Context: Water, the elixir of life, is a prime natural resource. Due to rapid urbanization in India, the availability and quality of groundwater have been affected. According to the Central Groundwater Board, 80% of Chennai's groundwater has been depleted and any further exploration could lead to salt water ingression. Hence, this study was done to assess the groundwater quality in Chennai city. Aim: To assess the groundwater quality using water quality index in Chennai city. Materials and Methods: Chennai city was divided into three zones based on the legislative constituency and from these three zones three locations were randomly selected and nine groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for physiochemical properties. Results: With the exception of few parameters, most of the water quality assessment parameters showed parameters within the accepted standard values of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Except for pH in a single location of zone 1, none of the parameters exceeded the permissible values for water quality assessment as prescribed by the BIS. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that in general the groundwater quality status of Chennai city ranged from excellent to good and the groundwater is fit for human consumption based on all the nine parameters of water quality index and fluoride content.

Background:Analysis of publication trends will guide the policy framers, administrators, and dentists to frame future policies and design programs for the development of scientific and technological policies in the field of dentistry.Aims and Objectives:This study was undertaken to assess the trends in Indian Conservative dentists and endodontists’ Publication in PubMed-Medline database during 1996–2009.Materials and Methods:Using the time limitation of publication date limit of 1st January 1996 to 31st December 2009, all articles where authors’ affiliation had the words Dental AND India were selected. From this collection of articles, the following were noted down: year of publication, number of authors, name of the journal, reach of the journal, status of the journal, specialty of the first, state of origin, and type of research. From this database, the performance of department of conservative dentistry and endodontics was analyzed.Results:The number of articles published by conservative dentists and endodontists was 124. Among them, 63 got published in international journals and 61 in Indian journals. A majority of 33 journals were published in Indian Journal of Dental Research followed by 25 in the Journal of Conservative Dentistry. Out of these articles, 66 were on the basis of original research done by the authors. Nearly 45.2% of the published articles were from the institutes in Tamil Nadu, followed by Karnataka (30.6%), and Maharashtra (8.1%). Although the overall distribution of the publication trends seems to be constant from 1996 to 2006, there seems to be boom in the publication trend since 2007.

The reach of different media among Indian tobacco users is presented and HIV model of information dissemination may prove to be effective in tobacco control.

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