majority of population being low on haemoglobin, the State notches up so many blood units through donation. A rough estimate shows that for every 10 people coming for donating blood, six are turned back for being anaemic,” Nanda says.

Once rejected, people become aware of their anaemic condition and change nutritional habits, say officials. The idea, according to the officials is to create a critical mass of non-remunerative blood donors who meet future needs of blood.

Food and Drugs Commissioner S P Adeshara says, “In other states even those who are fit do not come forward, but in Gujarat even those not eligible are enthusiastic about donation. At a Surat camp held some years ago, we made a record collection of more than 13,000 units on a single day. People just kept coming. There was enough blood to be sento to other states,” he says

Source: Expressindia.com

Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) has replaced Infosys Technologies as the country’s biggest IT firm and second biggest private sector company in terms of the market capitalisation.TCS, the country’s largest software exporter, on Friday achieved a market cap of Rs 1.02 lakh crores, surpassing Rs 1.01 lakh crores of its closest rival in the IT space, Infosys.

TCS has also replaced Infosys as the country’s fourth most-valued publicly listed corporate entity after ONGC, Reliance Industries and NTPC. TCS had re-entered the Rs 1 trillion market-cap league earlier on September 20.

Wipro retained its position as the third-largest IT firm with a market cap of Rs 74.5 lakh crores at the end of Friday’s trading session. TCS had attained a market cap of about Rs 1,00,550 crores with a surge of 1.71 per cent in its share price to Rs 1,027.50 at the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The country’s largest software exporter had first hit the 1 trillion bracket on April 18, 2006, but had failed to sustain at that level. Currently, TCS and Infosys are the only two IT companies with a market cap of over Rs 1 trillion, while Wipro has also previously breached this level.

Wipro, whose current market-cap stands at about Rs 74,000 crores, is the only company to have attained a market cap of Rs 2 lakh crores, which was achieved on February 2, 2000.