ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends We are well into the new financial year. Both, Railway Budget and Union Budget are already out and life appears to be moving gingerly ahead without any radical shift of fortune, except that the anticipated share market revival has not taken place. Summer months are round the corner hence the mercury is steadily going up. Also going up is the political heat. With developments of different nature, political parties are taking diverse stands which can affect political permutations and combinations. There is unease in New Delhi’s corridors of power. There is speculation that there could be election to the Lok Sabha earlier than 2014. Election to the Karnataka Assembly has already been announced for next month. Atmosphere is really hot but uncertain. Incumbent party may have to pay for incumbency factors. Who will come to power at Bangalore is difficult question to answer. It looks co-alition is going to return to state politics. In any case, let’s hope that there is deli...

KARNATAKA: A recent drubbing BJP received in the elections to Municipal Councils and Corporations is a fair indictment of the party for its failure to remain a coherent political outfit. For far too long, the bickerings within the party, corruption scandals and of course unfriendly media all contributed to the decline of the party in Karnataka. Yediyurappa factor may have influenced to some extent the outcome, since BSY and his coterie of Dhananjay Kumar & others are vengeful to settle political scores. There cannot be any comparison between BJP and KJP. KJP simply cannot replace BJP, forget about becoming a political force in Karnataka. Most people, if not all, are only there in KJP for power and its crumbs, and certainly not to serve the cause of people and democracy. While BJP has to address its internal problems to the liking of general public, if they have to improve their share of votes in the hustings. KJP should stop dreaming that they have arrived. Of course Congress go...

Politician    Police Partnership &   International Women’s Day Like all other annual ritual is this IWD or International Women’s Day. 8th March comes and goes into amnesia like remaining days round the year. It’s the same sun and same moon. Except that, the fairer sex – you mean men are unfairer sex! – take the centre stage at least on that day, to tell the world that they exist, that they too have an identity, so please do not take us for granted, that men, rather the world of homo sapiens, cannot exist without we women, as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister or as a wife or even just as a friend. Yes come to think of it, if women are not there, nothing can happen in this world of men and matters. The whole world recognises, whether its on IWD or any other of the 364 days of the year, that women are indeed an integral part of this earthly life. Yet we have witnessed for all these hundreds of years that man being more masculine has always been aggressive and ...

Medicine is too much with us. Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com I get a weekly dose of happiness from the British Medical Journal these days. This week, the last of February 2013, is something that gives me lots of joy as I have been saying this for now well over 45 years. The first article that I published-How to avoid modern medicine and survive-almost cost me my job in the medical school. I survived by the skin of my teeth. This week’s BMJ says just what I said then-Too much medicine.  I was reminded of this little poem by that Romantic British poet, William Wordsworth, who in the year 1802 criticised the world for the First Industrial Revolution where he thought that we had lost ourselves in materialism to the exclusion of nature! How true it could be said today about modern medicine and its ravages? “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hea...

3years & 75000 children still untraced: Govt New Delhi: Around 75,000 children have gone missing in the last three years in the country and are still untraced, the Rajya Sabha was informed. Of the about 2.36 lakh children who went missing in the last three years, 1,61,800 have been traced, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Paban Singh Ghatowar said during the Question Hour. "Unfortunately about 75,000 are still untraced," he said. The Centre, he said, has issued advisories to states to appoint nodal officers at all police stations to deal with such cases and make registration of FIRs mandatory. The advisories followed two interim orders of Supreme Court in January 2013, he said. The Supreme Court had ordered mandatory recording of FIR with regard to missing children and formation of special Juvenile Police units in different states. 4 rapes a day in Delhi in 2013 New Delhi: Four rapes have been reported in Delhi every day till the middle of Februar...

Wipro among world’s most ethical firms Bangalore : IT bellwether Wipro Ltd has been recognised for the second year as one of the world’s most ethical firms by leading business ethics think-tank Ethisphere Institute, the company said. “The recognition is for our commitment to ethical leadership, compliance practices and corporate citizenship,” the global software major said in a statement. As a leading US-based international organisation dedicated to creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, governance and anti-corruption and sustainability, the institute selects global firms that embrace ethical business practice and demonstrate industry leadership, forcing peers to follow them. “Integrity and ethics have always been a core part of how we think and act. Our endeavour is to keep raising the bar with our stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers and investors,” Wipro chief sustainability officer Anurag Behar said in the statement. ...

Lions, bears in gangster's property ! Bucharest (Romania): Authorities have removed 4 lions and 2 bears from the estate of Ion Balint, a Romanian gangster, who used them to threaten his victims. US landlord whips late-paying tenant Waynesville: A US landlord is accused of whipping a tenant with a belt on his bare buttocks for falling behind on his rent. Ron Kronenberger, 53, was charged with assault for the January 22 encounter in his office, police said. They said the 29-year-old tenant was late with a USD 2800 rent payment. “If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat  you like one,” Kronenberger was quoted in the report as saying before striking the tenant four times with a belt. Boy fools security & flies without ticket London: A 12-year-old Belgian boy managed to sneak into the international departure zone of the Brussels airport and boarded a plane to Spain without a ticket.  Belgium's RTBF broadcaster said the boy, whose name was n...

Changing face of Indian society Dr. M. V. Kamath We are living in turbulent times. We seem to have woken up to the fact only after the events of 16 December 2012 when a 23-year old paramedic travelling with a friend late at night in a bus was molested and murderously raped by over a dozen –fellow travelers. It was a heart-rending happening that came as a shock to every Indian citizen. Since then rape and molestation case of all kinds are making news on a daily basis. Delhi is standing out as a particularly dangerous place for women to stir out at nights. Between March 2012 and March 2013 there has been a 127 per cent increase in rape cases. Additionally some 587 cases of molestation have been registered by the police. The Chief Minister of the city, Sheila Dixit is even quoted as saying that her own daughter feels unsafe in the city. Is this development peculiar only to the capital or can it be presumed that more such incidents are taking place in every state capital and urba...