This world is not for daughters!
Women are considered weak. But time and again she has proved herself otherwise. Still a girl child is considered a bane. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence. This world is not for daughters.
IT IS for boys. Girls are not supposed to be playing such games. Girls don’t use such expressions! They have to be refined in their words. Come home dear before it gets dark. You cannot be out in the street after sundown. Wake up my dear and help me in the kitchen. Girls should not sleep for long. There is a heap of clothes, just make sure you wash. Let them finish with it. We will sit later dear, are you hungry now? You are not. Make all the beds first and do some dishwashing when you finish with it.
Getting big degrees is not meant for girls. They need to get married fast and start a new family.
It has been six months since you got married! When are you going to give us that great ‘news’? We are so anxious to become grandparents. It is great to be a mom, dear. I gave birth to five children. It was not simple and is not for all.
Be careful dear, you are carrying a baby. You cannot walk and move so briskly. The baby may get hurt.
Is it going to be a baby girl or boy, dear?
A baby girl!
But, I want a baby boy! What do you say?
It’s a girl.
How do you know that? Mother’s can tell.
Are you sure or maybe you are confused.
No, I am not confused, but the baby in me seems to be in a dilemma.
I am sure it is a baby girl.
No, it is a baby boy.
Please stop it.
What if we go for a sex determination check?
What for?
We could have options dear.
What do you mean by options?
You can take it or leave it, dear, I mean, if you want a baby boy and you happen to have a baby girl in, you can opt it out, and go for a second innings. It may turn out to be a baby boy. Agreed?
How dare you say that to me?
Aren’t your parents anxious now?
They want a boy. We will try again if the test goes negative.
I am not convinced. What if it is not going to be up to your wish the second time too?
No problem, we can try again.
Again! I get a premonition that I am going to give birth to a baby girl for sure.
No way. Why not?
“My dilemma is whether I should bring her to this world or cede her right there.
It is a daughter’s dilemma, and only daughters understand it, because it is very difficult to be living a daughter’s life.”
Did you say something dear?
No honey!
But I am thinking of…er…. Of what?
Tell me. What if we go for a sex determination test? Are you serious? Yes, I am.
“That is the best thing I could do for my daughter. Let all daughters live in the minds of those who love them. They do not deserve physical existence anymore.
This world is not for daughters.
It is for sons,
brothers,
brothers-in-law,
husbands,
fathers and grandfathers.”
When are we meeting the doctor? Right-way?
“Make it fast. It is getting late. I have to save my daughter from this world at any cost.”
Monday, August 25, 2008
Dirty politics and faith of the nation
Dirty politics and faith of the nation
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of an ll-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Incompatible they are, faith of the nation and politics, for sure. Faith is something that gets formed out of resolve, respect and reliability. Our Indian politics is the antithesis of these three. This state of affairs is not something that got shaped the other day. We have been part of this dirty system for the last six decades, and we all have had our shares to make what it actually is today. As we all have a rare faculty of staying aloof and cut ourselves into Daniels of judgement, we have kept our personal shells off any meddles, and we continue the same. So long as the problem remains to be somebody else’s we are contented. Then think of a situation in which the problem involves a whole nation! It is natural for every one of us to be criticizing the political system, and if possible we would take time off to make judgements too.
However, not many of us are able to judge ourselves and see that there is nothing called politics, no matter it is dirty and decent, unless there is you and me. We have failed to or we have feigned unable to identify ourselves with the problem, but we come to our ubiquitous conclusion that politics is dirty, particularly Indian politics. Again we forget that an honest and disinterested population can never suffer from a dirty political system. What I would like to emphasize is that we get what we deserve. And we have got what we have over the years come to deserve. How has it come about by the way?
It is very simple. Politics is a matter of power and fear. Both the ruling and the ruled are afraid of both. The ruling are afraid of losing power, and ruled is afraid of not having someone to vest the responsibilities on. The public has a rare ingenuity to be protecting itself from such fears by leaving the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and counting the latter responsible for everything. When you get your things done by others, you cannot expect others to be doing things the way you like. Rather we have to put up with the way it is done. And we do not show the guts to demand for better professionalism, because we are scared of allegiance to our own calling. I personally feel that this is the primary reason for our nation’s loss of faith in its politics.
For us, elections are excursions through which we enjoy the great pleasure of exercising our franchise periodically, and as if we pay out an equal monthly installment, (EMI), we cut down on our responsibilities election after election, and we expect our service providers, our elected representatives, to be patrons of our causes and concerns: let it be supplying nuclear electricity non-stop or ensuring supply of essentials at affordable prices or laying roads or keeping the democratic fabric intact or whatever.
So, ultimately, where are we with regard to dirty politics and faith of the nation? They are nowhere near each other. They are not going to be near in the immediate future either. The stakes of the nation is huge so are the stakes of is politics. Since both the parties are afraid of power and fear, politics will not induce faith and nation will never feel like trusting politics.
There are solutions for this stalemate. We can make the nation trust its politics, or the other way round by taking a few steps:
· Education department should be severed and kept under the purview of the president, the governor and the vice chancellor.
· We have to adopt proportional and gender based representation in all legislative and elected bodies.
· There should be a call back facility, and no go-back facility once called back.
· Media need to be made accountable and be brought under judicial observance.
· Politicians should retire, and the retired ones should be phased out of electioneering.
· Defection has to be made a permanent disqualification.
· Bureaucracy, including police, needs to be governed by ombudsman.
· There should be pay parity in accordance with the changing times.
These things are not going to happen for sure for, we have come to such a difficult pass that makes us all feel that this is what it actually is or should be. We do not know of a different order. This has been rut decade after decade.
Even if we fail to do the above things, we can help politics stay free from its dirty clout by taking some individual resolutions. We have to individually ask ourselves a few questions. When it comes to an issue of some personal significance, how many of us are ready to think inclusively, say, it is a social cause and I am only party to it, so I should not be going off the track to get my things done, or I should not expect the rest of my fellowmen suffer for my personal gain or happiness. How many of us think inclusively. Very few! We all think in isolation. This is my cause, and I have to get it done some how. Or it is one of my dear ones’ cause, so I should forgo the established norms and see that it is done, no matter at whose expense I get it done. Do we not do it on a daily basis in our life? Yes, you do, I do and everyone does. The very same I, you and everyone take up the cudgel and cry foul when we see something dirty in the political system. Is it not true? We come down to our earth if it is a matter that involves our selves.
So, we are immune to the system, at the same time we are in the system. This will not work because there are only two ways to serve a system: one way is to be an integral part of it and the other is to be completely away from it. Can we be both? It is the ‘I’ and ‘ME’ and ‘OUR’ factors that make us dirty and our politics and politicians dirtier. The faith of the nation will falter in such a milieu. Still all is not lost. What is there not to be overcome?
I feel, if we will, within some twenty years’ time we can expect our political system be free from this ignominy and distrust if today’s kids are given a milieu, which thinks and takes everything inclusively. The making of this milieu has to start from immediate parents to guardians to elders to teachers to think tanks to spiritual heads.
Everyone close to a growing child should inculcate inclusive thinking in them, and their curriculum needs to be a product of this inclusive attitude and incorporate lessons and exercises designed to reinforce the principles of leading a life accommodating everything new and good in their purview. This will be possible only if the new generation parents sacrifice a little and shed a few of their inherited ills of ‘I’ ‘ME’ and ‘OUR” factors.
They need to understand that a holistic society needs all types of people; form politicians to policemen. Only engineers and doctors and IT gurus would not make a nation fair well. And school is the right place to identify the inherent skills and talents, strengths and weaknesses of a child. We can identify who could be a politician of inclusive thinking, who could be a scientist, a doctor, an engineer or whatever. This is possible if every parent wills so. This is possible. To what all extent our patents go to meet the demands of their dream children!!! Therefore, this is the best thing they could do for their kids and the latter’s future nation. Let them pick up all-inclusive thinking habits from their homes.
Parents should take a resolve that: ‘I will not allow my children to be influenced by those evil forces that have made our society this hopeless. They have to have a new world order in which they are to be their decision makers, and they are to decide their destiny. So we have to provide them the right milieu”. Let’s all do it. Let all good things begin from our homes inclusively.
I think it is worth the wait. It is imperative that a nation of modern times must have faith in its political system and its men. So is the case with politics itself. It has to shed its age-old filth and scales of ignominy from its face and come clean. Thinking of the long road ahead, I feel that it is worth sparing a couple of decades so that we can have a new national political order footed not on any dirty politicking but on the pillars of indomitable faith.
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of the all-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of an ll-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Incompatible they are, faith of the nation and politics, for sure. Faith is something that gets formed out of resolve, respect and reliability. Our Indian politics is the antithesis of these three. This state of affairs is not something that got shaped the other day. We have been part of this dirty system for the last six decades, and we all have had our shares to make what it actually is today. As we all have a rare faculty of staying aloof and cut ourselves into Daniels of judgement, we have kept our personal shells off any meddles, and we continue the same. So long as the problem remains to be somebody else’s we are contented. Then think of a situation in which the problem involves a whole nation! It is natural for every one of us to be criticizing the political system, and if possible we would take time off to make judgements too.
However, not many of us are able to judge ourselves and see that there is nothing called politics, no matter it is dirty and decent, unless there is you and me. We have failed to or we have feigned unable to identify ourselves with the problem, but we come to our ubiquitous conclusion that politics is dirty, particularly Indian politics. Again we forget that an honest and disinterested population can never suffer from a dirty political system. What I would like to emphasize is that we get what we deserve. And we have got what we have over the years come to deserve. How has it come about by the way?
It is very simple. Politics is a matter of power and fear. Both the ruling and the ruled are afraid of both. The ruling are afraid of losing power, and ruled is afraid of not having someone to vest the responsibilities on. The public has a rare ingenuity to be protecting itself from such fears by leaving the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and counting the latter responsible for everything. When you get your things done by others, you cannot expect others to be doing things the way you like. Rather we have to put up with the way it is done. And we do not show the guts to demand for better professionalism, because we are scared of allegiance to our own calling. I personally feel that this is the primary reason for our nation’s loss of faith in its politics.
For us, elections are excursions through which we enjoy the great pleasure of exercising our franchise periodically, and as if we pay out an equal monthly installment, (EMI), we cut down on our responsibilities election after election, and we expect our service providers, our elected representatives, to be patrons of our causes and concerns: let it be supplying nuclear electricity non-stop or ensuring supply of essentials at affordable prices or laying roads or keeping the democratic fabric intact or whatever.
So, ultimately, where are we with regard to dirty politics and faith of the nation? They are nowhere near each other. They are not going to be near in the immediate future either. The stakes of the nation is huge so are the stakes of is politics. Since both the parties are afraid of power and fear, politics will not induce faith and nation will never feel like trusting politics.
There are solutions for this stalemate. We can make the nation trust its politics, or the other way round by taking a few steps:
· Education department should be severed and kept under the purview of the president, the governor and the vice chancellor.
· We have to adopt proportional and gender based representation in all legislative and elected bodies.
· There should be a call back facility, and no go-back facility once called back.
· Media need to be made accountable and be brought under judicial observance.
· Politicians should retire, and the retired ones should be phased out of electioneering.
· Defection has to be made a permanent disqualification.
· Bureaucracy, including police, needs to be governed by ombudsman.
· There should be pay parity in accordance with the changing times.
These things are not going to happen for sure for, we have come to such a difficult pass that makes us all feel that this is what it actually is or should be. We do not know of a different order. This has been rut decade after decade.
Even if we fail to do the above things, we can help politics stay free from its dirty clout by taking some individual resolutions. We have to individually ask ourselves a few questions. When it comes to an issue of some personal significance, how many of us are ready to think inclusively, say, it is a social cause and I am only party to it, so I should not be going off the track to get my things done, or I should not expect the rest of my fellowmen suffer for my personal gain or happiness. How many of us think inclusively. Very few! We all think in isolation. This is my cause, and I have to get it done some how. Or it is one of my dear ones’ cause, so I should forgo the established norms and see that it is done, no matter at whose expense I get it done. Do we not do it on a daily basis in our life? Yes, you do, I do and everyone does. The very same I, you and everyone take up the cudgel and cry foul when we see something dirty in the political system. Is it not true? We come down to our earth if it is a matter that involves our selves.
So, we are immune to the system, at the same time we are in the system. This will not work because there are only two ways to serve a system: one way is to be an integral part of it and the other is to be completely away from it. Can we be both? It is the ‘I’ and ‘ME’ and ‘OUR’ factors that make us dirty and our politics and politicians dirtier. The faith of the nation will falter in such a milieu. Still all is not lost. What is there not to be overcome?
I feel, if we will, within some twenty years’ time we can expect our political system be free from this ignominy and distrust if today’s kids are given a milieu, which thinks and takes everything inclusively. The making of this milieu has to start from immediate parents to guardians to elders to teachers to think tanks to spiritual heads.
Everyone close to a growing child should inculcate inclusive thinking in them, and their curriculum needs to be a product of this inclusive attitude and incorporate lessons and exercises designed to reinforce the principles of leading a life accommodating everything new and good in their purview. This will be possible only if the new generation parents sacrifice a little and shed a few of their inherited ills of ‘I’ ‘ME’ and ‘OUR” factors.
They need to understand that a holistic society needs all types of people; form politicians to policemen. Only engineers and doctors and IT gurus would not make a nation fair well. And school is the right place to identify the inherent skills and talents, strengths and weaknesses of a child. We can identify who could be a politician of inclusive thinking, who could be a scientist, a doctor, an engineer or whatever. This is possible if every parent wills so. This is possible. To what all extent our patents go to meet the demands of their dream children!!! Therefore, this is the best thing they could do for their kids and the latter’s future nation. Let them pick up all-inclusive thinking habits from their homes.
Parents should take a resolve that: ‘I will not allow my children to be influenced by those evil forces that have made our society this hopeless. They have to have a new world order in which they are to be their decision makers, and they are to decide their destiny. So we have to provide them the right milieu”. Let’s all do it. Let all good things begin from our homes inclusively.
I think it is worth the wait. It is imperative that a nation of modern times must have faith in its political system and its men. So is the case with politics itself. It has to shed its age-old filth and scales of ignominy from its face and come clean. Thinking of the long road ahead, I feel that it is worth sparing a couple of decades so that we can have a new national political order footed not on any dirty politicking but on the pillars of indomitable faith.
As the first step we have to catch our kids before they get to school. We can garner their gentleness and spotless spirits for the welfare of the all-inclusive nation first, relations next and persons at last. That is the only way out to make our nation’s politics win the confidence of the nation. jaypeesarefine@gmail.com
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Indian healthcare: The need for three A’s
Indian healthcare: The need for three A’s
I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration that, if India could become a medical super power on the three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much-hyped nuclear or military power.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Our prayers, faiths and worships proclaim: “It is not for nothing we all perform them, but, not to be living in any illness or pain”.Living in pain is no better than mere living.
Where does the onus come to lie, if one happens to live his/her life in pain out of reasons many; like one’s inability to afford adequate medical care due to his poor social status or ignorance on where to access it from or being not ready to take up some medical helps out of fear or social stigma? Does it come to lie in the medical fraternity, or in the whole medical care system of the state?
It is worth pondering over it because a Supreme Court bench has recently given some deliberations on the legality of letting people in excruciating pains and irrecoverable illnesses die assisted death. In this backdrop, we need to look at the medical care system existing in our state.
The scenario
Various streams of medical sciences have grown by leaps and bounds and, medically speaking, today’s world is a much better place to be in than it was a couple of years ago or a few months ago. That is the speed with which innovations that take place in the medical sphere, and the same is reason enough to believe that the sustenance of humans in this planet is much more assured for many more years than what is usually deemed to be in terms of longevity indices.
It is all fine and encouraging to know of and make use of this growth as and when there is a medial intervention in one’s life. Frankly speaking, people dread ill heath much more than anything else. Death is fine if it is painless. If an illness is going to give you traumatic days and finally lands you in the hands of death, you would prefer the latter much before the former comes to haunt you. For us all, including all other living beings, it is important to be free from illnesses.
This preoccupation with our well-being is what makes it imperative that people of all categories need medical care of their choices. This raises a few small questions: How many of us are aware of the medical innovations available around us? How many of us are able to afford such conveniences? And finally how many of us find these medial practices acceptable to us? These three things are very important in any medical regime.
When it comes to healthcare system of any country, the first few things that need to come to one’s mind are Accessibility, Affordability and Acceptability. They are popularly known in medical parlance as three ‘A’s. A detailed look into these three will give an exact picture of the state of affairs existing in any healthcare system of any state. Whether it is so poor a nation or a super power, the primary requirement of a medical care system needs to be accessibility.
Accessibility
The word itself is explanatory enough. All the medical innovations notwithstanding, if the populace, regardless of their social, financial and /or community statuses, is not able to access them according to their convenience, it is as good as not having such innovations at all.
This primary medical requirement is met basically by a couple of factors: demographic distribution of doctors and their support staff – i.e. medical personnel-population ratio – the number of government sponsored medical facilities like PHCs and similar medical centers, their infrastructure, working hours and related services are a few of them.
Coupled with these is the medical conveniences showcased by private healthcare industry. How much they offer, how many are able to access it, how costly or cheap it is etc. are other contributory factors that decide what we call the accessibility side of a medical care system.
In the Indian context, it is sorry to say that the lion’s share of the population is bound to queue up at the corridors of private medicare industry for quality medical care. There are government facilities like medical colleges, district medical centers, Taluk hospitals and primary health centers. The facilities, the number of patients these facilities are able to handle and finally the people-friendliness of such locations are always at loggerheads.
Either it is the shortage of qualified doctors, or it is poor supply of medicine or the non-availability or the malfunctioning of available medical devices. This is not going to change in the near future because, the super-speciality medical facilities have become a huge industry and they are going to stay here, claiming their due market shares. Their services are accessible to a limited few considering the size of the bill they generate, the huge population and the nature of diseases this population comes to experience every passing day. This leads to the next medical issue called affordability.
Affordability
‘God visits the hungry in the form of bread’. So goes the saying. HE cannot afford to be in any other form. So, if the medical innovations are unaffordable to the majority of the population, it is better than not having any innovations at all. A patient who is dying for want of lifesaving medicine will have no regard for any lifesaving medical innovations. For him, saving his life is primary and everything else is secondary. The hungry needs food, neither God, nor faith.
Counting the rising cost of medical care in our state, how many men on the street are able to afford the bills for the treatment of a small illness! Why is it so unaffordable? Medical personnel and representatives of national and multinational pharmaceutical giants maintain an unholy nexus in our state, and they unilaterally decide what medicine is to be used by who and at what cost and when. This is unethical and anti-people. No wonder our medical care system remains unaffordable to millions of people.
And there are reports that the clandestine understanding between a part of our medical fraternity and pharmaceutical giants makes our people of guinea pigs for clinical trials. The positive results of such unethical trials are increasingly exaggerated and the negative ones are either swept under the carpet or simply ignored. And finally they decide the prices of such medicines.
The very patients who had been test-labs for these medicines may not be able to afford the same medicine; it is more so when it is a lifesaving medicine. Naturally, people go for alternative medical practices, and the number of those who go for free samples and self-medication is not getting small either. This is the state of affairs that exists in the affordability side of our medical care system. And how many of our modern medical boasts are acceptable to us? Here comes acceptability.
Acceptability
This is relatively the least serious factor in any medical system. It takes a little sensitivity in our state because of our socio-economic and religious-cultural peculiarities. This diversity is seen in all parts of our state and, when it comes to modern medical practices, many of us are not ready to wholeheartedly digest certain procedures prescribed by our medical fraternity. Some indigenous faiths, religious undertones, social stigmas do not allow some people to buy anything that the medical fraternity offers.
Different people have their own different apprehensions on the feasibility of certain medicinal and diagnostic procedures. These confusions primarily get generated due to the lack of medical awareness among the people. Secondly, it is contributed by the high pedestal position of our medical personnel. Thirdly, their incomprehensible medical jargons, poor patient-friendliness of the places they sit in; why should we say more, even their gestures and looks make people apprehensive of the feasibility and outcome of a medical procedure. Unfortunately, many medical prescriptions scribbled out by our doctors are eyed more with suspicion than with confidence. This medical myopia is able to deprive a patient of his/her rightful share of medical care.
Therefore, it is right to add that all medical innovations that periodically come to our healthcare need to be brought to the notice of the public. The language and platform used for the same should be people-friendly and free from what we normally associate with the prescriptions of our doctors; ‘incomprehensible’. Even the highly educated stumble at them, not to speak of the man on the street. Such awareness exercises should include particulars like the medical or life value of the new development, its cost, effects and side effects, availability and the like. This will make great shifts in the people’s attitude towards the acceptability side of our medical system.
A nation with inaccessible, unaffordable or unacceptable medical system and practices can never succeed in its march to progress. The general physical well-being of the population needs to be the primary concern of any state. In exercising this responsibility, the state medical fraternity has to have a people-friendly mindset so that a larger poor section of the community will feel the confidence and freedom to approach them upon a medical eventuality. However, in these times of medical revolution, it is really agonizing and unnerving to witness hundreds of thousands of people die for want of proper medical accessibility, affordability and acceptability.
I think, if India could become a medical power on the above three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much hyped nuclear power. All nations need to be medical powers. It’s better than being a military or nuclear power. Everything else will fall in place.
I think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration that, if India could become a medical super power on the three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much-hyped nuclear or military power.
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
Our prayers, faiths and worships proclaim: “It is not for nothing we all perform them, but, not to be living in any illness or pain”.Living in pain is no better than mere living.
Where does the onus come to lie, if one happens to live his/her life in pain out of reasons many; like one’s inability to afford adequate medical care due to his poor social status or ignorance on where to access it from or being not ready to take up some medical helps out of fear or social stigma? Does it come to lie in the medical fraternity, or in the whole medical care system of the state?
It is worth pondering over it because a Supreme Court bench has recently given some deliberations on the legality of letting people in excruciating pains and irrecoverable illnesses die assisted death. In this backdrop, we need to look at the medical care system existing in our state.
The scenario
Various streams of medical sciences have grown by leaps and bounds and, medically speaking, today’s world is a much better place to be in than it was a couple of years ago or a few months ago. That is the speed with which innovations that take place in the medical sphere, and the same is reason enough to believe that the sustenance of humans in this planet is much more assured for many more years than what is usually deemed to be in terms of longevity indices.
It is all fine and encouraging to know of and make use of this growth as and when there is a medial intervention in one’s life. Frankly speaking, people dread ill heath much more than anything else. Death is fine if it is painless. If an illness is going to give you traumatic days and finally lands you in the hands of death, you would prefer the latter much before the former comes to haunt you. For us all, including all other living beings, it is important to be free from illnesses.
This preoccupation with our well-being is what makes it imperative that people of all categories need medical care of their choices. This raises a few small questions: How many of us are aware of the medical innovations available around us? How many of us are able to afford such conveniences? And finally how many of us find these medial practices acceptable to us? These three things are very important in any medical regime.
When it comes to healthcare system of any country, the first few things that need to come to one’s mind are Accessibility, Affordability and Acceptability. They are popularly known in medical parlance as three ‘A’s. A detailed look into these three will give an exact picture of the state of affairs existing in any healthcare system of any state. Whether it is so poor a nation or a super power, the primary requirement of a medical care system needs to be accessibility.
Accessibility
The word itself is explanatory enough. All the medical innovations notwithstanding, if the populace, regardless of their social, financial and /or community statuses, is not able to access them according to their convenience, it is as good as not having such innovations at all.
This primary medical requirement is met basically by a couple of factors: demographic distribution of doctors and their support staff – i.e. medical personnel-population ratio – the number of government sponsored medical facilities like PHCs and similar medical centers, their infrastructure, working hours and related services are a few of them.
Coupled with these is the medical conveniences showcased by private healthcare industry. How much they offer, how many are able to access it, how costly or cheap it is etc. are other contributory factors that decide what we call the accessibility side of a medical care system.
In the Indian context, it is sorry to say that the lion’s share of the population is bound to queue up at the corridors of private medicare industry for quality medical care. There are government facilities like medical colleges, district medical centers, Taluk hospitals and primary health centers. The facilities, the number of patients these facilities are able to handle and finally the people-friendliness of such locations are always at loggerheads.
Either it is the shortage of qualified doctors, or it is poor supply of medicine or the non-availability or the malfunctioning of available medical devices. This is not going to change in the near future because, the super-speciality medical facilities have become a huge industry and they are going to stay here, claiming their due market shares. Their services are accessible to a limited few considering the size of the bill they generate, the huge population and the nature of diseases this population comes to experience every passing day. This leads to the next medical issue called affordability.
Affordability
‘God visits the hungry in the form of bread’. So goes the saying. HE cannot afford to be in any other form. So, if the medical innovations are unaffordable to the majority of the population, it is better than not having any innovations at all. A patient who is dying for want of lifesaving medicine will have no regard for any lifesaving medical innovations. For him, saving his life is primary and everything else is secondary. The hungry needs food, neither God, nor faith.
Counting the rising cost of medical care in our state, how many men on the street are able to afford the bills for the treatment of a small illness! Why is it so unaffordable? Medical personnel and representatives of national and multinational pharmaceutical giants maintain an unholy nexus in our state, and they unilaterally decide what medicine is to be used by who and at what cost and when. This is unethical and anti-people. No wonder our medical care system remains unaffordable to millions of people.
And there are reports that the clandestine understanding between a part of our medical fraternity and pharmaceutical giants makes our people of guinea pigs for clinical trials. The positive results of such unethical trials are increasingly exaggerated and the negative ones are either swept under the carpet or simply ignored. And finally they decide the prices of such medicines.
The very patients who had been test-labs for these medicines may not be able to afford the same medicine; it is more so when it is a lifesaving medicine. Naturally, people go for alternative medical practices, and the number of those who go for free samples and self-medication is not getting small either. This is the state of affairs that exists in the affordability side of our medical care system. And how many of our modern medical boasts are acceptable to us? Here comes acceptability.
Acceptability
This is relatively the least serious factor in any medical system. It takes a little sensitivity in our state because of our socio-economic and religious-cultural peculiarities. This diversity is seen in all parts of our state and, when it comes to modern medical practices, many of us are not ready to wholeheartedly digest certain procedures prescribed by our medical fraternity. Some indigenous faiths, religious undertones, social stigmas do not allow some people to buy anything that the medical fraternity offers.
Different people have their own different apprehensions on the feasibility of certain medicinal and diagnostic procedures. These confusions primarily get generated due to the lack of medical awareness among the people. Secondly, it is contributed by the high pedestal position of our medical personnel. Thirdly, their incomprehensible medical jargons, poor patient-friendliness of the places they sit in; why should we say more, even their gestures and looks make people apprehensive of the feasibility and outcome of a medical procedure. Unfortunately, many medical prescriptions scribbled out by our doctors are eyed more with suspicion than with confidence. This medical myopia is able to deprive a patient of his/her rightful share of medical care.
Therefore, it is right to add that all medical innovations that periodically come to our healthcare need to be brought to the notice of the public. The language and platform used for the same should be people-friendly and free from what we normally associate with the prescriptions of our doctors; ‘incomprehensible’. Even the highly educated stumble at them, not to speak of the man on the street. Such awareness exercises should include particulars like the medical or life value of the new development, its cost, effects and side effects, availability and the like. This will make great shifts in the people’s attitude towards the acceptability side of our medical system.
A nation with inaccessible, unaffordable or unacceptable medical system and practices can never succeed in its march to progress. The general physical well-being of the population needs to be the primary concern of any state. In exercising this responsibility, the state medical fraternity has to have a people-friendly mindset so that a larger poor section of the community will feel the confidence and freedom to approach them upon a medical eventuality. However, in these times of medical revolution, it is really agonizing and unnerving to witness hundreds of thousands of people die for want of proper medical accessibility, affordability and acceptability.
I think, if India could become a medical power on the above three socio-medical parameters, of course, by reining in the immense potentials of liberalization and globalization, it will be much better than being a much hyped nuclear power. All nations need to be medical powers. It’s better than being a military or nuclear power. Everything else will fall in place.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Nuclear Confidence: it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin
Nuclear Confidence: it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he has the right to cry out: ‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’. This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin.
An emerging economy like India cannot afford to be going without meeting its surging energy demands. And as days go by, the need for finding energy sources is mounting to alarming proportions. It is a fact that we cannot do without energy of some kind. Else, how are we going to feed the population, how are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling, how are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least? Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch? Can a power hungry nation ever be people-and-progress friendly? An emphatic no is the answer to the last question.
Yes, it all sounds reasonable to an ordinary voter. But there are millions of voters in the subcontinent who are not ready to buy such a chain of questions. They are a thinking lot who feel that the much hyped nuclear deal with the US is nothing short of outright sell off. For, this nation needs sustainable and affordable power, in the sense that we cannot offer to sell Hamburgers to a populace that is vying hard to afford a sandwich made of bread and butter.
It is reported that a unit of nuclear electricity would cost Rs. 15/- or so, and by the time this deal comes to produce energy, the price per unit is bound to appreciate and go far beyond the reach of any industry or individual. Then, we cannot say that it is so costly and we are unable to afford it. This situation would raise the same questions that we had found in the beginning of this article.
· How are we going to feed the population in the long run?
· How are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling?
· How are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least?
· Can we afford ourselves to be called a developing nation all the ages to come?
· Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch that keeps the gears of the economy grinding to halts as and when monsoon fails to last long enough or summer lasts a little longer than usual?
· Can a power-hungry nation ever be people-and-progress-friendly?
And if our Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh (some people have started calling him Moneymohan Singh after his successful annexing of a few MPs to his stable during the last round of nuclear sell off deal that went in our very Lok Sabha a couple of weeks ago) has a little qualms about the concerns raised by a sizeable number of the population, it is his responsibility to prove that he was dealing with the US solely for the greater interest of the nation. And the fears and concerns, which his own MPs and those horse-traded ones had been raising for nearly a couple of years or so, are unfounded.
The bales of currency, which got involved in the process of the confidence motion prior to the last leg of the Indo-US nuclear deal, can be called a pittance or negligibly small sum compared to the Dollars involved in it in the long run. It is said that the deal involves $400,000/- crores.
There are inputs from reliable sources that the nuclear representatives who had been shuttling between New Delhi and Washington and Vienna and Geneva included more corporate nuclear dealers than people who deal with uranium and nuclear energy. They were finding a lucrative market in India with inexhaustible potential and the same is going to be squeezed out of the last vein of the nation within minimum 15 years from the date of the commissioning of this deal.
Who is listening to these concerns? There were many who could have done great service to the future of the nation on the basis of this deal. Dilly-dallying of the Leftist supporters had given Manmohan-sonia nexus enough leeway and time to seal deals with MPs not to vote against or to abstain from voting. It happened. And it has done the most heinous damage to the nation. A minority represented (in a multi-party system, democracy most of the time is the rule of the minority) government has defeated the majority. It the irony is it is a constitutional defeat.
To avert this democracy demolition, Mr. Karat and company should have pulled itself out of the UPA some one-year ago and sent the latter and the US running for support. Instead, what these Karats and group did is the opposite. I would call it one of the biggest opposition blunders these parties have ever done in their course of service (or disservice) to the nation.
Let us see how this deal fares for India
· Australia is the world’s biggest Producer of Uranium. But this nation does not have a nuclear reactor connected to its power grid because of its unaffordable cost of production.
· Such a power source is going to be inducted in a nation where the people are unable to afford power costing anything more than five rupees.
· A hugely populated nation like India is going to face catastrophic consequences with huge loss of life and ever-lasting radioactivity in the event of a single nuclear reactor failure.
· Is the US going to keep any insurance cover or risk allowance for this? Does the UPA have that much money to offer minimum five hundred thousands each to every would-be dead and dying?
· Let us all remember that the US is shipping in its kitchen and toilet wastes to the Indian shores on a regular basis. Such an unfeeling cluster of imperialists cannot be doing any favour to our nation if this deal gives them an open cheque.
· Through this deal they will ship to us everything from dead old reactors to the most deadly and crippling terms and conditions in the future.
· The hold of the NSG members, the IAEA, the so-called safe guards/conditionalities in the Hyde Act (which hides much more than it reveals), India’s nuclear independence and foreign policy, nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the like rhetoric do not hold much water when it is a matter of nation’s ability to afford nuclear energy, and shoulder its catastrophic consequences. Both are purely India-centric- not IAEA, US, NSG or Hyde Act centric.
· At present our nation harnesses only 3% nuclear energy. It is going to attach more than ten times that figure to its power grid in the coming decade. Can a nation like India afford such a power pressure? Today what we are short of is power. We are going to be chronically powerless to afford the available power in the immediate future. This is a fix. No doubt.
How does it do when it comes to our neighbouring Pakistan?
· There are reports that our neighbouring Pakistan has started demanding for a similar nuclear deal, and these NSG and IAEA officials, along with their American corporate business associates, are bound to sit with Pakistan too in the immediate future. What does such a similar agreement amount to be?
· Naturally, our counterpart too would be given a tailor-made nuclear deal in the long run and from then on we both would keep our muscles flexed and our military egos clashing whenever there is an altercation across the border. What else is left for the US to convert this peaceful region into a confrontationist one? Is not there enough scope for some weapons retail? There is ample.
· To cap it all, Pakistan has recently hinted that it is no problem if the US brokers a deal for Kashmir issue provided a neighbour-friendly nuclear deal is sealed for (it) Pakistan too.
So what is up for us all to know? If coalition politics is this nation-bashing and devastating, think of a single party majority in the House or of a brutal majority. Though no election in independent India is expected to effect a House with brutal majority, the possibility for a narrow margin single party House cannot be ruled out, say some ten years later. Deals of this kind will surface in future too. Therefore, when we vote next time, we all need to be cautious. Democracy seems to be a threat to nations like India.
However, if MPs could be bargained for and bought out, if a nation’s integrity can be kept out for auction, dissection and compromises, if money could keep the very existence of a populace at ransom, if a small minority is able to keep the huge majority at their mercy, in these times of huge turbulences and emergencies, a few stray noises that we find on platforms like these ones would not be able to echo enough decibels as to make changes of any kind. Still, it is worth sounding the alarm.
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he does have the right to cry out:
‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’.
This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin, or Sonia?
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he has the right to cry out: ‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’. This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin.
An emerging economy like India cannot afford to be going without meeting its surging energy demands. And as days go by, the need for finding energy sources is mounting to alarming proportions. It is a fact that we cannot do without energy of some kind. Else, how are we going to feed the population, how are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling, how are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least? Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch? Can a power hungry nation ever be people-and-progress friendly? An emphatic no is the answer to the last question.
Yes, it all sounds reasonable to an ordinary voter. But there are millions of voters in the subcontinent who are not ready to buy such a chain of questions. They are a thinking lot who feel that the much hyped nuclear deal with the US is nothing short of outright sell off. For, this nation needs sustainable and affordable power, in the sense that we cannot offer to sell Hamburgers to a populace that is vying hard to afford a sandwich made of bread and butter.
It is reported that a unit of nuclear electricity would cost Rs. 15/- or so, and by the time this deal comes to produce energy, the price per unit is bound to appreciate and go far beyond the reach of any industry or individual. Then, we cannot say that it is so costly and we are unable to afford it. This situation would raise the same questions that we had found in the beginning of this article.
· How are we going to feed the population in the long run?
· How are we going to keep the wheels of development rolling?
· How are we going to be a developed nation in the next decade at least?
· Can we afford ourselves to be called a developing nation all the ages to come?
· Is there any other way out to this burgeoning power-crunch that keeps the gears of the economy grinding to halts as and when monsoon fails to last long enough or summer lasts a little longer than usual?
· Can a power-hungry nation ever be people-and-progress-friendly?
And if our Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh (some people have started calling him Moneymohan Singh after his successful annexing of a few MPs to his stable during the last round of nuclear sell off deal that went in our very Lok Sabha a couple of weeks ago) has a little qualms about the concerns raised by a sizeable number of the population, it is his responsibility to prove that he was dealing with the US solely for the greater interest of the nation. And the fears and concerns, which his own MPs and those horse-traded ones had been raising for nearly a couple of years or so, are unfounded.
The bales of currency, which got involved in the process of the confidence motion prior to the last leg of the Indo-US nuclear deal, can be called a pittance or negligibly small sum compared to the Dollars involved in it in the long run. It is said that the deal involves $400,000/- crores.
There are inputs from reliable sources that the nuclear representatives who had been shuttling between New Delhi and Washington and Vienna and Geneva included more corporate nuclear dealers than people who deal with uranium and nuclear energy. They were finding a lucrative market in India with inexhaustible potential and the same is going to be squeezed out of the last vein of the nation within minimum 15 years from the date of the commissioning of this deal.
Who is listening to these concerns? There were many who could have done great service to the future of the nation on the basis of this deal. Dilly-dallying of the Leftist supporters had given Manmohan-sonia nexus enough leeway and time to seal deals with MPs not to vote against or to abstain from voting. It happened. And it has done the most heinous damage to the nation. A minority represented (in a multi-party system, democracy most of the time is the rule of the minority) government has defeated the majority. It the irony is it is a constitutional defeat.
To avert this democracy demolition, Mr. Karat and company should have pulled itself out of the UPA some one-year ago and sent the latter and the US running for support. Instead, what these Karats and group did is the opposite. I would call it one of the biggest opposition blunders these parties have ever done in their course of service (or disservice) to the nation.
Let us see how this deal fares for India
· Australia is the world’s biggest Producer of Uranium. But this nation does not have a nuclear reactor connected to its power grid because of its unaffordable cost of production.
· Such a power source is going to be inducted in a nation where the people are unable to afford power costing anything more than five rupees.
· A hugely populated nation like India is going to face catastrophic consequences with huge loss of life and ever-lasting radioactivity in the event of a single nuclear reactor failure.
· Is the US going to keep any insurance cover or risk allowance for this? Does the UPA have that much money to offer minimum five hundred thousands each to every would-be dead and dying?
· Let us all remember that the US is shipping in its kitchen and toilet wastes to the Indian shores on a regular basis. Such an unfeeling cluster of imperialists cannot be doing any favour to our nation if this deal gives them an open cheque.
· Through this deal they will ship to us everything from dead old reactors to the most deadly and crippling terms and conditions in the future.
· The hold of the NSG members, the IAEA, the so-called safe guards/conditionalities in the Hyde Act (which hides much more than it reveals), India’s nuclear independence and foreign policy, nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the like rhetoric do not hold much water when it is a matter of nation’s ability to afford nuclear energy, and shoulder its catastrophic consequences. Both are purely India-centric- not IAEA, US, NSG or Hyde Act centric.
· At present our nation harnesses only 3% nuclear energy. It is going to attach more than ten times that figure to its power grid in the coming decade. Can a nation like India afford such a power pressure? Today what we are short of is power. We are going to be chronically powerless to afford the available power in the immediate future. This is a fix. No doubt.
How does it do when it comes to our neighbouring Pakistan?
· There are reports that our neighbouring Pakistan has started demanding for a similar nuclear deal, and these NSG and IAEA officials, along with their American corporate business associates, are bound to sit with Pakistan too in the immediate future. What does such a similar agreement amount to be?
· Naturally, our counterpart too would be given a tailor-made nuclear deal in the long run and from then on we both would keep our muscles flexed and our military egos clashing whenever there is an altercation across the border. What else is left for the US to convert this peaceful region into a confrontationist one? Is not there enough scope for some weapons retail? There is ample.
· To cap it all, Pakistan has recently hinted that it is no problem if the US brokers a deal for Kashmir issue provided a neighbour-friendly nuclear deal is sealed for (it) Pakistan too.
So what is up for us all to know? If coalition politics is this nation-bashing and devastating, think of a single party majority in the House or of a brutal majority. Though no election in independent India is expected to effect a House with brutal majority, the possibility for a narrow margin single party House cannot be ruled out, say some ten years later. Deals of this kind will surface in future too. Therefore, when we vote next time, we all need to be cautious. Democracy seems to be a threat to nations like India.
However, if MPs could be bargained for and bought out, if a nation’s integrity can be kept out for auction, dissection and compromises, if money could keep the very existence of a populace at ransom, if a small minority is able to keep the huge majority at their mercy, in these times of huge turbulences and emergencies, a few stray noises that we find on platforms like these ones would not be able to echo enough decibels as to make changes of any kind. Still, it is worth sounding the alarm.
Even when the slave gets sold off against his will, he does have the right to cry out:
‘it is inhuman and outrageous and it is against my will; it is against my will’.
This is what my Nation does now. Sorry, My Land, it’s all about Money, Mohan and Sin, or Sonia?
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