ISSUES AND CONCERNS

To mark the release of 150th issue of ISSUES & CONCERNS, we have planned to have an ELOCUTION COMPETITION for the degree college students of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. This we are organizing in association with Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, Udupi. It will be held on 31st Aug 2012 in the College Auditorium. Our editorial board member and eminent journalist Padma Bhushan M.V. Kamath shall preside over the formal function, while Ms. Sandhya Pai, Executive Editor, Taranga Weekly shall be the Guest of Honour. We are expecting 50 participants from 50 colleges. Rs: 15000/- is the prize money: with Rs: 5000/- being  the 1st prize, Rs: 3000/- as 2nd prize and Rs: 2000/-as 3rd prize. There will be 5 consolation prizes of Rs: 1000/- each. On 8th Sept. 2012, at the same venue, a function to release the 150th issue is planned from 3 o’clock to 5 o’clock. Former Supreme Court Justice and former Lokayukta of Karnataka, Justice Santosh Hegde is expected to be the Guest of Ho...

Friends  So yet another Independence Day is round the corner. 15th Aug. shall usher the rush of tri-colours once again as an annual event. Once again the Prime Minister shall address the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort, ‘how the Union Jack came down from atop the public structures all across India’. So will be the President of Indian Union, this time round, the new incumbent Pranab Mukherjee. What both these 'numero uno's, the 'defacto' head and the 'dejure' head of the nation, shall be saying, is difficult  to wager, since, not only India but even globally, there are all kinds of issues plaguing the human society. Therefore response to what they are going to say, will have to wait for the next issue. But the fact remains, it is increasingly becoming an unfinished agenda for ever. In 1947 we were underdeveloped thanks to the colonial devastation by the parting Britishers. In 2012, 65 years later, as a free independent Democratic Republic of India, we...

TAMIL NADU: So after all Kundankulam nuclear reactor is set to go critical and on stream shortly. The hick-ups in the form of prolonged public protest-allegedly inspired by foreign funded NGOs-has ended, paving way for the project to go functional. India needs power, a huge one at that. Nuclear is the best and cheapest source. India has the necessary expertise and the man power, to manage all aspect of Nuclear power generation so also its crisis management, if any. The public protest, however good intentioned, is certainly not well informed. There are enough materials available in the public domain to justify going nuclear. Japan could do, what it did, as an economic power, during the 2nd half of 20th century, was only because of nuclear power. To-day there is a section of Japanese who are agitating against the nuclear power only after the last tsunami tragedy at Fukushima. But how many really suffered or died due to nuclear power is not fully answered. But the latest report by IAE...

BHARAT RATNA, SACHIN TENDULKAR  & JUSTICE KATJU The title reads funny, more so under Focus! However much bemused the readers are, a look at the events of the last couple of months will throw much light and open vistas for discussion on how our media need to function.  “Don’t give Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar – PCI Chief-Justice Markandey Katju” cried some in the print media. And that is how the combination of Bharat Ratna, Sachin Tendulkar and Justice Katju evolved overnight. We need to look at each of these three dimensions individually and bring about unity. Bharat Ratna, meaning Jewel of India is an award instituted by the government of India by an enactment of the parliament on 2nd Jan. 1954. As is clear in its inherent meaning, this is the highest civilian award given to an individual who has rendered service of the highest order to the nation, in recognition of the same. The statute covering the award informs the kind of services which include-arts, li...

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY The Stay-Together Gang The Black Kings weren’t the only ones anxious about the threat of demolition. All the tenants of Robert Taylor were trying to cope with the news. Although demolition wouldn’t begin for at least two years, everyone was scrambling to learn which building might come down first and where on earth they were supposed to live. Politicians, including President Clinton and Mayor Richard J.Daley of Chicago, promised that tenants would be relocated to middle-class neighborhoods with good schools, safe streets, and job opportunities. But reliable information was hard to come by. Nor would it be so easy to secure housing outside the black ghetto. The projects had been built forty years earlier in large part because white Chicagoans didn’t want black neighbors. Most Robert Taylor tenants thought the situation hadn’t changed all that much. The CHA began to hold public meetings where tenants could air their questions and concerns. The CHA officials...

Bedside Medicine- A Forgotten Art. Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com Talking with Patients:  Talking with patients is simply listening to patients while observing the patient’s body language very carefully. The latter might give vital clues for the diagnosis. Listening is an art. “Art” wrote David Edward Thoreau “is that which makes the other person’s day”. The art of listening requires certain prerequisites on the part of the listener, the doctor in this case. Two important facets of that art are imperturbability and equanimity. Any judgmental attitude on the part of the doctor might put off the patient from opening up.  “If you listen to your patient long enough, he/she will tell you what is wrong with him/her,” wrote Lord Platt, an illustrious teacher working at the University College Hospital, London in 1949. Some of his students, who are now the noted pillars of medical education in the UK, wanted to scientifically verify the correctness of tha...

Make a difference to the community: Tata New York: Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, who has been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award by prestigious Rockefeller Foundation, wants industrial houses to help the community in their areas. Or else there would be “backlash”. Speaking on the occasion here, Tata, 74, said business should be making a difference in places where they operate and helping the community prosper. “This is all the more evident in the developing world where disparities are so huge. If the industry is not sensitive to it, they would encourage a backlash to take place and many companies that go overseas are getting to understand the need to do this and those that do not are really hurting the reputation of other industries,” he said. Tata, who has been honoured by the Rockefeller Foundation, for innovation in philanthropy, said, “when you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at ...

Docs remove wombs at random for money  under govt insurance scheme Raipur: A young woman’s womb is worth as little as Rs 7,500 in rural Chhattisgarh, where unscrupulous doctors are conducting unnecessary hysterectomies-uterus-removal surgeries-to claim money under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the national health insurance scheme. The Chhattisgarh health department has initiated action against 22 of the 34 nursing homes against which it found prima facie evidence of surgeries being done without legitimate medical reasons. They have recommended the cancellation of registrations of nine doctors working in the private sector. Over the last eight months, hospitals and nursing homes have claimed Rs 2 crore under RSBY for removing the wombs of 1,800 women, said state health minister Amar Agarwal. “It has become a sensitive and serious problem. We are investigating whether these surgeries were being done just for the money or were genuinely needed. The governmen...

When docs became looters in UP Lucknow:  In probably the biggest action of its kind in any state the Uttar Pradesh government put under suspension 20 doctors belonging to the state’s medical and health services for their alleged involvement in different aspects of the embezzlement of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds. The names of these doctors, mostly of the chief medical officer or additional and deputy CMO levels, had come up during the ongoing CBI investigation into embezzlement of over Rs. 10,000 crore of the NRHM funds. State’s Health Minister Ahmed Husain said Lucknow’s former Deputy CMO Dr A K Shukla was among those suspended. More than 100 government doctors are under different stages of probe by the CBI. Two non-medical employees of the health department are also among those suspended. It is learnt that the government would soon grant sanction for prosecution of these doctors whose names figured in the inquiry.  The massive scam in NRHM funds was ...

CID probe into Rs. 970-cr garbage tenders Mumbai: The state government has decided to probe the civic body’s move to hand out tenders worth Rs 970 crore for cleaning garbage across the city to private contractors. The government, ordered the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe alleged irregularities in allotment of these tenders. “We will conduct a CID probe. It would be completed within two months,” said Bhaskar Jadhav, minister of state for urban development. The state was forced to conduct the inquiry after deputy chairman of the legislative council Vasant Dawkhare asked for it following allegations by ruling party members of large scale irregularities in the deal. The BMC recently approved tenders worth Rs: 70 crore to rent compactors, vehicles as well as transport solid waste. The duration of these contracts is five years. Congress member Alka Desai, who raised the issue, said that the waste disposal system was in a mess. “Garbage is not being cleared for d...