Hasan Suroor
LONDON: The British government has ordered an inquiry into politically damaging allegations that its troops were involved in more than 30 cases of Abu Ghraib-style torture and abuse of Iraqi civilians. It, however, rejected calls for a public inquiry arguing that allegations did not mean these were fact.
Since British troops moved out of Iraq earlier this year, a number of Iraqis have come forward with shocking accounts of how they were allegedly tortured and humiliated simply because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The incidents, reported from six different locations in Basra where British troops were deployed, allegedly involved mock executions, rape, exposure to pornography and electric shocks.
Complainants said that they did not speak out while British troops were still there because of fear of retribution.
The inquiry follows a front-page expose in The Independent under the heading “Britain’s Abu Ghraib”. In one case, British soldiers allegedly piled bodies of Iraqi prisoners on top of each other and subjected them to electric shocks in an echo of the abuse by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.
Nassir Ghulaim, a young Iraqi, claims he was playing football with friends in April, 2007 when he and another Iraqi were picked up and taken to a British base where they were asked to strip, sexually humiliated and forced to squeeze while one soldier stood on top of them.
Armed forces Minister Bill Rammell said: “Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously. However allegations must not be taken as fact.”
This is the latest in a series of allegations of abuse involving British soldiers.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111555451100.htm
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Recession is the mother of invention
Richard Wray
Necessity is the mother of invention, at least when it comes to the conception of technology companies. Many of America’s biggest names in the technology world were born or rose to prominence in downturns, from Cisco and Hewlett-Packard to Apple and Google.
The harsh economic winds that blew in the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s — and the disappearance of capital after the dotcom crash at the turn of this century - blew away many old ways of doing business, clearing spaces for new companies to spring up.
Finding themselves laid-off, many experienced workers decided to set up shop on their own, often bringing to fruition projects they had been working on within large organisations. At the same time, the next generation of bright young things discovered that the traditional job market was closed to them and struck out on their own.
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, for instance, emerged from Stanford University in 1935. Either man could have found themselves within traditional American business had it not been for the Great Depression but instead they set up business in a Palo Alto garage.
A garage just to the north, in Menlo Park, meanwhile, played host to another pair of Stanford graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their company, Google, was up and running in 1998 and got its only major round of funding in 1999 when the dotcom boom was still in full swing. But its rise to global web domination came between 2001 and its $23bn flotation in 2004 when its potential rivals were scaling back or disappearing in the dotcom crash.
The aftermath of that crash also saw the creation of Facebook and LinkedIn.
But taking advantage of the so-called creative destruction of a recession requires not just innovative minds with good ideas, but investors with vision.
One name that often appears in the U.S. when it comes to injecting cash in a downturn is Sequoia Capital. The venture capital firm put $2.5m into a telecoms start-up called Cisco just a few months after the 1987 stock market crash. Thirteen years later the dotcom boom would take the company’s stock market valuation to half a trillion dollars.
As the recession of the 1970s was cutting a swath through middle America, California’s Silicon Valley experienced rapid growth with companies such as Atari and Apple appearing on the scene and helping to create entirely new markets. The 1970s also saw the creation of Oracle, which received its first major cash injection from Sequoia in 1984. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/11/stories/2009111155640900.htm
Necessity is the mother of invention, at least when it comes to the conception of technology companies. Many of America’s biggest names in the technology world were born or rose to prominence in downturns, from Cisco and Hewlett-Packard to Apple and Google.
The harsh economic winds that blew in the 1930s, 1970s and 1980s — and the disappearance of capital after the dotcom crash at the turn of this century - blew away many old ways of doing business, clearing spaces for new companies to spring up.
Finding themselves laid-off, many experienced workers decided to set up shop on their own, often bringing to fruition projects they had been working on within large organisations. At the same time, the next generation of bright young things discovered that the traditional job market was closed to them and struck out on their own.
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, for instance, emerged from Stanford University in 1935. Either man could have found themselves within traditional American business had it not been for the Great Depression but instead they set up business in a Palo Alto garage.
A garage just to the north, in Menlo Park, meanwhile, played host to another pair of Stanford graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their company, Google, was up and running in 1998 and got its only major round of funding in 1999 when the dotcom boom was still in full swing. But its rise to global web domination came between 2001 and its $23bn flotation in 2004 when its potential rivals were scaling back or disappearing in the dotcom crash.
The aftermath of that crash also saw the creation of Facebook and LinkedIn.
But taking advantage of the so-called creative destruction of a recession requires not just innovative minds with good ideas, but investors with vision.
One name that often appears in the U.S. when it comes to injecting cash in a downturn is Sequoia Capital. The venture capital firm put $2.5m into a telecoms start-up called Cisco just a few months after the 1987 stock market crash. Thirteen years later the dotcom boom would take the company’s stock market valuation to half a trillion dollars.
As the recession of the 1970s was cutting a swath through middle America, California’s Silicon Valley experienced rapid growth with companies such as Atari and Apple appearing on the scene and helping to create entirely new markets. The 1970s also saw the creation of Oracle, which received its first major cash injection from Sequoia in 1984. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/11/stories/2009111155640900.htm
Why was the Afghan journalist left to die?
Hasan Suroor
More than two months after the incident, the controversy over the circumstances of Sultan Munadi’s death refuses to go away.
Local stringers and interpreters who work for international news organisations in Iraq and Afghanistan are the unsung heroes behind many of the big stories that appear under the byline of high-profile foreign correspondents. Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, in which The Times fictional Saigon correspondent gets his best stories thanks to his Vietnamese factotum who does everything from running his office to giving him n ews tips and tracking down news sources for him is an accurate portrayal of those who are often rather dismissively referred to as “local hire.”
Because of their local contacts and knowledge of their region’s affairs stringers are indispensable to international reporters operating in an alien and hostile environment and, quite often, risk their lives to oblige their bosses. Yet, their efforts are poorly acknowledged and when, in trouble, they are abandoned to their fate. Or at least that’s the perception.
The recent case involving The New York Times Kabul correspondent Stephen Farrell and his Afghan interpreter Sultan Munadi appears to have reinforced this impression. They were kidnapped by Taliban militants on September 5 in Kunduz where they had gone to report on the aftermath of a NATO air strike that killed many civilians fuelling widespread anger against foreign forces. Four days later, in a controversial move British commandos mounted a dramatic raid to free them ignoring the advice of intermediaries who were said to be close to a deal with the kidnappers and feared that any hasty military intervention could lead to loss of lives.
While the commandos managed to rescue Mr. Farrell, a British-Irish national, Munadi was killed after being shot. It is not clear whether the fatal shot was fired by a militant or a commando who did not recognise him as a hostage. Mr. Farrell was rushed to safety after he identified himself as a “British hostage” leaving Munadi’s body behind even though, according to Mr. Farrell, he kept telling the troops that his colleague had been shot.
“I twisted around and pointed to where Sultan was lying 5-10 yards away — in clear sight even at night — slumped over the mud ridge of the ditch inside which I had taken shelter,” Mr. Farrell recalled in a detailed e-mail to U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
According to him, though the troops told him they had a photograph of Munadi he “never saw if they acted on the information I gave them, as they were already pushing my head down close to the ground because of the gunfire in or beyond the trees around us. I was very quickly rushed away from the scene, and did not see Sultan again.”
The British government may have genuinely intended to save both the hostages but, judging from independent accounts of the incident and Mr. Farrell’s own version, it is clear that the soldiers’ priority was rescuing the “British hostage.” Mr. Farrell’s emails reinforce previous reports that despite his repeated pleas, they were totally indifferent to what happened to Mr. Munadi. They were simply not interested in him and made no attempt even to find out whether he was still alive.
More than two months after the incident, the controversy over the circumstances of Munadi’s death — suggesting that the British forces lost interest in him once they had Mr. Farrell out safely — refuses to go away and, last week, the CPJ intervened to demand an independent investigation by British authorities.
In a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it said that as an organisation dedicated to the defence of press freedom it was concerned about the incident. Such an investigation was necessary in order to clear up the “many unanswered questions” raised by CPJ’s own “two-month long effort” to document events that led to Munadi’s death.
The questions that the CPJ wants answered include: Was the recovery of both Mr. Farrell and Munadi an explicit objective of the military operation? What were the circumstances of Munadi’s death? Is there any evidence Munadi was shot accidentally by British forces who did not recognise him as a hostage? After Mr. Farrell pointed out Munadi to British forces, did anyone check for vital signs? Why were Munadi’s remains left at the scene of the firefight?
The CPJ believes that a “thorough” and “transparent” investigation would help western forces in their stated aim of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan whose trust, it stresses, is essential to their military success. Equally importantly, it would assure Afghan journalists “without whom international reporters could not operate independently on the ground that they can report with the same degree of safety as their western colleagues when encountering British and other foreign troops.”
The CPJ’s letter confirms previous reports that The New York Times had strong reservations about the wisdom of launching a rescue mission without first exhausting all other means.
Meanwhile, Mr. Farrell, who formerly worked for The Times, London, and was briefly captured in Iraq five years ago, has been criticised for his gung-ho style. The problem is not Mr. Farrell’s style but the ruthlessly competitive nature of western journalism because of which correspondents on foreign assignments — especially in conflict zones — are under tremendous pressure to produce “exclusives” forcing them to take avoidable risks — often with disastrous consequences as the Farrell-Munadi incident shows.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/11/stories/2009111155600900.htm
More than two months after the incident, the controversy over the circumstances of Sultan Munadi’s death refuses to go away.
Local stringers and interpreters who work for international news organisations in Iraq and Afghanistan are the unsung heroes behind many of the big stories that appear under the byline of high-profile foreign correspondents. Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, in which The Times fictional Saigon correspondent gets his best stories thanks to his Vietnamese factotum who does everything from running his office to giving him n ews tips and tracking down news sources for him is an accurate portrayal of those who are often rather dismissively referred to as “local hire.”
Because of their local contacts and knowledge of their region’s affairs stringers are indispensable to international reporters operating in an alien and hostile environment and, quite often, risk their lives to oblige their bosses. Yet, their efforts are poorly acknowledged and when, in trouble, they are abandoned to their fate. Or at least that’s the perception.
The recent case involving The New York Times Kabul correspondent Stephen Farrell and his Afghan interpreter Sultan Munadi appears to have reinforced this impression. They were kidnapped by Taliban militants on September 5 in Kunduz where they had gone to report on the aftermath of a NATO air strike that killed many civilians fuelling widespread anger against foreign forces. Four days later, in a controversial move British commandos mounted a dramatic raid to free them ignoring the advice of intermediaries who were said to be close to a deal with the kidnappers and feared that any hasty military intervention could lead to loss of lives.
While the commandos managed to rescue Mr. Farrell, a British-Irish national, Munadi was killed after being shot. It is not clear whether the fatal shot was fired by a militant or a commando who did not recognise him as a hostage. Mr. Farrell was rushed to safety after he identified himself as a “British hostage” leaving Munadi’s body behind even though, according to Mr. Farrell, he kept telling the troops that his colleague had been shot.
“I twisted around and pointed to where Sultan was lying 5-10 yards away — in clear sight even at night — slumped over the mud ridge of the ditch inside which I had taken shelter,” Mr. Farrell recalled in a detailed e-mail to U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
According to him, though the troops told him they had a photograph of Munadi he “never saw if they acted on the information I gave them, as they were already pushing my head down close to the ground because of the gunfire in or beyond the trees around us. I was very quickly rushed away from the scene, and did not see Sultan again.”
The British government may have genuinely intended to save both the hostages but, judging from independent accounts of the incident and Mr. Farrell’s own version, it is clear that the soldiers’ priority was rescuing the “British hostage.” Mr. Farrell’s emails reinforce previous reports that despite his repeated pleas, they were totally indifferent to what happened to Mr. Munadi. They were simply not interested in him and made no attempt even to find out whether he was still alive.
More than two months after the incident, the controversy over the circumstances of Munadi’s death — suggesting that the British forces lost interest in him once they had Mr. Farrell out safely — refuses to go away and, last week, the CPJ intervened to demand an independent investigation by British authorities.
In a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it said that as an organisation dedicated to the defence of press freedom it was concerned about the incident. Such an investigation was necessary in order to clear up the “many unanswered questions” raised by CPJ’s own “two-month long effort” to document events that led to Munadi’s death.
The questions that the CPJ wants answered include: Was the recovery of both Mr. Farrell and Munadi an explicit objective of the military operation? What were the circumstances of Munadi’s death? Is there any evidence Munadi was shot accidentally by British forces who did not recognise him as a hostage? After Mr. Farrell pointed out Munadi to British forces, did anyone check for vital signs? Why were Munadi’s remains left at the scene of the firefight?
The CPJ believes that a “thorough” and “transparent” investigation would help western forces in their stated aim of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan whose trust, it stresses, is essential to their military success. Equally importantly, it would assure Afghan journalists “without whom international reporters could not operate independently on the ground that they can report with the same degree of safety as their western colleagues when encountering British and other foreign troops.”
The CPJ’s letter confirms previous reports that The New York Times had strong reservations about the wisdom of launching a rescue mission without first exhausting all other means.
Meanwhile, Mr. Farrell, who formerly worked for The Times, London, and was briefly captured in Iraq five years ago, has been criticised for his gung-ho style. The problem is not Mr. Farrell’s style but the ruthlessly competitive nature of western journalism because of which correspondents on foreign assignments — especially in conflict zones — are under tremendous pressure to produce “exclusives” forcing them to take avoidable risks — often with disastrous consequences as the Farrell-Munadi incident shows.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/11/stories/2009111155600900.htm
Need for creativity in classroom
The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, writes:
I was happy to see the article “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” by Inumella Sesikala (Open Page, Nov. 8). I liked the article very much, which is a dream of every child. Creativity of children has to come out from the classroom. Some of us had such opportunities. Our children should go to primary school only at the age of six. Till then, we have to promote creativity of the children with great teachers and an innovative classroom environment.
Yesterday, when I was reading the book Spiritual Intelligence, The Ultimate Intelligence by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, I came across the poem, “The Student’s prayer.”
“The young son of a Chilean biologist, Umberto Maturana, became unhappy at school because he felt his teachers were making it impossible for him to learn. They wanted to teach him what they knew, rather than drawing out what he needed to learn. As a result Maturana wrote “The Student’s Prayer”, of which this translation is an abridged version. It perfectly expresses the spiritually intelligent individual’s response to the conforming pressures of parents, teachers, bosses or the crowd.
The Student’s Prayer
Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.”
I thought, there is a connectivity among young hearts even beyond ocean — “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” and “The Student’s Prayer.”
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/12/stories/2009111254570900.htm
I was happy to see the article “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” by Inumella Sesikala (Open Page, Nov. 8). I liked the article very much, which is a dream of every child. Creativity of children has to come out from the classroom. Some of us had such opportunities. Our children should go to primary school only at the age of six. Till then, we have to promote creativity of the children with great teachers and an innovative classroom environment.
Yesterday, when I was reading the book Spiritual Intelligence, The Ultimate Intelligence by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, I came across the poem, “The Student’s prayer.”
“The young son of a Chilean biologist, Umberto Maturana, became unhappy at school because he felt his teachers were making it impossible for him to learn. They wanted to teach him what they knew, rather than drawing out what he needed to learn. As a result Maturana wrote “The Student’s Prayer”, of which this translation is an abridged version. It perfectly expresses the spiritually intelligent individual’s response to the conforming pressures of parents, teachers, bosses or the crowd.
The Student’s Prayer
Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
Your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.
Show me so that I can stand
On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.
You believe that every human being
Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.”
I thought, there is a connectivity among young hearts even beyond ocean — “I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma” and “The Student’s Prayer.”
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/11/12/stories/2009111254570900.htm
Nothing wrong with Haj subsidy
ABDUL KHADER
This is with reference to Umer Khalidi’s article “Haj subsidy” (Open Page, October 4). All the argument is based on the interpretation of the word manis ta taa‘a found in the scripture. It literally means affordability; whether it is physical, monetary, by own self or through other source, is not defined. So all the observations are made based on the assumption that it refers to monetary affordability. Verse 97 of chapter 3 part 4 states that pilgrimage to Makkah is a duty to God for him who can afford the journey (manistataa ‘a ). There is no definition of the word manis ta taa ‘a.
Norms
The established norms for interpretation are that, in case the meaning of any word is not clear, it should be understood with reference to such a word occurring elsewhere in the text of the Koran, if it is not found in the Koran, then we should refer to the Hadis (sayings of the Prophet).
1. This word occurs in almost 15 places in the Koran, chapter 2 (verse 217, 273) chapter 4 (25, 98, 129) chapter 11(20) chapter 17(48) chapter 18 (41, 97, 101) chapter 21(43) chapter 36 (67, 75) and chapter 51(45).
Verse 25 of chapter 4 says that if anyone cannot afford to marry a freewoman, he can very well marry any maid under his possession. Here an alternative is given for non affordability. So this does not apply to the subject in discussion. All the other 14 instances clearly indicate the physical capability of the person.
Hazrat Akrama stands by this description (Tafseer Ibn Kaseer). Hence the entire argument of the opposition gets shattered in the light of the above clarification.
2. Let us examine it with reference to Hadis. Interpretation in Tafseer Ibn Kaseer, page 6 says that the Prophet explained this verse as the affordability for food and conveyance. The pilgrim may have the affordability by himself or he may have it through other source. The tafseer also quotes from Akrama, the Prophet’s disciple, that it refers to physical health only. Hence the utilisation of Haj subsidy does in no way mar the sanctity of the pilgrimage.
3. The author says that God is pure and He likes pure things. Subsidy money is what we pay as tax which is paid back to us in deserving cases as per government policy. To say that this money is impure is nothing but unfair.
4. The pilgrim performs the Haj with his own money and not with the subsidy. The money is therefore unpolluted. The subsidy comes after the completion of the pilgrimage.
5. The enjoying of benefits derived in the performance of Haj without affecting the rituals, is considered to be the bounty of God and the same is permitted by the Koran vide chapter 2 verse 197 which runs as follows: “It is no sin that you seek the bounty of your Lord (by trading)”.
The subsidy which is given to the pilgrims is a bounty of God for mankind in recognition of the inconveniences encountered by him vide the interpretation by the Presidency of Islamic Research, IFTA. Published by the custodian of the two Mosques. It will, thus, be seen that the utility of Haj subsidy is no where forbidden in the Koran.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/15/stories/2009111550031600.htm
This is with reference to Umer Khalidi’s article “Haj subsidy” (Open Page, October 4). All the argument is based on the interpretation of the word manis ta taa‘a found in the scripture. It literally means affordability; whether it is physical, monetary, by own self or through other source, is not defined. So all the observations are made based on the assumption that it refers to monetary affordability. Verse 97 of chapter 3 part 4 states that pilgrimage to Makkah is a duty to God for him who can afford the journey (manistataa ‘a ). There is no definition of the word manis ta taa ‘a.
Norms
The established norms for interpretation are that, in case the meaning of any word is not clear, it should be understood with reference to such a word occurring elsewhere in the text of the Koran, if it is not found in the Koran, then we should refer to the Hadis (sayings of the Prophet).
1. This word occurs in almost 15 places in the Koran, chapter 2 (verse 217, 273) chapter 4 (25, 98, 129) chapter 11(20) chapter 17(48) chapter 18 (41, 97, 101) chapter 21(43) chapter 36 (67, 75) and chapter 51(45).
Verse 25 of chapter 4 says that if anyone cannot afford to marry a freewoman, he can very well marry any maid under his possession. Here an alternative is given for non affordability. So this does not apply to the subject in discussion. All the other 14 instances clearly indicate the physical capability of the person.
Hazrat Akrama stands by this description (Tafseer Ibn Kaseer). Hence the entire argument of the opposition gets shattered in the light of the above clarification.
2. Let us examine it with reference to Hadis. Interpretation in Tafseer Ibn Kaseer, page 6 says that the Prophet explained this verse as the affordability for food and conveyance. The pilgrim may have the affordability by himself or he may have it through other source. The tafseer also quotes from Akrama, the Prophet’s disciple, that it refers to physical health only. Hence the utilisation of Haj subsidy does in no way mar the sanctity of the pilgrimage.
3. The author says that God is pure and He likes pure things. Subsidy money is what we pay as tax which is paid back to us in deserving cases as per government policy. To say that this money is impure is nothing but unfair.
4. The pilgrim performs the Haj with his own money and not with the subsidy. The money is therefore unpolluted. The subsidy comes after the completion of the pilgrimage.
5. The enjoying of benefits derived in the performance of Haj without affecting the rituals, is considered to be the bounty of God and the same is permitted by the Koran vide chapter 2 verse 197 which runs as follows: “It is no sin that you seek the bounty of your Lord (by trading)”.
The subsidy which is given to the pilgrims is a bounty of God for mankind in recognition of the inconveniences encountered by him vide the interpretation by the Presidency of Islamic Research, IFTA. Published by the custodian of the two Mosques. It will, thus, be seen that the utility of Haj subsidy is no where forbidden in the Koran.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/15/stories/2009111550031600.htm
The saga of the second girl child
M. P. PADMAKUMAR
The saga of the second girl child makes the case for some wilful introspection by all and sundry in these heady times. In scores of low to upper middle class households, this second-person-singular happens to be the most unsolicited intruder into the peace and tranquility of the delicate domestic air.
Her arrival many a time unsettles the delicate balance of equations in households to the extend that fathers go gloomy, mothers end up cursing themselves and the elder sibling, though happy, yet unhappy over the prospects of dwindled future shares. Yet, despite the ominous presence of utrasonograms and deceitful in-laws, the second girl child makes her unpleasant mark in the households of uninspired, yet benevolent parents, even though to be eternally chided, perhaps unknowingly, over the slightest of pretexts. She is the bad omen of the ever-wavering modern middle class, not to speak of the classes lower to it. She arrives mostly at the most inopportune time when the family, after experiencing the perils of and coming to terms with the not-so-pleasant event of the arrival of the first girl child, in all desperation pins hopes on the next progeny, is all eager and hopelessly poised for the revelations of the cruel and impassionate ultrasonogram.
As the female doctor, always in hushed guilt-ridden tone, reveals the news, the father braves a smile that resembles an unshaven premier of a failed country and the mother yet again in all sobs, wilfully taking the blame for herself and future generations. Yet like in all magical societies of all banana republics, the girl survives, consistently crushed by the weight of her legacy, that is never to leave her at the least till she had set up her own household to perpetuate it still further.
Betrayal
And, alas, the egalitarian society too, the illogical legislative musings of which incidentally is the cause of this piece, despite all the rhetoric, betrays her in every significant way that law could lay hands on. Ironically enough, in the name of the girl child, it crucifies the second sibling of the same sex. Laws of the egalitarian land shamelessly stipulate that the sops for the single girl child, if ever any, vanish the moment the second girl arrives on the screen. Unlike China, where single child norm is in practice, this country has not as yet made one family one child a norm. Yet, to those who brave the irresistible temptations of ultrasonograms and intended misconceptions, life is even made harder, for the crime of deciding to opt for the hard way of the second girl.
The hapless parents are constantly at a loss to fathom why on earth the alms for single girl child vanish the moment the second sex of the same feather is born. Is it not politically correct to double the benefit when the next girl arrives at least to clear off the stigma of her birth and to offset the unbalance it creates? If, for the argument that the parents who sacrificed the benefits of a could-be male child by sticking to one girl sibling only must be compensated through law, then much in the same breath can it not be argued that the parents of the second girl child must be more vigorously lauded for resisting the temptations of female foeticide? Are not these sops for the single girl child indirectly abetting the termination of the second one of the same gender? Are not the visionaries formulating such politically correct laws not privy to the common sense that single children growing up in lonely surroundings end up problem children more often adding up staggering counselling costs to the society? Can a step in the right direction make the distance twice further? All these and more are questions that make the saga of the second girl child all the more poignant and also a true indicator of the yet another paradox of the times we are in.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/15/stories/2009111550091600.htm
The saga of the second girl child makes the case for some wilful introspection by all and sundry in these heady times. In scores of low to upper middle class households, this second-person-singular happens to be the most unsolicited intruder into the peace and tranquility of the delicate domestic air.
Her arrival many a time unsettles the delicate balance of equations in households to the extend that fathers go gloomy, mothers end up cursing themselves and the elder sibling, though happy, yet unhappy over the prospects of dwindled future shares. Yet, despite the ominous presence of utrasonograms and deceitful in-laws, the second girl child makes her unpleasant mark in the households of uninspired, yet benevolent parents, even though to be eternally chided, perhaps unknowingly, over the slightest of pretexts. She is the bad omen of the ever-wavering modern middle class, not to speak of the classes lower to it. She arrives mostly at the most inopportune time when the family, after experiencing the perils of and coming to terms with the not-so-pleasant event of the arrival of the first girl child, in all desperation pins hopes on the next progeny, is all eager and hopelessly poised for the revelations of the cruel and impassionate ultrasonogram.
As the female doctor, always in hushed guilt-ridden tone, reveals the news, the father braves a smile that resembles an unshaven premier of a failed country and the mother yet again in all sobs, wilfully taking the blame for herself and future generations. Yet like in all magical societies of all banana republics, the girl survives, consistently crushed by the weight of her legacy, that is never to leave her at the least till she had set up her own household to perpetuate it still further.
Betrayal
And, alas, the egalitarian society too, the illogical legislative musings of which incidentally is the cause of this piece, despite all the rhetoric, betrays her in every significant way that law could lay hands on. Ironically enough, in the name of the girl child, it crucifies the second sibling of the same sex. Laws of the egalitarian land shamelessly stipulate that the sops for the single girl child, if ever any, vanish the moment the second girl arrives on the screen. Unlike China, where single child norm is in practice, this country has not as yet made one family one child a norm. Yet, to those who brave the irresistible temptations of ultrasonograms and intended misconceptions, life is even made harder, for the crime of deciding to opt for the hard way of the second girl.
The hapless parents are constantly at a loss to fathom why on earth the alms for single girl child vanish the moment the second sex of the same feather is born. Is it not politically correct to double the benefit when the next girl arrives at least to clear off the stigma of her birth and to offset the unbalance it creates? If, for the argument that the parents who sacrificed the benefits of a could-be male child by sticking to one girl sibling only must be compensated through law, then much in the same breath can it not be argued that the parents of the second girl child must be more vigorously lauded for resisting the temptations of female foeticide? Are not these sops for the single girl child indirectly abetting the termination of the second one of the same gender? Are not the visionaries formulating such politically correct laws not privy to the common sense that single children growing up in lonely surroundings end up problem children more often adding up staggering counselling costs to the society? Can a step in the right direction make the distance twice further? All these and more are questions that make the saga of the second girl child all the more poignant and also a true indicator of the yet another paradox of the times we are in.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/15/stories/2009111550091600.htm
‘I only want to enjoy my childhood, ma’
(Dear co-parents, some of us might hear a small, fading voice making yet another attempt to reach us)
Inumella Sesikala
Amma, I don’t want to go to school.
I am just a child, Ma. I want someone to tell me stories and teach me. I want to watch tadpoles and butterflies and know what they eat, where they sleep. I want to climb a hill and catch a cloud to see what it is made of.
I want to wait with my hands in the stream and feel the fish swimming.
I want to run with the puppies, sing with the birds, and play with paper-boats in the rain.
I want to lie down on the soft green grass and hear the wind whisper.
Only then I want to learn more about them from the printed word.
Only after my imagination is fired, my thirst to know more has begun, a seed of ‘Why?’ is planted in my brain.
Amma, I feel trapped in the prison-like classroom. I feel my spirit slowly weakening with the monotonous teaching. Often, when I ask a basic question our teachers say, “No time for all that. Let us finish the syllabus.”
I get tired of studying just for marks without pausing to truly understand.
I want to go to the museum with my classmates and hear my teacher explain the stories of the artefacts.
I want plenty of nature trips where real Biology classes would be held.
I want to see colourful videos of volcanic eruptions and deep-sea dwellings.
I want our whole school to visit together the historic and cultural places in my city.
I want to learn astronomy after looking through a telescope once.
I don’t want to just read them in my textbooks; I want to see, hear, touch, smell and taste whatever I can. I want to experience.
Why can’t the school make at least one such trip every year?
And, I cannot stoop down anymore to carry my school sack. My back is ready to break. Why should I carry all the books everyday? Why can’t we have only two subjects per day? Or, why don’t we have lockers like in the Western schools? And, why should I squeeze in that over-crowded auto?
But, Amma, growing up no longer seems to be fun. I see only more of homework, winter projects, summer classes, weekly tests, monthly tests, quarterly, half-yearly and annual exams, external competitive exams, more tests, more competitions, more pressure, more stress…
When can I sing, paint, dance, swim, or cycle?
When I can just play cricket or even hide-and-seek?
What happened to that minimum sleep that you always say a child needs?
Why should I always study, study?
Amma, I am scared of increasing atrocities by untrustworthy teachers, ragging-raving seniors, acid-loving nuts, perverted adults…
Ma, right now, I don’t want to be a doctor, engineer or anything else.
I just want to feel safe and secure, play and learn without any stress before I become an adult like you.
I only want to enjoy my childhood, Ma.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/08/stories/2009110851351400.htm
Inumella Sesikala
Amma, I don’t want to go to school.
I am just a child, Ma. I want someone to tell me stories and teach me. I want to watch tadpoles and butterflies and know what they eat, where they sleep. I want to climb a hill and catch a cloud to see what it is made of.
I want to wait with my hands in the stream and feel the fish swimming.
I want to run with the puppies, sing with the birds, and play with paper-boats in the rain.
I want to lie down on the soft green grass and hear the wind whisper.
Only then I want to learn more about them from the printed word.
Only after my imagination is fired, my thirst to know more has begun, a seed of ‘Why?’ is planted in my brain.
Amma, I feel trapped in the prison-like classroom. I feel my spirit slowly weakening with the monotonous teaching. Often, when I ask a basic question our teachers say, “No time for all that. Let us finish the syllabus.”
I get tired of studying just for marks without pausing to truly understand.
I want to go to the museum with my classmates and hear my teacher explain the stories of the artefacts.
I want plenty of nature trips where real Biology classes would be held.
I want to see colourful videos of volcanic eruptions and deep-sea dwellings.
I want our whole school to visit together the historic and cultural places in my city.
I want to learn astronomy after looking through a telescope once.
I don’t want to just read them in my textbooks; I want to see, hear, touch, smell and taste whatever I can. I want to experience.
Why can’t the school make at least one such trip every year?
And, I cannot stoop down anymore to carry my school sack. My back is ready to break. Why should I carry all the books everyday? Why can’t we have only two subjects per day? Or, why don’t we have lockers like in the Western schools? And, why should I squeeze in that over-crowded auto?
But, Amma, growing up no longer seems to be fun. I see only more of homework, winter projects, summer classes, weekly tests, monthly tests, quarterly, half-yearly and annual exams, external competitive exams, more tests, more competitions, more pressure, more stress…
When can I sing, paint, dance, swim, or cycle?
When I can just play cricket or even hide-and-seek?
What happened to that minimum sleep that you always say a child needs?
Why should I always study, study?
Amma, I am scared of increasing atrocities by untrustworthy teachers, ragging-raving seniors, acid-loving nuts, perverted adults…
Ma, right now, I don’t want to be a doctor, engineer or anything else.
I just want to feel safe and secure, play and learn without any stress before I become an adult like you.
I only want to enjoy my childhood, Ma.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2009/11/08/stories/2009110851351400.htm
Friday, November 6, 2009
India’s cultural pluralism its best defence
By Malini Parthasarathy
| To question the patriotism of the Muslim community on the ground that it refuses to “worship” India as a concept is to make a mockery of the real meaning of patriotism and national loyalty. As the anniversary of the cataclysmic event of 26/11 draws near, undoubtedly the country will relive the painful and humiliating memory of its powerful financial capital held hostage for more than 36 hours by a group of murderous terrorists sneaking in from Pakistan, challenging the might and capabilities of the Indian nation. But instead of replaying those dark moments, Indians ought to remember with pride the aftermath of the tragedy. The days after the terror strikes saw a spontaneous nationwide outpouring of sympathy for Mumbai with all communities united in their anger and outrage at the impunity with which Pakistan-based jihadi terrorists had struck at India. Indeed the Indian national spirit triumphed in that dark moment with thousands of citizens of diverse cultural and social identities rallying together to support Mumbai in that traumatic phase. There was a remarkable absence of communal violence with even the Shiv Sena in Mumbai resisting the political temptation of baiting Muslims in that stressful period. As a new generation of Indians made the political class and the political system the targets of their ire, one refreshing change was that there was absolutely no focus on communal and social identities. Projected was a collective sense of “we Indians” against the external intruders. All this showed that the enduring sense of national unity was a solid asset that helped the country tide over what could have been a deeply disintegrative challenge. It is clear that with the United Progressive Alliance government emphasising its commitment to secular governance and the preservation of cultural pluralism, the minorities, especially the Muslim community, find little conflict between their civic identities as Indian citizens and their cultural and religious affiliations. When national identity is defined in cultural nationalist terms, the loyalty of minority groups to the national identity comes under intense pressure. In an increasingly disturbed security environment with terrorism sharpening in intensity in Pakistan, it is imperative that the UPA remain unswerving in its acknowledgment that without secularism and internal communal harmony, it would be difficult to fight terrorism. In a departure from its usual reticence, the election campaign for the 2009 Lok Sabha saw both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi asserting that terrorism and communalism were two aspects of the same challenge and that a country divided by communalism could not fight terror. The logic of that argument needs to be sustained forcefully today in the face of renewed challenges to the minority groups’ assertions of their cultural rights. The UPA must not allow the BJP which is battling its own internal demons to resurrect majoritarian Hindutva campaigns mounting pressure on the cultural rights of the minorities especially Muslims. The latest incident in which BJP leaders Murli Manohar Joshi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi have sought to put Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and a section of the Muslim community on the defensive is a case in point. The 30th general session of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind at Deoband, western Uttar Pradesh adopted a resolution on November 3, upholding a fatwa of 2006 by the Deoband Ulema, describing the singing of the Vande Mataram as anti-Islamic because some of its verses were against the tenets of Islam. The Deoband clerics apparently took pains to ensure that their objections to the singing of the Vande Mataram were not to be seen as being unpatriotic. The resolution that was adopted said categorically “Patriotism does not require singing of the Vande Mataram. We love our country and have proved this several times but Vande Mataram violates our faith in monotheism that is the foundation of Islam … We love and respect the mother but do not worship her.” It went on to demand that “the issue of Vande Mataram should not be deliberately raised for causing communal discord and threat to law and order.” It was also pointed out after discussions amongst the participants in the meeting that the resolution was necessitated by the fact that the song was being introduced in several government schools in BJP-ruled States. It must be recalled that historically the Vande Mataram song did not become the national anthem precisely for the reason that it had strong Hindu connotations by depicting the Indian nation as Goddess Durga. Not only did Muslims object but virtually every other minority had objected, leading to the Jana Gana Mana being adopted as the Indian national anthem. The essence of the idea of cultural pluralism is to ensure that every religious or social group is allowed its own cultural space in which it has the right to practise its own beliefs and traditions. How would it be right to question the patriotism of Muslims and other minority groups because of their rejection of a song that is by no means the national anthem? To accuse the Deoband Ulema, a critical support group in the fight against terror, given that it issued a fatwa against terror last year, of “a separatist mindset” as the BJP’s Mr. Naqvi did on Wednesday is to needlessly provoke a confrontation. Mr. Chidambaram who had clearly made a special effort to underline the UPA’s commitment to cultural pluralism by participating in this conference did well to assert that “a nation can ignore its minorities only at its peril”, that Islam could not be viewed as “an alien faith” and that India was for Muslims, the land of their “forefathers” and of their “birth”. But subsequent attacks on his participation in the Deoband conference by Dr. Joshi and Mr. Naqvi, asserting that his presence gave legitimacy to the resolution opposing the Vande Mataram song appear to put the Home Minister on the defensive with his stating that he was not present when the resolution was passed. The UPA government, which in its second term has promised that it views communalism and terrorism as two equally dangerous aspects of the same challenge, must not waver in its defence of the rights of minority groups to have their unique cultural assertions. Given that the Indian national identity as defined in the Indian Constitution is anchored to civic and territorial parameters, there is no inherent conflict between loyalty to the Indian nation and a community’s own religious beliefs. To question the patriotism of the Muslim community on the ground that it refuses to “worship” India as a concept is to make a mockery of the real meaning of patriotism and national loyalty. As the framers of the Constitution wisely concluded decades ago, when they rejected the idea of including a reference to God in the Preamble to the Constitution, imposing such a concept would go against the spirit of the Constitution. As H.N. Kunzru told the Constituent Assembly during the debate on the Preamble, “Such a course of action is inconsistent with the Preamble which promises liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship to everyone. How can we deal with this question in a narrow spirit?” For Dr. Joshi and his cultural nationalist colleagues to persist with describing the Deoband fatwa against the singing of the Vande Mataram song as “against the provisions of the Constitution” would be to misread recent Indian history. There can be no clearer assertion of the responsibility of the Indian state to provide for cultural pluralism and also of the rights of the citizens of India to enjoy cultural and religious freedoms, than is set out in the Indian Constitution. Cultural pluralism remains India’s strongest card and its best defence against attempts to wreck its integrity or weaken its national structure from inside and outside. Taken from http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/05/stories/2009110554830900.htm |
Needed: ‘basic’ doctors of modern medicine
By Meenakshi Gautham & K.M. Shyamprasad
Opening more medical colleges is not the solution to India’s chronic shortage of doctors in the rural areas.
India is the largest supplier of foreign medical graduates to the United States and the United Kingdom. Yet, its own rural areas have remained chronically deprived of professional doctors. The historical antecedents of these shortages could be traced to a landmark health policy document, the Bhore Committee Report of 1946. That report constructed the concept of a ‘basic’ doctor as one trained through five-and-a-half years of university education. An alternative cadre of Licentiates who were trained over a shorter duration and who formed two-thirds of the country’s medical practitioners then, was abolished, in spite of strong dissent from several members of the committee. These dissenting comments must be revisited in the context of India’s persistently poor health indices and inadequate health services for the majority.
The report
In October 1943, the Government of British India appointed the committee to survey the state of public health in the country, and make recommendations for future development. The committee chaired by Sir Joseph Bhore, a senior civil servant, comprised eight British and 16 Indian members. The Bhore Committee Report, published in 1946, was meticulously drafted and reflected its members’ profound understanding of health matters. They presented statistics on the disease burden and attributed the poor state of health in the country not only to inadequacies in medical services and health personnel but also to the prevailing social ills — poverty, illiteracy, poor nutrition and unsanitary conditions.
The report is best known for providing the blueprint for a modern public health delivery system in India, along with the training of its personnel. Foremost among these was the ‘basic’ doctor of modern medicine who would be central to the delivery of primary healthcare. These were far- reaching recommendations and shaped the course of public health and medicine in independent India. But on closer examination, a number of flaws are revealed.
Two classes
There were two classes of medical practitioners of Western medicine at the time of the Bhore survey: graduates who underwent a five-and-a-half-year course in the medical colleges, and Licentiates (LMPs) who underwent a three-to-four-year course in medical schools. Of the 47,524 registered medical practitioners at that time, nearly two-thirds (29,870) were Licentiates and one- third (17,654) were graduates.
The report informs us that in the rural areas health care was delivered through sub-divisional hospitals and dispensaries that were managed mostly by Licentiates. Besides, there were large numbers of indigenous practitioners providing affordable and accessible healthcare to the masses.
The Bhore Committee proposed a three-tier district health scheme. A primary unit would be at its periphery, a secondary unit at the sub-divisional headquarters would provide more specialised services, and a district organisation would be in charge of the overall supervision of district-level health activities.
Though conceptually well-organised, the scheme was designed to cover only a fourth of the population in the first five years (78,080,000 out of a projected 315 million in the report) and less than half (156,200,000 out of a projected 337.5 million) over the next 10 years. The report was silent on how the needs of the rest of the country would be met.
Nonetheless, the committee recommended that the Licentiate qualification be abolished, all medical schools be upgraded to colleges, and all available resources be directed into the production of only one type of doctor. He or she would have the highest level of training — a five-and-a-half-year university training, similar to what the Goodenough Committee had proposed for Great Britain as the gold standard. The committee believed that there was no role in the modern medical scheme for indigenous systems of medicine and its practitioners: these systems were considered “static in conception and practice.”
Six members of the committee, five Indians and one Briton, put up a brave dissent. They repeatedly argued that in view of the manpower shortages, the country should use every possible means, including the shorter Licentiate course, to increase the number of trained medical personnel. They pointed out that England had abolished Licentiate teaching only after 100 years and Russia relied extensively on ‘feldshers’ (medical assistants) to run 48,000 dispensaries. They noted with anguish that since the new scheme would benefit only a section of the Indian population, “Public health over the remaining four fifth to one-half of the country… will atrophy. There will be no personnel like the licentiates even to help the regions and institutions which will come under neglect.”
Prophetic
The dissenters’ views proved prophetic. They said that the “basic doctor would not willingly fit into the rural scheme.” India’s six decades of chronic shortages of doctors in the rural areas are grim testimony to this fact. They argued that “while a majority on the committee can abolish the licentiate, they cannot prevent other practitioners, practising a variety of systems of medicine, taking his place.” Time has proved this also to be a prescient observation. Studies show that since Independence and even today, much of health care at first contact in rural India is delivered not by qualified doctors but by informally trained and unlicensed private practitioners.
What happened to the highly trained basic doctor of the future?
The Bhore Committee estimated that around 15,000 doctors would be needed in the scheme in the first five years, and around 30,000 over 10 years. As the number of medical colleges roughly doubled during this period (from 19 in 1946 to 42 in 1956) it can be estimated that the number of graduates also doubled.
It is difficult to obtain exact data on how many graduates entered the health system over 10 years, but almost all of India’s Five-Year Plans and national health policies since 1947 have lamented the shortage of doctors in the rural areas.
What is definitely known is that around 10 years later, in the early 1960s, nearly 18,000 graduate doctors from the Indian sub-continent migrated to the U.K. in response to Health Minister Enoch Powell’s call to save the U.K.’s rapidly expanding National Health Service (NHS) from a staffing crisis. In November 2003, a BBC documentary “From the Raj to the Rhondda: How Asian Doctors Saved the NHS,” acknowledged the contributions of doctors from the Indian sub-continent to Britain’s most deprived areas, where no British doctor was willing to go.
Even today, the second largest proportion of doctors registered with the U.K.’s General Medical Council, by country of qualification, is from India: they number 25,720, or 11 per cent of the total. India also provides the largest pool of international medical graduates to the U.S.
Turf protection
Medical historians point out that the Indian doctors who collaborated with colonial rule were the ones who stepped into positions of power after 1947. Their socialisation into the western model meant that the “development of medical practice in India did not follow the pattern that was being advocated for developing countries at the time. Indian degrees were quite suitable for working in England, but probably totally irrelevant for working to the benefit of the vast majority of the Indian population.” (Professor Aneez Esmail, 2007)
Ironically, even less-trained providers can efficiently deliver primary care. However, efforts to revive a Licentiate type of cadre, as recommended by the National Health Policy 2002 and outlined by a Task Force on Medical Education in 2007, have been non-starters. This is due to resistance from a section of the country’s medical fraternity which carries a turf protection mindset, supported by obstructive legislation contained in the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956.
An alternative
In view of the obvious deficiencies in India’s overall rural infrastructure, it is unlikely that the rural areas will have a sufficient number of doctors over the next several decades. Thus, the solution to India’s doctor shortages does not lie in building more medical colleges. A better alternative would be to draw from other countries’ experiences of developing mid-level practitioners: Clinical Officers and Medical Assistants in Africa, Physician Assistants in the U.S., Nurse Practitioners in Canada, and the rural doctors in China who number more than a million. These cadres are typically trained for three years and empowered to provide clinical services. Studies so far suggest that their performance and outcomes are in no way inferior to that of doctors trained for longer periods.
In the short term, India must also upgrade the skills of existing unlicensed rural practitioners and empower government nurses and pharmacists to take on additional tasks. An alternative to the IMC Act is the Drugs and Cosmetics Act that empowers States to recognise practitioners other than MBBS-holders to provide a limited range of medical care services. Chhattisgarh has invoked this power to create a three-year diploma course for Practitioners of Modern and Holistic Medicine.
(Meenakshi Gautham, PhD, is a public health specialist ( gautham.meenakshi@gmail.com);K. M. Shyamprasad, M.Ch., FRCS, is a former vice president of the National Board of Examinations, MoHFW, India ( shyamprasad@nlhmb.in). Legal inputs have been received from Indira Unninayar, Supreme Court Advocate.)
Taken from http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/05/stories/2009110554760800.htm
Opening more medical colleges is not the solution to India’s chronic shortage of doctors in the rural areas.
India is the largest supplier of foreign medical graduates to the United States and the United Kingdom. Yet, its own rural areas have remained chronically deprived of professional doctors. The historical antecedents of these shortages could be traced to a landmark health policy document, the Bhore Committee Report of 1946. That report constructed the concept of a ‘basic’ doctor as one trained through five-and-a-half years of university education. An alternative cadre of Licentiates who were trained over a shorter duration and who formed two-thirds of the country’s medical practitioners then, was abolished, in spite of strong dissent from several members of the committee. These dissenting comments must be revisited in the context of India’s persistently poor health indices and inadequate health services for the majority.
The report
In October 1943, the Government of British India appointed the committee to survey the state of public health in the country, and make recommendations for future development. The committee chaired by Sir Joseph Bhore, a senior civil servant, comprised eight British and 16 Indian members. The Bhore Committee Report, published in 1946, was meticulously drafted and reflected its members’ profound understanding of health matters. They presented statistics on the disease burden and attributed the poor state of health in the country not only to inadequacies in medical services and health personnel but also to the prevailing social ills — poverty, illiteracy, poor nutrition and unsanitary conditions.
The report is best known for providing the blueprint for a modern public health delivery system in India, along with the training of its personnel. Foremost among these was the ‘basic’ doctor of modern medicine who would be central to the delivery of primary healthcare. These were far- reaching recommendations and shaped the course of public health and medicine in independent India. But on closer examination, a number of flaws are revealed.
Two classes
There were two classes of medical practitioners of Western medicine at the time of the Bhore survey: graduates who underwent a five-and-a-half-year course in the medical colleges, and Licentiates (LMPs) who underwent a three-to-four-year course in medical schools. Of the 47,524 registered medical practitioners at that time, nearly two-thirds (29,870) were Licentiates and one- third (17,654) were graduates.
The report informs us that in the rural areas health care was delivered through sub-divisional hospitals and dispensaries that were managed mostly by Licentiates. Besides, there were large numbers of indigenous practitioners providing affordable and accessible healthcare to the masses.
The Bhore Committee proposed a three-tier district health scheme. A primary unit would be at its periphery, a secondary unit at the sub-divisional headquarters would provide more specialised services, and a district organisation would be in charge of the overall supervision of district-level health activities.
Though conceptually well-organised, the scheme was designed to cover only a fourth of the population in the first five years (78,080,000 out of a projected 315 million in the report) and less than half (156,200,000 out of a projected 337.5 million) over the next 10 years. The report was silent on how the needs of the rest of the country would be met.
Nonetheless, the committee recommended that the Licentiate qualification be abolished, all medical schools be upgraded to colleges, and all available resources be directed into the production of only one type of doctor. He or she would have the highest level of training — a five-and-a-half-year university training, similar to what the Goodenough Committee had proposed for Great Britain as the gold standard. The committee believed that there was no role in the modern medical scheme for indigenous systems of medicine and its practitioners: these systems were considered “static in conception and practice.”
Six members of the committee, five Indians and one Briton, put up a brave dissent. They repeatedly argued that in view of the manpower shortages, the country should use every possible means, including the shorter Licentiate course, to increase the number of trained medical personnel. They pointed out that England had abolished Licentiate teaching only after 100 years and Russia relied extensively on ‘feldshers’ (medical assistants) to run 48,000 dispensaries. They noted with anguish that since the new scheme would benefit only a section of the Indian population, “Public health over the remaining four fifth to one-half of the country… will atrophy. There will be no personnel like the licentiates even to help the regions and institutions which will come under neglect.”
Prophetic
The dissenters’ views proved prophetic. They said that the “basic doctor would not willingly fit into the rural scheme.” India’s six decades of chronic shortages of doctors in the rural areas are grim testimony to this fact. They argued that “while a majority on the committee can abolish the licentiate, they cannot prevent other practitioners, practising a variety of systems of medicine, taking his place.” Time has proved this also to be a prescient observation. Studies show that since Independence and even today, much of health care at first contact in rural India is delivered not by qualified doctors but by informally trained and unlicensed private practitioners.
What happened to the highly trained basic doctor of the future?
The Bhore Committee estimated that around 15,000 doctors would be needed in the scheme in the first five years, and around 30,000 over 10 years. As the number of medical colleges roughly doubled during this period (from 19 in 1946 to 42 in 1956) it can be estimated that the number of graduates also doubled.
It is difficult to obtain exact data on how many graduates entered the health system over 10 years, but almost all of India’s Five-Year Plans and national health policies since 1947 have lamented the shortage of doctors in the rural areas.
What is definitely known is that around 10 years later, in the early 1960s, nearly 18,000 graduate doctors from the Indian sub-continent migrated to the U.K. in response to Health Minister Enoch Powell’s call to save the U.K.’s rapidly expanding National Health Service (NHS) from a staffing crisis. In November 2003, a BBC documentary “From the Raj to the Rhondda: How Asian Doctors Saved the NHS,” acknowledged the contributions of doctors from the Indian sub-continent to Britain’s most deprived areas, where no British doctor was willing to go.
Even today, the second largest proportion of doctors registered with the U.K.’s General Medical Council, by country of qualification, is from India: they number 25,720, or 11 per cent of the total. India also provides the largest pool of international medical graduates to the U.S.
Turf protection
Medical historians point out that the Indian doctors who collaborated with colonial rule were the ones who stepped into positions of power after 1947. Their socialisation into the western model meant that the “development of medical practice in India did not follow the pattern that was being advocated for developing countries at the time. Indian degrees were quite suitable for working in England, but probably totally irrelevant for working to the benefit of the vast majority of the Indian population.” (Professor Aneez Esmail, 2007)
Ironically, even less-trained providers can efficiently deliver primary care. However, efforts to revive a Licentiate type of cadre, as recommended by the National Health Policy 2002 and outlined by a Task Force on Medical Education in 2007, have been non-starters. This is due to resistance from a section of the country’s medical fraternity which carries a turf protection mindset, supported by obstructive legislation contained in the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956.
An alternative
In view of the obvious deficiencies in India’s overall rural infrastructure, it is unlikely that the rural areas will have a sufficient number of doctors over the next several decades. Thus, the solution to India’s doctor shortages does not lie in building more medical colleges. A better alternative would be to draw from other countries’ experiences of developing mid-level practitioners: Clinical Officers and Medical Assistants in Africa, Physician Assistants in the U.S., Nurse Practitioners in Canada, and the rural doctors in China who number more than a million. These cadres are typically trained for three years and empowered to provide clinical services. Studies so far suggest that their performance and outcomes are in no way inferior to that of doctors trained for longer periods.
In the short term, India must also upgrade the skills of existing unlicensed rural practitioners and empower government nurses and pharmacists to take on additional tasks. An alternative to the IMC Act is the Drugs and Cosmetics Act that empowers States to recognise practitioners other than MBBS-holders to provide a limited range of medical care services. Chhattisgarh has invoked this power to create a three-year diploma course for Practitioners of Modern and Holistic Medicine.
(Meenakshi Gautham, PhD, is a public health specialist ( gautham.meenakshi@gmail.com);K. M. Shyamprasad, M.Ch., FRCS, is a former vice president of the National Board of Examinations, MoHFW, India ( shyamprasad@nlhmb.in). Legal inputs have been received from Indira Unninayar, Supreme Court Advocate.)
Taken from http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/05/stories/2009110554760800.htm
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Taliban denies Peshawar blast role
The Taliban and al-Qaeda have distanced themselves from Wednesday's deadly market blast in Peshawar that claimed 105 lives, saying "their main targets are the security forces, and not innocent civilians".
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in a statement sent to the media on Thursday, condemned the car bomb attack that tore through a crowded market and denied any involvement in the explosion.
Taken from http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/10/2009102995252334582.html
Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater for Peshawar Blast
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has claimed that the controversial American security firm Blackwater was behind the deadly bomb attack on a market in Peshawar that killed over 100 people.
Hakimullah questioned why the Taliban should target the public when it was capable of carrying out attacks in Islamabad and targeting the army's General Headquarters.
In an interview with BBC Urdu, he claimed Blackwater and "Pakistani agencies" were involved in attacks in public places to discredit the militants.
A powerful car bomb exploded at a crowded market in Peshawar yesterday, killing more than 100 and injuring 200 more. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had earlier said it was behind an attack on the army's headquarters earlier this month.
About 15 people were killed during that attack. A group of militants took nearly 50 people hostage before they were gunned down or blew themselves up.
Reports in the Pakistani media have claimed that Blackwater has established a presence in the country by tying up with local security firms but these allegations have been rejected by the US administration.
Taken from http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?668599
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in a statement sent to the media on Thursday, condemned the car bomb attack that tore through a crowded market and denied any involvement in the explosion.
Taken from http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/10/2009102995252334582.html
Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater for Peshawar Blast
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has claimed that the controversial American security firm Blackwater was behind the deadly bomb attack on a market in Peshawar that killed over 100 people.
Hakimullah questioned why the Taliban should target the public when it was capable of carrying out attacks in Islamabad and targeting the army's General Headquarters.
In an interview with BBC Urdu, he claimed Blackwater and "Pakistani agencies" were involved in attacks in public places to discredit the militants.
A powerful car bomb exploded at a crowded market in Peshawar yesterday, killing more than 100 and injuring 200 more. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had earlier said it was behind an attack on the army's headquarters earlier this month.
About 15 people were killed during that attack. A group of militants took nearly 50 people hostage before they were gunned down or blew themselves up.
Reports in the Pakistani media have claimed that Blackwater has established a presence in the country by tying up with local security firms but these allegations have been rejected by the US administration.
Taken from http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?668599
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