ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends,   Greetings of the festival season to our readers, well wishers and patrons, as we touch the completion of 16th year of our existence in the print media. Looking back, after crossing every milestone, over the distance covered, it is a feeling of quite satisfaction. In a world full of ‘nay’ sayers, team at I&C proved that it is possible to survive the socio/political negatives of the society around us, by the dint of purposeful application of a focused approach. Thank God, like one of our ardent supporters Prof. Ravishankar Rao had put it, we lived to tell the story of our endurance in reasonable style. We at I&C are grateful to all those who helped us survive the rigours of this long and difficult journey.  However, despite this long journey of sixteen years, our circulation has not grown to a satisfactory level. We need participative support in enlisting subscriber base from readers and well wishers. We do hope coming months shall have an upward mov...

NEW DELHI: Ever Since, sta te governments in different parts of the country started losing power in state assembly due to number games of different political parties at the centre, elections to state assemblies were timed differently. When we spoke of general elections, it was always both Loksabha for centre and Vidhan Sabha for states all over the country. It was a massive exercise. For a long time, close to 30 years only Congress was at the centre with most states also ruled by Congress. When some political parties in Kerala, West Bengal and the then Madras or Tamil Nadu or  Akali Dal in Punjab started gaining acceptance and became ruling parties in states, party at the centre had engineered the collapse of these state governments at different times, thus elections became imperative. But every time, it would be for the next 5 years and not for the remaining balance part of the government that lost power.  Of course, not withstanding what President Mukherjee had said abou...

I have been a reader of I&C since some 15+ years. I am a deeply satisfied reader for its originality, genuineness, and no-nonsense approach. Writings are direct without any add-on embellishment or taking sides on issues. Over the years, its quality, both in contents and physical appearance, have undergone metamorphosis. To think that the publisher of I&C could do it for 15 long years, reaching it to subscribers without fail, so consistently, every month for a mere Rs. 1,000/- shows the innate commitment of the indomitable spirit behind this journey ‘Towards a purposeful regimen’. Hence I feel it is my duty to send this Permanent Membership subscription of Rs. 10,000/- and is sent along. With deep appreciation.                                                            Dr. Nalini M. Rao, Andheri, Mumbai. Your focus (I&C...

RIO, DHYAN CHAND & TENDULKAR: A MISSING SENSE OF PROPORTION As the grand opening and equally grand closing of the 31st Olympiad at Rio de Jeneiro would go into the pages of history, stark realisation would have dawned on the dreamers of India becoming a Super Power. The truth is India cannot be a super power before for a very long time to come. As a nation, we are a society of contrasts. Either we over do or we never do. A country of some 1.27 billion, had sent some 117 participants, highest ever, in different track events and games. The contingent of 117 came back with 2 medals, a silver and a bronze. Thank God, we did not come back empty handed. The fear that we might just return with nothing was hanging like a sword of Damocles. All those who were thought to be medal prospects fell by the way side. Both medal winners were there to win the medal. In fact the whole contingent of 117 were supposed to be medal prospects.  Or else they will not be at the Olympics. But th...

Cancer and its secrets Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com “ Cancer research is all fraud and so are cancer charities.”  Linus Pauling. Two Nobel Prizes. Cancer is not a disease. It is the body’s adaptation response to a hostile environment. When the environment becomes hostile the cells cannot survive. To avoid death those cells mutate. Those mutated cells become cancer in our definition which is more for monetary benefits to the industry than for the benefit of the poor patient. “I do not know what cancer is. Cancer cells work exactly like normal cells although they might look different under the microscope. No one can kill cancer cells without killing normal cells,” wrote Albert Szent Gyorgi, a Nobel Laureate biologist, in his landmark book Introduction to Sub-molecular Biology. Western medicine is only interested in labelling diseases. They need a diagnosis for their statistical analysis. Many so called cancers which are diagnosed using biopsy and labell...

Dead Child denied Ambulance Uttar Pradesh: In yet another heart-rending incident, a woman ran from one hospital to another with her daughter's body and was forced to spend a night outside the emergency wing of the district hospital with the dead child after ambulance drivers allegedly refused to take them to their village as it was in another district. Two-and-a-half-year-old Gulnad, a resident of Baghpat district, was suffering from a viral infection and undergoing treatment at P L Sharma government hospital but, her condition deteriorated and doctors referred her to Lala Lajpat Rai Medical College (LLRMC) Hospital. Her mother Imrana took her to the LLRMC hospital where doctors declared her brought dead. Imrana charged that she pleaded with the hospital ambulance driver for two hours to take the body to her village Gauripur but he refused, saying he is not allowed to travel to other districts. Child falls unconscious as Cop drags Madhya Pradesh: A GRP constable wa...

Newer ways to treat common ailments Agra: A retired colonel of the Indian army, who served as a medical expert in the Kargil area, has innovated new techniques for treating 25 odd common chronic human ailments. A book brought out by Berlin’s Lap Lambert Academic Publications lists the areas that he has successfully worked in with these unique techniques which need to be further refined and perfected for wider use and acceptance. Colonel Rajesh Chauhan, an alumni of the AFMC, is currently an honorary national professor. He served the Indian army and also worked in Botswana. Chauhan said: “We feel that the world continues to be guided by age-old beliefs and theories and it is high time we began thinking afresh, looked at different realities with different perceptions. Having worked in very hostile terrain and in extremely difficult conditions without the benefits of modern science it was possible to apply mind on new possibilities and utilise whatever resources were at our comma...

THE PERSISTENCE OF CASTE A HISTORICAL OUTLINE Anand Teltumbde Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill this monster.  B.R. Ambedkar India’s caste system has always bewildered the world. Much has been written about it; more still awaits the writing. Many scholars have tried to fathom its origins but have ultimately contributed only further conjecture. Many have tried to define it but have failed to capture its complexity. For most, it was a relic of Indian feudalism which, it was thought, would disappear once capitalism was established. Writing in 1853, the year the railways were introduced in India, Karl Marx prophesied that the new mechanized transportation system would catalyse the collapse of caste. Today, India has the world’s second largest railway network and has created, since independence, a sizeable infrastructure for capitalist industry. But ...

Indian teen claims cancer breakthrough London: A 16-year-old Indian-origin boy from UK's Surrey has claimed to have found a treatment for the most deadly form of breast cancer. Krtin Nithiyanandam thinks he has devised a way to turn the triple negative breast cancer into a kind which responds to drugs. Around 7,500 women each year are diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a type of disease which does not respond to today's most effective drugs. Many breast cancers are driven by oestrogen, progesterone or growth chemicals, so drugs that can block those fuels, such as tamoxifen, make effective treatments. "Most cancers have receptors on their surface which bind to drugs, but triple negative don't have receptors so the drugs don't work," Krtin said. Thus, it can be only treated with a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy which lowers chances of survival. Researchers have found that some women with triple negative cancer respond very w...

Clothes can repair itself! Washington: Coatings made from squid proteins may help clothes that could fix their own rips, a new study by the US Naval Research Laboratory has claimed. The coating may not only lead to self-healing clothes, but also help create garments tailored for protection against chemical and biological warfare and that can repair themselves. The researchers investigated molecules from the suction cups on squid tentacles for use in self-repairing films.They focused on proteins from razor-sharp, tooth-like structures around the openings of these suction cups that help squids latch onto its prey . Previous research suggested proteins from these “squid ring teeth“ are tough and elastic under both wet and dry conditions. When a fabric covered in this coating is soaked in water, the proteins diffuse towards holes and tears in the coating, linking segments of coating and fabric together to make repairs. “We were surprised at the rapidity of the healing process and th...