India Ink: Economic Growth in India to Fall to Five Percent

India’s Gross Domestic Product is expected to drop significantly to 5 percent for the fiscal year ending in March 2013, according to advance estimates released by India’s Central Statistics Office on Thursday, declining from 6.2 percent growth rate seen in 2011-2012.

The estimate by the Central Statistics Office represents a marked drop from earlier growth projections issued by the government for this year. In January, the central bank projected G.D.P. growth of 5.5 percent for the current fiscal year, a decline from an earlier estimate of 5.8 percent.

The provisional estimates are contingent upon the “anticipated level of agricultural and industrial production, analysis of budget estimates of government expenditure and performance of key sectors like, railways, transport other than railways, communication, banking and insurance, available so far,” the report said.

According to the preliminary data released on Thursday, national income registered a growth rate of 4.2 percent in the current fiscal year as compared to 6.1 percent in the previous year, and per capita income grew at a rate of 2.9 percent as compared to 4.7 percent growth last year. Meanwhile, capital investment in the country is expected to drop to 2.48 percent from 4.39 percent in the previous year.

Slow growth may be attributed to the sluggish performance of the manufacturing, agriculture and services sector. The manufacturing sector is expected to grow by 1.9 percent this year, while India’s farm sector is projected to grow at an estimated 1.8 percent.

The services sector saw a decline in its growth rate from previous years, expanding by 6.6 percent, the lowest in over a decade. Other sectors that are expected to have performed relatively poorly include electricity, gas & water supply (4.9 percent growth) and mining and quarrying (0.4 percent growth).

Sectors that have performed relatively well with a growth rate of over 5 percent are construction, the trade, hotels, transport and communication sector, the financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector, and the community, social and personal services sector.

As India prepares to for a national election in 2014, slowing economic growth is putting pressure on the current government to push for reform. The projection of 5 percent GDP growth is the lowest figure since 2002-2003 when the GDP grew at 4 percent, after which the Indian economy has grown at an average of 6 percent each year.

This year, the government has taken measures to rein in the fiscal deficit to 5.3 percent of  GDP, has raised the price of fertilizer and diesel, and has allowed further foreign investment in the retail sector by opening up the insurance, pension and aviation sectors for foreign investment. On Jan. 29, India’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate for the first time in nine months to fuel higher growth.

If India continues on the reform path, analysts believe that strong growth will resume in the coming year.

“The government’s advance estimates for real GDP growth at 4.9% is disappointing, especially coming on the back of a downward revision in growth for FY2012 from 6.5 percent to 6.2 percent,” said Ms. Bhupali Gursale, an economist at Angel Broking. “On a positive note though, with the government pushing ahead its reform agenda, the outlook for growth in FY2014 is likely to improve.”

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Bethenny Frankel's 'Happy' Night Out in N.Y.C.

Caught in the Act

02/07/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Bethenny Frankel

Justin Steffman/Splash News Online

It's business as usual for Bethenny Frankel.

The reality TV star stepped out for dinner at Indochine in New York on Monday night.

Dressed all in black, the "very chic"-looking Skinnygirl mogul dined at a table in the center of the restaurant with a gentleman around 8 p.m.

But although the evening "didn't look romantic," an onlooker tells PEOPLE, Frankel, who recently separated from husband Jason Hoppy, "did look refreshed and happy to be out and about."

As Frankel and her companion – a middle-aged balding man – enjoyed their meals, the pair was "deep in conversation that looked fairly serious," the source adds. "She seemed very focused on whatever they were discussing."

– Jennifer Garcia

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New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Village mourns latest victim of runaway tour bus crash

MOUNTAIN HOME VILLAGE — Smoke from the warm fire inside Fred Richardson's home hung in the mountain air outside his house Wednesday, masking the heartbreak inside and throughout the tiny creekside town where he lived for seven decades.

His son, Steve, grieved silently on the front porch. Along with the wind sifting through the pines and sycamores, the only other sound came from traffic winding down the mountain highway just a few blocks away — the same highway that took his father's life.

Richardson, 72, was driving to his home in the San Bernardino Mountains on Sunday evening, after wrapping up a landscaping job in Yucaipa, when an out-of-control tour bus traveling down California 38 from Big Bear smashed into his Ford pickup truck.

Richardson clung to life until Wednesday morning, when he died of massive head and chest trauma. He was the eighth fatality resulting from the horrific crash, which killed seven bus passengers.

"We're all still struggling," his son said before turning to go inside with the rest of the family.

Down the street, Richardson's older sister, Jan Fagerstedt, shared her fondest memories. Since he was a toddler, her little brother loved to fish for rainbow trout in the nearby creeks. He was a church deacon. He delivered firewood to homebound neighbors, and once helped save the town from a raging flood.

"He was the most warm-hearted man you'd ever met," she said, pausing to gather strength. "He lived a life. He lived a good moral life.... I miss my brother so."

The night of the deadly crash, Fagerstedt was outside gathering kindling when she heard commotion on the highway less than 100 feet from her home.

"I heard this terrible loud honking. I jumped. And I went in and told my husband, 'You know, I think we have a runaway truck,' " she recalled. "But it had to be that bus. A little while later that accident happened. So that bus went by here, and I heard it. And I thought, 'I hope nobody's in the way.' "

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and California Highway Patrol on Wednesday began a "full mechanical breakdown" of the tour bus and other vehicles involved in Sunday's crash. Investigators continue to pore over maintenance records and interview employees of the bus company, Scapadas Magicas in National City, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

The investigation will focus heavily on the brakes and other mechanical equipment of a bus that has a history of safety violations, including faulty brakes.

CHP spokesman Mario Lopez said the bus driver, Norberto Perez, has been released from the hospital. The 52-year-old San Ysidro man has not been charged in connection with the accident, Lopez said.

The tour bus left Tijuana early Sunday with 38 passengers, including children, and was returning from the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake when the driver lost control on the sweeping, downhill bends of the mountain road. The bus clipped a sedan and then flipped, ejecting passengers, before hitting Richardson's pickup truck.

News of Richardson's death Wednesday overwhelmed his hometown. Fewer than 100 families live amid the narrow snaking roads of Mountain Home Village, a town hidden in the folds of the San Bernardino Mountains. Some homes, Richardson's among them, were hand-crafted with stones hauled up from nearby Mountain Home Creek.

California 38 used to wind right through town. And it has brought heartache to the Richardson family before.

In the 1960s, Fred Richardson's 4-year-old niece was struck and killed by a passing car after she stepped out of the town market. Another niece, Beaumont City Councilwoman Brenda Knight, was with her cousin when it happened.

"It just doesn't seem fair that a family should suffer so," she said.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ari Bloomekatz contributed to this report.

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Ipswich Journal: Paul Mason Is One-Third the Man He Used to Be

Paul Nixon Photography

Paul Mason in 2012, two years after gastric bypass surgery stripped him of the unofficial title of “the world’s fattest man.”

IPSWICH, England — Who knows what the worst moment was for Paul Mason — there were so many awful milestones, as he grew fatter and fatter — but a good bet might be when he became too vast to leave his room. To get him to the hospital for a hernia operation, the local fire department had to knock down a wall and extricate him with a forklift.

That was nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Mason weighed about 980 pounds, and the spectacle made him the object of fascinated horror, a freak-show exhibit. The British news media, which likes a superlative, appointed him “the world’s fattest man.”

Now the narrative has shifted to one of redemption and second chances. Since a gastric bypass operation in 2010, Mr. Mason, 52 years old and 6-foot-4, has lost nearly two-thirds of his body weight, putting him at about 336 pounds — still obese, but within the realm of plausibility. He is talking about starting a jewelry business.

“My meals are a lot different now than they used to be,” Mr. Mason said during a recent interview in his one-story apartment in a cheerful public housing complex here. For one thing, he no longer eats around the clock. “Food is a necessity, but now I don’t let it control my life anymore,” he said.

But the road to a new life is uphill and paved with sharp objects. When he answered the door, Mr. Mason did not walk; he glided in an electric wheelchair.

And though Mr. Mason looks perfectly normal from the chest up, horrible vestiges of his past stick to him, literally, in the form of a huge mass of loose skin choking him like a straitjacket. Folds and folds of it encircle his torso and sit on his lap, like an unwanted package someone has set there; more folds encase his legs. All told, he reckons, the excess weighs more than 100 pounds.

As he waits to see if anyone will agree to perform the complex operation to remove the skin, Mr. Mason has plenty of time to ponder how he got to where he is. He was born in Ipswich and had a childhood marked by two things, he says: the verbal and physical abuse of his father, a military policeman turned security guard; and three years of sexual abuse, starting when he was 6, by a relative in her 20s who lived in the house and shared his bed. He told no one until decades later.

After he left school, Mr. Mason took a job as a postal worker and became engaged to a woman more than 20 years older than him. “I thought it would be for life, but she just turned around one day and said, ‘No, I don’t want to see you anymore — goodbye,’ ” he said.

His father died, and he returned home to care for his arthritic mother, who was in a wheelchair. “I still had all these things going around in my head from my childhood,” he said. “Food replaced the love I didn’t get from my parents.” When he left the Royal Mail in 1986, he said, he weighed 364 pounds.

Then things spun out of control. Mr. Mason tried to eat himself into oblivion. He spent every available penny of his and his mother’s social security checks on food. He stopped paying the mortgage. The bank repossessed their house, and the council found them a smaller place to live. All the while, he ate the way a locust eats — indiscriminately, voraciously, ingesting perhaps 20,000 calories a day. First he could no longer manage the stairs; then he could no longer get out of his room. He stayed in bed, on and off, for most of the last decade.

Social service workers did everything for him, including changing his incontinence pads. A network of local convenience stores and fast-food restaurants kept the food coming nonstop — burgers, french fries, fish and chips, even about $22 worth of chocolate bars a day.

“They didn’t deliver bags of crisps,” he said of potato chips. “They delivered cartons.”

His life became a cycle: eat, doze, eat, eat, eat. “You didn’t sleep a normal sleep,” he said. “You’d be awake most of the night eating and snacking. You totally forgot about everything else. You lose all your dignity, all your self-respect. It all goes, and all you focus on is getting your next fix.”

He added, “It was quite a lonely time, really.”

He got infections a lot and was transported to the hospital — first in a laundry van, then on the back of a truck and finally on the forklift. For 18 months after a hernia operation in 2003, he lived in the hospital and in an old people’s home — where he was not allowed to leave his room — while the local government found him a house that could accommodate all the special equipment he needed.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2013

The headline on an earlier version of this article misstated Paul Mason’s current weight relative to what he weighed nearly a decade ago. He is now about one-third, not two-thirds, the weight he was then.

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Snoop Dogg Gets the Party Started with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence

Caught in the Act

02/06/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence, inset: Snoop Lion (Dogg)

Valerie Goodloe/PictureGroup; Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Guess the "O" in "O.G." stands for Oscar.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence both attended the Hollywood Reporter's Nominees' Night 2013 at Spago in Beverly Hills on Monday.

It was a low-key affair at first, with Affleck holding court in a central area of the soiree, where he was animated while chatting with people and seemed excited and genuinely happy.

The Argo star and director, looking handsome in a suit, also obliged guests who approached him for photos.

Lawrence was spotted embracing her Silver Linings Playbook costar Julia Stiles. "You're so stunning!" Stiles told Lawrence just before taking a snapshot together.

As the evening continued, it was clear that Lawrence was the darling of event. Fellow guests were going up and telling her she is beautiful and they're so proud of her and Lawrence was ever the gracious guest, chatting with anyone who approached her.

But it wasn't until Snoop Lion (Dogg) arrived, who went by the deejay name Snoopadelic, that the party really went into full gear. After a lengthy intro that included a clip-filled video, Snoop emerged, gave an intro of his own – he praised Argo and shouted for Affleck to come take a photo with him before the night's end – and began playing an eclectic mix of songs, which included everything from Pat Benatar to 2 Chainz.

– Dahvi Shira

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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California high court seems inclined to uphold bans on pot shops

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court appeared inclined Tuesday to uphold municipal bans against medical marijuana dispensaries.

Meeting for oral arguments, the state high court considered the legality of a ban on dispensaries by the city of Riverside. Several justices noted that the state Constitution gives cities wide policing power over land use and suggested that the state's medical marijuana laws have not undercut that authority.

"The Legislature knows how to say 'Thou Shall Not Ban Dispensaries,' " Justice Ming W. Chin said. "They didn't say that."

The court's ruling, due in 90 days, will determine the fate of about 200 local bans on cannabis dispensaries. If the justices uphold the bans, more such measures are anticipated. Medical marijuana advocates said that outcome would force tens of thousands of patients to drive long distances or resort to the black market.

But the justices appeared more focused on the regulatory rights of cities than on patient access to cannabis.

Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said she viewed the case as a test of the "authority historically invested in municipalities" over land use.

J. David Nick, representing a dispensary, argued that municipalities could regulate, but not prohibit, an activity the state has permitted. He said the goal of the medical marijuana laws was to provide for uniformity from county to county.

"You can pass local laws, but they have to be consistent" with the state laws intended to make medical marijuana available, Nick told the court during the televised hearing.

Justice Marvin R. Baxter seemed skeptical.

"If the Legislature wanted to prevent localities from banning the dispensaries, why didn't it say so expressly?" he asked.

Justice Goodwin Liu noted that state medical marijuana laws provided limited immunity from state sanctions, not from local rules. The laws' "language doesn't seem to get you very far," Liu told the dispensary attorney.

Some justices suggested that the Legislature might not have legal authority to prevent cities from banning dispensaries through zoning.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan noted that the California Constitution confers on local governments the right to police their borders. "It is not for the Legislature to try to retract that which it does not confer," she said.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard appeared to agree. She said municipalities had a "preexisting power" to regulate land use that is independent of the state's medical cannabis laws.

But Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar observed that local bans on dispensaries might thwart the intent of the medical marijuana laws. Although the Legislature has given cities the right to regulate dispensaries, it was "debatable" whether regulation means outright prohibitions, she said.

Even considering Werdegar's remarks, Los Angeles Special Assistant City Atty. Jane Usher said the court seemed headed for a unanimous decision in favor of permitting bans. Usher said Los Angeles does not plan to introduce any new regulations until voters consider three medical marijuana measures on the May ballot.

Joe Elford, chief legal counsel for a medical marijuana advocacy group, said he was disappointed that the hearing failed to elicit much concern for patients.

"I didn't really feel like the patients' voices were heard," he said. He agreed that the court was likely to give municipalities discretion to ban dispensaries but expressed hope that the ruling would otherwise affirm their legality.

"I am hopeful the court will let them know it is a discretion, not an obligation, and they can do the right thing if they chose," Elford said.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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India Ink: The Mumbai/New York Photo Project: Meet the 'Wallas'

While much has changed in New York and Mumbai over the past 50 years, the bazaar, or the marketplace, is still the center of commercial activity for both these cities.

In both these cities, the commercial capitals of their respective nations, you can get almost anything you want, at any time, day or night – as long as you know the right person to procure it, or “walla” in India. And in both cities, sometimes these wallas drive a hard bargain. In this edition of the Mumbai/New York photo project, Nisha Sondhe documents some of these marketplaces where products and services range from the brilliant to the bizarre.

In Mumbai, the wholesale flower market in Dadar, where one can buy flowers brought in from all over Maharashtra and Gujarat, opens each morning at 4:30 and closes at 8 p.m. The market, under the overpass next to Dadar station, is a window into India’s thriving flower trade. The Chelsea flower district, a century-old institution in Manhattan, is hub for unusual flowers, exotic plants, vases and garden accessories. This market opens at 5 a.m. and is also best visited early in the day, when the produce is the freshest.

Crawford Market, established in 1869 by the first municipal commissioner of Mumbai, Arthur Crawford, is still the best place for wholesale bargains in the city.

The market, which is now called the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market, was in danger of being demolished a few years ago but was saved thanks to the efforts of conservationists. While the market is traditionally meant for wholesale fruit and vegetable trading, these days many stores are stocked with foreign goods like Camay soap, Kraft cheese, Fa deodorant or a pack of Pampers diapers.

Change is also under way at New York’s Chelsea Market, which specializes in gourmet food and is housed in a collection of industrial buildings that once was home to the National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco. In November, the owner of Chelsea Market, Jamestown Properties, an acquisition and management firm based in Cologne, Germany, and Atlanta, ignited public outrage when the city approved plans to add office towers to the landmark structure. Construction on the towers is scheduled to begin in 2015.

The market, which attracts approximately 120,000 visitors a week, sells products ranging from fine foods and baked goods, to books, flowers and kitchen accessories.

Dhobi Ghat, a famous open-air laundry where dhobis (washerfolk) wash and dry clothes in full view of the public, is a source of much fascination for visitors to Mumbai. Rows upon rows of concrete wash pens come together to make the world’s largest outdoor laundry.

Meanwhile, laundromats in New York, while not as visually interesting, have their own inherent drama. They are places where “irregular things happen,” according to a New York Times article, and where people “flirt, debate, gossip, argue, break up, discover love, loiter, do business and just about anything else that can be squeezed into 27-minute heavy-soil cycles.” In the older apartment buildings in New York City, personal washing equipment was often prohibited, and the city now has 2,654 self-service laundries to fulfill that need.

The act of washing clothes has inspired art as well. In 2011, a dhobi is one of the main characters in “Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai Diaries,” a 2011 movie directed by Kiran Rao, and a 1985 cable TV movie directed by Robert Altman, “Laundromat,” explored the drama that ensues when two women air out their dirty laundry.

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Eva Longoria Reveals Valentine's Day (and Upcoming Birthday!) Plans

Caught in the Act

02/05/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Eva Longoria

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Eva Longoria already knows what she'll be doing on Valentine's Day.

The actress visited the new restaurant and nightclub, She by Morton's, in Las Vegas – in which she is a part owner – on Saturday night, and revealed what's on her agenda for the heartfelt holiday.

"Eva said she would be spending Valentine's Day with her girlfriends – like she always does," a source tells PEOPLE. But that's not the only thing on her agenda. The former Desperate Housewives star also said she's also made plans for her March birthday.

"She's taking a charity trip to South America, which she is really excited about," the source says. "She joked that you shouldn't celebrate birthdays after a certain age because we don't want to remind people how old we are!"

– Patrick Gomez

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