ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends, We are well and truly into the monsoon season. It’s wet all over. It just didn’t rain, it poured in many places. Whole of Maharashtra including Mumbai was inundated with some making a fun on the submerged Suburban railway tracks as “India is the only country in the world to have trains running on water.” Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh Deccan Plateau including parched land of Latur had more and plenty. But it’s been erratic. Hopefully farmers should have no complaint of water shortage. The Met men’s prediction of more than normal rain may after all come true. According to them some 90% of the country has received normal and excess rainfall, 26% being excess and 63% area of the country having received normal rainfall, rest of 11% being deficit. We are in August. If nothing else, at least the 15th Aug is the reminder of the event that happened 69 years ago. As a politically free country we are 69 years old. Looking back, how has been the journey o...

NEW DELHI: Every government, whether state or centre has its own programme of expansion of ministries or changing of portfolios or elevating, demoting or even outright dumping is the done thing. Hence, there need be no surprise or unwanted reactions when the present NDA outfit decided to have this exercise. Biggest change has been that of shifting of HRD minister Smriti Irani to an innocuous Textile Ministry. The new face at HRD, which will also oversee the higher education scene of the country, is Prakash Javadekar (PJ). At least PJ is a B.Com, unlike his predecessor a mere XII pass. Of course, more than her educational qualification, it is the ministership that went into her head that cost her ministry. There are lots of people, who become arrogant on acquiring some power, of course, given by someone else. But if there is a background of achievement, either by way of educational qualification or any other accomplishment, arrogance may escape scrutiny. But, Smriti didn’t have any...

POPULATION: NOT AN ISSUE FOR INDIAN POLITICIANS Talking to THE INDEPENDENT, famed British physicist Stephen Hawking had stated the other day “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity”, he was recollecting his interview of 2010 with a U.S television channel, while talking about the population. He is reported to have stated “Population had grown by half a billion in six years with no end in sight. At this rate it will be 11 billion by 2100. The resultant environmental pollution shall be the biggest threats to mankind globally. More than 80% of inhabitants of urban areas are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution. People should be careful, mankind is in danger of destroying ourselves", he is reported to have stated.  11th July, World Population Day came and went into national amnesia, as if it was another day in the calendar. Customary government advertisement in the news papers too was not there. Country’s leadership, both at states and centre lo...

Diets, diets and diets galore! Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com “The only way you get that fat off is to eat less and exercise more.” Jack LaLanne Our so called civilised society and our literate masses have an obsession about their body weight. Their role models in the film world show them the need for size zero to be acceptable! This combined with a sudden spurt in youth income, thanks to the IT Czars in India; we have an epidemic on hand. This seems to be one of the few diseases that does not bother the illiterate poor village masses! If on top of all these obesity in a girl gets further complicated by an English educated sophisticated doting mother result is chaos in the home. I call it as the new age malady. Other times obesity results from Mall nutrition, nutrition coming only from junk food and sugary drinks marketed by rich women in the shopping Malls, again a disease of affluence! Philosophically it is money, too much or too little, that causes malnutrition...

INDIAN IN COWBOY COUNTRY LABOUR DAY “Brahmarpanam literally means ‘offering to God,’ and the Sankrit words mean: The offering is God; the act of offering is God, Offered by God in the sacred fire that is God He alone attains God, Who in all his actions is fully absorbed in God. I am the all-pervading cosmic energy, Lodged in the bodies of living beings. United with their ingoing and outgoing life breaths, I consume all the various foods.” Satish added, “Before the Brahmarpanam, what we had in front of us was food. After we say it, it becomes consecrated food.” “We don’t need to say formal prayers, just a sincere prayer from our hearts, thanking God and asking God to bless the food,” she said. Pauline said, “Honey, it is so deep, it brought tears to my eyes.” “Yes,” conceded Miriam, “It was beautiful.” Susan and Serena joined in to praise Monica’s rendition when Clyde jumped in and asked, “When are we going to eat?” Satish stood up and described all th...

Relief with new generation stents Mumbai: The new generation of stents that are being used to treat heart patients has brought major relief to them with the incidence of re-blockage of the vessels coming down by a significant amount. Medical sources said that stents are being increasingly used in treating heart patients who have a blocked vessel that needs to be opened up. While the earlier stents were bare metal ones that merely served the purpose of keeping the artery open, the recent generation of stents also have a drug coating on them that was useful in treatment of the heart condition. According to Dr Lekha Pathak, director of cardiology, Nanavati Superspeciality Hospital, the new generation stents have a special kind of drugs coated on them that prevent the same artery from getting blocked again. “This is important because the incidence of re blockage – also known as restenosis – is quite high among the high risk patients. These are the patients who are suffering diabet...