ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Month-In-Perspective EDITOR'S COLUMN Friends We are into the month of financial closure. Although calendars have its own significance, it is the month of March, which really signifies the year end. The expected budget presentation was postponed to March 16th, instead of the customary month of February end. State elections have pushed it as per the EC directive, lest the budget freebies, sometime really motivated, influence voters and therefore election results. Looking back over the last Month-in-Perspective, it has indeed been as usual, a very happening month. We have tried to take up as many issues as were possible. Releasing The Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMa) Survey Report 2011, by Nandi Foundation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently observed that ‘problem of malnutrition is indeed a matter of national shame’. Despite continuously recording near double digit growth, it is a stark truth that a vast majority of our sections of population, especially children, are highly...

HUNGaMA on Hunger & Malnutrition – the shame of a ‘Super Power’ (According to Global Hunger Index (GHI), nearly half of all Indian children are undernourished, one of the highest rates in the world, and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, this is indeed a national shame. The 2011, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has ranked India @134 in a survey of 187 countries. The ranking clearly shows India has done rather badly in ensuring a better quality of life for its citizens, year after year. In fact, when it came to manage hunger, GHI had clocked India at 94, whereas Pakistan at 88 and China at 47, did much better than India. But the saddest commentary was when GHI placed Ethiopia better than India at 93. And neither Pakistan nor Ethiopia were boasting of near double digit growth. Our planning efforts have seen the growth in agricultural production. This growth has led to procurements of millions of tons of food grains ‘both wheat and rice’. But where did this...

The new Science of Modern Medicine-Quantum Physics; the language of Nature. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." Edgar Allen Poe "There is no science of man" wrote Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel in his celebrated book-Man, the Unknown. Modern medicine, even today, nearly 85 years after the death of conventional science following Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, is buried in the linear science of Newtonian Physics which believes that man is made up of matter, which follows certain deterministic predictability patterns. That was before the new awareness in science of the atom having been made up of smaller sub-atomic elements. Even more earth shattering discovery was the discovery that atoms emit various strange energies such as x-rays and radioactivity. Newer discoveries in physics showed that matter and energy are the two faces of the same coin-a duality. (Hans Peter Durr).1 One should read his article for the lay people Matter is not mad...

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY Black and Blue Two weeks later my car was broken into. It was parked across the street from the Boys and Girls Club. Curiously, however, neither the lock nor the window was broken; instead the lock had been expertly picked. My backpack and the glove compartment had both been thoroughly rummaged, with some pens, paper, a couple of candy bars, and my gym clothes strewn about. But nothing seemed to be missing. Although I sometimes kept a few notebooks in my backpack, on this occasion I hadn’t. I went inside to tell Autry. "Let’s call Reggie," he said. "Don’t touch anything." We waited for Reggie inside the club, where a children’s Christmas party was in progress. The mood was happy, especially since some local stores had donated crates of food for tenant families. Reggie arrived wearing a Santa hat. He’d been at another Christmas party, passing out toys donated by police officers. When he saw my car, he dropped his head and then peered at Autry. ...

DEFICIT FINANCE Vs POPULIST MEASURES Will FM take the call? Historically, budgeting process in India has been treated as a secret affair for no apparent cogent reasons, though such an exercise in most of the Western world is devoid of any shroud of confidentiality. For common man, Indian budget of the government of India is synonymous with tax provisions both direct and indirect. However, there are a few aspects in a budget which affects both the macro and micro phases of national life, which also need to be given due consideration. Deficit financing obviously is one such phenomenon which has far reaching implications for the national economy in general and individual lives in particular. Defining deficit financing, applicable to all countries at all times is not feasible, though Indian planning commission explains it as equal to the net increase in the purchasing power of the economy arising out of the budgetary operation of the government. Deficit financing is taken as a recourse, wh...

Denied admission Woman delivers & dies on roadside Kolkata: Denied admission by two government hospitals, a woman died after giving birth to twins on the pavement, bringing the state-run medical setup under the scanner yet again for alleged negligence. The West Bengal government has ordered an inquiry into the incident. It was a night of horror for the 40-year-old pregnant woman who was refused admission despite possessing health cards. The woman met a tragic end in the wee hours of the morning shortly after delivering the second baby on the roadside near the Maidan area after she was made to travel back and forth between the two hospitals with her husband. The first of the twins born outside Chittaranjan Sevasadan was also with the couple when they approached the Sambhunath Pandit Hospital for help. The second baby was delivered on the pavement outside Sambhunath Hospital 90 minutes after the first child was born. The Chittaranjan Sevasadan allegedly refused to admit the woman and...

New India pegs Japanese tsunami at Rs 350cr New Delhi: Public sector general insurer New India Assurance Company, the only domestic general insurer with presence in Japan, has received claims worth Rs 350 crore due to the earthquake and tsunami in March last year. "We have a liability of around Rs 350 crore due to the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that took place in Japan last year," a company official told media. Referring to its exposure in Japan, a company official said most of the exposure is retail in nature with only a minor exposure to the risks emanating from Tokyo Electric Power Company which ran the Fukushima nuclear power plant that bore the maximum brunt of the tsunami and was shut down. The company had reported a loss for the first time in its 90-year history at Rs 421 crore in 2010-11, due to the losses incurred form its international operations. Where there is will there is a way Black Money - US indicts Swiss Bank Washington: The United States ...

Brit woman insures bottom for £ 4 million London: A woman hotel employee in Britain is having her bottom insured for a whopping four million pounds (Rs. 33 crore) after she landed a job to test the softness of beds for hotel guests. Natalie Thomas, 39, will check about 24 beds everyday after being appointed "director of bed bouncing" for hotel chain premier Inn. The chain has around 46,000 beds, the ‘Daily Express’ reported. Thomas was given the job after the bosses were impressed with her ability to feel even the smallest lump or bump in a mattress. She reportedly takes care of her bottom with "regular moisturising" and does not wear materials like denim jeans which lessen sensitivity. The firm would now reportedly insure her bottom for four million pounds. Terrorist called teacher Bulandshahr (UP): A class-III student of a private school died after allegedly being thrashed by a teacher in Jahangirbad area of the district, reports media. It was brought to our knowl...

The Hypocrisy of our intellectuals Dr. M. V. Kamath What on earth is happening in India? Established values are collapsing like a house of cards and all that one heard from our intellectuals is a scream of laughter. The Congress is engulfed in a sea of scandals. The BJP is in no better position, as in Karnataka. And the less said about other parties, the better. No Congress leader in Delhi has deigned to resign, let alone apologise for the picture of Dr Manmohan Singh sitting pretty in his Prime Ministerial chair braving all charges of neglect and indifference to what is going on around him. There is not a word of regret from the DMK or its leader Karunanidhi about the doings of A.Raja. And now three ministers of the Karnataka government have resigned, caught in the act of watching porn clips on their cell phones while attending a session of the Legislative Assembly. In Andhra Pradesh three IAS officers, along with nine others have been charged with criminal breach of trust, misappropr...