YEH MERA INDIA

Staff Dies of TB in TB Hospital

Mumbai : One more staff-member from Sewri TB hospital succumbed to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), just two days after the strike of hospital workers on October 29 which focused on paid leaves for workers diagnosed with TB. With this, the death toll of hospital workers who died owing to TB has increased to eight so far this year.

The increasing deaths have led to an atmosphere of fear of contracting the deadly disease among other staff-members and workers at the hospital, which is Asia’s largest TB hospital. The deceased was a 51-year-old woman, a senior laboratory technician with the hospital since 2011 who was diagnosed with MDR-TB in August. Her treatment was started on August 20 at Asian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) in Dombivli where she breathed her last on Saturday. Hospital sources said that her condition worsened as she was a diabetic.

Sewri TB hospital bears the highest load of TB patients with critical and high-resistant TB cases posing a huge threat to the workers. Pradeep Narkar, secretary of Municipal Mazdoor Union said: “The workers are working under constant fear as they are exposed to infections. The authorities don’t seem to be serious about this issue as we have been fighting for paid leaves and N95 masks over the past few months. There is a pressing need for infection-control measures in order to protect workers from TB.”

Councillor has milk bath

Panaji : A video clip of a councillor having a milk bath after getting elected on a BJP-supported municipal panel has triggered a bout of sparring between the Congress and the ruling BJP in Goa.

The video shows Kishor Shet, a councillor from Ward No. 3 in the Canacona Municipal Council, on a chair and being given a milk bath by his supporters at the Mallikarjuna temple in Canacona after he was declared a winner on October 27.

Stating that the video showed how insensitive the BJP was to the reality, the Congress demanded action against the councillor.  “Today, only BJP leaders can afford a milk bath. The common man finds it difficult to even buy milk. We cannot afford public representatives wasting milk at a time when people are suffering due to high food prices,” Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar told IANS on Monday.  Shet in his clarification said his supporters were only observing the Indian custom ‘Dudh Abhishek’.  “My supporters were happy and were following an Indian custom which is very popular.”

Asked to comment on the video and the charge made by the Congress, BJP state vice president Wilfred Mesquita told IANS: “He (Shet) has said he was following a custom to appease the gods. We are yet to know whether god was really appeased by his act or not.”

Ease of Doing Business

New Delhi: The government proposes to bring down the average number of days required for incorporating a company to 1-2 days, a move aimed at further improving ‘ease of doing business’ in the country. The finance Ministry said, “as a result of number of steps taken during the past one year to streamline processes and regulatory framework, the average number of days taken for incorporation of a company has come down significantly from 9.57 days in December, 2014 to 4.51 days in November, 2015. 

When ideology got sunk

London: A 75-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader was found guilty of rape, child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter for 30 years by a British court.

Kerala-born Aravindan Balakrishnan, who led a secretive Maoist commune in south London from 1975 to 2013 after emigrating from Singapore, has been accused of raping female followers and imprisoning his own daughter for 30 years after brainwashing them into believing he was an all-powerful and all-seeing leader. He was referred to as "Comrade Bala".

Balakrishnan, who faces life sentence when he is sentenced, was found guilty of most of the 16 charges brought against him at a Southwark Crown Court trial on Friday.

He denied the charges and told the jury that he was "the focus of competition" between "jealous" women who made sexual advances on him.

Bogus muster entries to claim safai dues

Mumbai : In a meeting of the leaders of political parties in the BMC, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta submitted the Nullah Safai Enquiry report for discussion. This will now be tabled before the standing committee.

Rais Sheikh, Samajwadi Party leader in the BMC, said: “The report seeks permission from leaders of all political parties to initiate legal and police action against erring contractors.”

Similarly, MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande said: “Ajoy Mehta has finally admitted himself that about 70% of the entries in musters belonging to nullah safai contractors are bogus entries. This is what we had been saying even before the committee was established.”

The BMC had appointed a five-member committee, chaired by deputy municipal commissioner Prakash Patil, to probe these works after the deluge of June 19 this year that brought Mumbai to a standstill.

The committee submitted its report to Mehta in September, placing responsibility on contractors for carrying out shoddy work.

Meet India’s very own Imran Khan

Jaipur : Imran Khan, a maths teacher in a government school in Alwar district, still cannot believe that Prime MInister Narendra Modi mentioned his name during his speech at London’s Wembley stadium.

“It still is like a dream… PM mentioning my name is unbelievable….When PM was delivering his speech I was half asleep. I do not have a TV in my house. I came to know only after my friends and well-wishers started to call me. To confirm this, I watched the Prime Minister’s speech on YouTube….watched it again and again to confirm….reconfirm it…he was mentioning me,” Imran Khan told media on the phone, a day after Modi’s address.  “You will not believe that since yesterday evening I have not been able to eat food….there are media persons….my friends….my relatives calling up….coming to meet me….absolutely no food since yesterday evening,” said a happy Imran.  “I made a small effort and it has been praised by the PM…..it feels great…really very great,” he said.  Modi, during his speech, said: “In Rajasthan’s Alwar there is a man called Imran Khan. He has made 50 mobile apps. And Alwar’s Imran Khan dedicated those apps to the students for free.”   “My India is in that Imran Khan from Alwar,” Modi said.

The 37-year-old teaches Maths in a government school in Alwar district.  Imran has so far developed 52 education-oriented mobile applications since 2012.  “I do not have any background in computer technology but I had a computer in my house and I used to devote lot of time on it developing websites and other things. When I met the then district collector of my area he told me to develop apps as he said that future will belong to mobile apps, reports IANS.

After reading some books that had chapters on apps, I started to develop mobile apps and since 2012 I have developed 52,” he said.  “My mobile apps have been downloaded by over 30 lakh users so far,” Imran claimed, adding that he considers the general science in Hindi app as his completely “different” kind of one.