Centre cuts urban reforms grant by 10 pc, J&K to ... - Daily Excelsior

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2013 DAILY EXCELSIOR, JAMMU
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Excelsior
Established 1965
Founder Editor S.D. Rohmetra
Source of health hazard
Hospitals and medical institutions have to be the
source of promotion of health. That is the universal
concept. But how do we react when we find
these institutions becoming a source of hazard to health.
That is precisely what the six member panel appointed by
the Government way back on October 12, 2012 has
reported after inspecting and examining the system of
disposal of bio-medical and other waste in hospital and
dispensaries whether private or public. The report has
recently been submitted and shockingly, it reveals in
detail absolute carelessness and irresponsibility of concerned
in hospitals and polyclinics where existing rules
governing disposal of waste are thrown to wind. Although
there is a wing in the hospitals entrusted with the task of
proper and scientific disposal of hospital waste, yet
strangely, as the report reveals, these mechanisms are
either dysfunctional or do not function at all. The most
disturbing situation is that the waste is not segregated at
source though it should be in all circumstances and the
items that need to be disabled and disposed of before
these are sent to waste bin are dumped with the heap.
The scrap collectors could misuse these and thus
increase health hazard.
The report says that the condition of waste disposal
in Government medical college and hospitals in
Jammu is in no way better than what it is in private hospitals.
It is a sad situation. The Government colleges
are provided with necessary paraphernalia to manage
bio-medical waste and even trained staff is provided to
them. Apart from this, we have the department of environment
as well which could also bring hospital waste
management system under its jurisdiction. Why have
all these structures failed to update waste management
system in hospitals is just because of irresponsibility
on the part of those who are at the helm of affairs.
We are all talking a lot about environment and pollution
and ecological degradation. But we have seldom talked
about the danger to health emanating from mishandling
of bio-medical waste and its proper disposal. The
report says that even the green and red bins provided
for segregation of waste at source are not properly
used which would control mixing up of waste. Likewise
the report says that there are not even the special trolleys
to carry the waste from the wards and patients'
rooms to the waste storage spots. Even some of the
waste dumped within the hospital premises is left
uncovered and in open. This is monstrous negligence
and apathy on the part of doctors and nurses and the
management staff in hospitals. Now this being the state
of affairs in Government and private hospitals in the
city including the medical college, imagine what will be
the condition in district hospitals and polyclinics. It
could be worse and even unimaginable. Therefore the
Health department needs a total review of its waste
management policy throughout the state and not only
in the hospitals in cities of Jammu and Srinagar.
The panel has done excellent job in paying fullest
possible attention to each and every item connected with
the waste management in a hospital and has made several
recommendations which seem to be very rational. It
has recommended that for segregation of bio-medical
waste the primary responsibility should be with the generator
of these wastes viz. doctors, nurses and technicians
and waste should be segregated as per categories
applicable. No untreated bio-medical waste has to be
kept beyond 48 hours and their removal should be time
scheduled. One recommendation is that the Head of
each hospital should form a waste management committee
to meet regularly for reviewing the performance of
waste disposal team in the institution. There are other
recommendations including one suggesting that the staff
deployed to handle the bio-medical waste should be
properly trained and educated in the task they are asked
to perform.
The panel has done its job and now the report is with
the Health Department. It remains to be seen how speedily
the department will accept and implement these recommendations
and remove the threat to health emanating
from mismanagement of waste. It is very important
that the rules and norms set forth in this behalf are made
part of hospital culture and these should automatically be
followed by all concerned.
Stealing of infants
How can we expect that the stolen male baby born
to Sharifa Begum, wife of Muhammad Mushtaq of
village Narryan in district Rajouri, will be recovered
and re-united to its parents when another baby
stolen earlier on November 14, 2012 from the same
(SMGS ) hospital remains untraced so far. Sharifa's baby
was stolen on the night of 31 Jan-1 February from the
Eclampsia room situated within the labour room of the
hospital. Yes, the Principal of Medical College has
ordered inquiry into the theft, suspended two guards and
also filed the FIR with the police. But the fact remains that
authorities took no effective and preventive measures to
prevent recurrence of such crimes in future. What is the
job of the guards deployed in the hospital? They are supposed
to keep an eye on doubtful movement of unwanted
persons in and around such sensitive places in the
hospital and medical college. Unfortunately they have
miserably failed in their duty. It was also the duty of the
hospital authorities to conduct surprise checks to ensure
that security functions properly in the hospital. There is
apprehension that baby-lifting mafia is behind such
shocking crimes. Parents and kith and kin of affected
families have protested. They will protest even louder
and why not. What is important is prevention of such
crimes and not finding escape route by stating the
efforts that have been made to recover the stolen baby.
Yes, according to reports 16 CCTVs have been fixed to
monitor what is happening in the hospital, in wards and
corridors and other places. But first of all are these
CCTVs functional? We have doubts. And secondly, if
the CCTV shows an outsider woman moving in suspicious
manner, her whereabouts are not traceable. Is it
not an instance of utter negligence and dereliction of
duty on the part of security outfit? Accountability needs
to be fixed and exemplary punishment given to stop
recurrence of such crimes.
Men are the weaker sex
M. J. Akbar
The one certain fact about this
uncertain business called advertising
is that you can’t do without
it. Such compulsion does not mean
this hit-and-run affair necessarily
works. It is difficult to predict when a
campaign will be a hit, and when the
agency has merely run away to lubricate
its salary sheet.
The worst spiel in recent times was
surely the advertising of a brief, and
eminently forgettable, India-Pakistan
cricket encounter last December. The
agency was not promoting sport
between traditional antagonists; it was
announcing the consequences of an
existentialist war with
all the finesse of the
massacre-friendly Nadir
Shah on a Delhi weekend
in 1739. Conversely,
the best campaign I have
seen in a long while has
been the television
advertisements which
raised the curtain on the
women’s cricket tournament:
wry, tongue very
much in cheek, and
emasculating men with a
pleasing insouciance.
There is no mystery
about why. Women’s
cricket went well
because the agency
believed in it. It represents
something far more than fund
raising for an already bloated game.
Women’s cricket has been around
for a long while, scratching at the turnstiles,
seeking attention and the legitimacy
of public support. At long last, it
is an idea whose time has come. It now
represent the third great revolution in a
sport that has long been a mirror of
social mores.
The first liberation came when
“professionals” in Britain won equal
terms with “amateurs”. Professional is
a term that carries so much pride now
that we quite forget that once it was
synonymous with something as “grubby”
as earning money for talent in
sports. It took a world war, the second
of the 20th century, to destroy the stupid
pretentions of aristocrats who
The inimitable Piloo Mody,
known for his famous one-liners
inside and outside the parliament,
had once remarked that
Indira Gandhi was a better mother
than a Prime Minister. The obvious
reference was to the blatant manner in
which Indira Gandhi had thrown to
winds all norms of propriety to
impose son Sanjay on an unwilling
nation during the early and mid
1970s.Nearly four decades
later, as a devout daughterin-law,
Congress President
Sonia Gandhi has stepped
into her mother-in-law's
shoes, or shall we say chappals,
by seeking to impose son Rahul
on an unwilling nation. And thus, the
single loudest message emanating
from Congress party's "Chintan
Shivar'' at Jaipur last weekend is that
Sonia Gandhi has kept up the Nehru-
Gandhi tradition of supreme motherhood.
Anyway, now it is official. Rahul
Gandhi is the Vice President and by
implication Number 2 after mother
Sonia Gandhi in the Congress hierarchy.
From the hot dry deserts of
Rajasthan comes the decree to salvage
Congress fortunes by hooking
these to the apron strings of country's
first political family.
The spadework was going on for
long ... quite unambiguously. The
Dr Mandeep Azad and
Dr Sumit Mahajan
The global financial crisis drew
international attention away
from the food crisis, but this
continues to fester and even grow.
When the global food crisis first hit
international headlines in 2008,
international bureaucrats referred to
the current problems in the world
food situation as "a silent tsunami",
but the truth is that it was not a sudden
and unexpected crisis: the signs
have been around for some time now
and it could easily have been seen to
be coming. Even so, its impact has
been powerful and already quite devastating,
as food shortages and high
prices of food have adversely affected
billions of people, especially the poor
in the developing world
The agriculture in India is still, as
they say, 'gamble in monsoons' as the
crops are highly dependent on the rain
and a drought can put further adversaries
on food security as the demandsupply
imbalance further aggravates
the food inflation. The volatility in
food prices is cause of worry for
everybody from an ordinary Indian to
those in official circles with the devastating
effect they can have on food
security. Price volatility has a strong
impact on food security because it
affects household incomes and purchasing
power. Not only the rise in
foods prices can further increase the
foods insecurity of already poor, but
also can reduce the physical well
being of those who just are above the
forced their working class “professionals”
to use a separate entrance to a
cricket field. The nobles wore silk
scarves and gloried in the vanity that
they were, literally, a class apart
because they did not have to actually
do anything for a living. They were
lords of the manor, and hence lords of
the field. Today, mercifully, merit
rules. Commerce bows only before
success, and success is not a genetic
entitlement.
The second revolution matured in
India and Pakistan, when merit took
cricket away from the confines of the
middle class, and into the small towns
or city bylanes where a new India and
Pakistan was being incubated. The
Women’s cricket has been
around for a long while, scratching
at the turnstiles, seeking attention
and the legitimacy of public
support. At long last, it is an idea
whose time has come. It now
represent the third great
revolution in a sport that has long
been a mirror of social mores.
urban middle class shares at least one
trait with the white or brown aristocracy;
it has many alternative routes to
achievement. Cricket was a pleasure,
even when exacting, but it was not
quite a hunger. The gnawing desperation
to beat the odds of life through
excellence in a game whose financial
value exploded beyond the dreams of
avarice created a new base for triumphant
upward mobility. If any
astrologer had told 10-year-old M.S.
Dhoni’s parents that he would one day
become as wealthy as he is now, they
would have given him a nice cup of
tea and told him to go tease someone
else. It is the same with many dozens
of other achievers; and Dhoni was
financially far better off at birth than
Yusuf or Irfan Pathan.
Congress corridors had been, for the
last few years, monotonously echoing
with a deafening clamour to bring in
Rahul for a "bigger'' role...whatever
that meant. And this clamour was
invariably accompanied by an unending
eulogy of the young Nehru-
Gandhi scion, his assumed popularity
among youth and his proclaimed love
for youth which stood out rather quite
"unremarkably'' when very recently
he chose to maintain a convenient
silence even as a few kilometers away
from his residence, the entire youth
community of Delhi was out on
streets protesting against rape and
murder of one of their peers.
He pulls up the sleeves of his
"Kurta'' every now and then when
he is on public address system. He
grows and shaves his beard in cyclic
phases. He is trying every formula
in the book to endear himself to the
people of India while his party is
dutifully trying every trick in the
book to instal him as Prime
Minister of India. Like an adolescent
school pass-out making a bid
for admission to a professional college
through round-the-clock
threshold of consuming just enough
nutrition for sustenance. Price volatility
also interacts with price levels to
affect welfare and food security. The
higher the price, the stronger the welfare
consequences of volatility for
consumers, while the opposite is true
for producers. The volatility in food
prices is not new for Indian economy.
It is known fact that food prices are
heavily dependent on rainfall/ monsoons
as food inflation rose ferocious-
ly during 2009-10 when only 30 per
cent of districts received normal rain
and the country was declared droughthit.
But Indian policy makers have
been to an extent successful in insulating
the country from world food price
shock (especially, wheat and rice) of
2007-08 which hit food security of
many other developing countries
severely. India and China, have kept
stabilization policies that isolate
domestic prices for rice or wheat from
international price fluctuations The
policy stance was to attempt insulation
Women’s cricket is one of the
many reflections of the changing status
of women. Women were once
taunted by men as the weaker sex only
because they could not compete with
the brutal violence of males. In truth,
you need a much tougher body and
spirit for childbirth; men, by comparison,
are sissies. They simply have
more powerful muscles. Women have
a far stronger mind.
But this assertion is only a part of
the emerging story. Men have punished
women through the ages with
segregation, and then attached a false
morality to their subjugation. Sport is
freedom from segregation. We might
not notice this in India, where trousers
and jeans have become the
preferred wear of women.
But the fact that Pakistan’s
women wear trousers
when they go to bat and
field will be a huge spur to
a society that is still controlled
too often by men
who have not left the 19th
century. There was a time,
during the regime of
General Zia ul Huq, when
some Pakistani fundamentalists
wanted television
coverage of cricket
banned because women at
home would be able to see
the alluring Imran Khan
rub a red cricket ball down the front of
his trousers, and therefore near his
crotch. It has been a long journey since
then. We should celebrate this journey.
Cricket will do a hundred times more
for gender equality in Pakistan than a
thousand speeches by well-meaning
liberals.
There are countries which do not
send women to the Olympics for
“moral” reasons; or, more accurately,
because they believe that the sight of
women will encourage immorality. I
cannot imagine anything more stupid.
To display one’s face and ability is not
nudity, neither among men nor
women. Why shouldn’t women be
allowed to behave as normally as men?
One thing is clear. It is men who
are the weaker sex.
Rahul arrives via Jaipur....
TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
coaching classes, Rahul "Baba'' too
is working hard...really, very
hard.... to live upto his mother's
expectations and secure admission
into the PM office which has been
successively held earlier by his
father, his grand mother and his
great grand father but...he has a
tall order to answer. One of the
tragedies for a man, goes the adage
is to be born to a great parentage !
“Chintan Shivar'' is
over marking the arrival
of Rahul Gandhi via
Jaipur. It is now time for
"Chinta''. Come 2014!
And Rahul Gandhi will
have to go through the "reality
check'' in much the same way as his
father Rajiv Gandhi was made to
go through in 1991 when he almost
lost the election for himself and his
party before he got assassinated at
Sriperumbadoor to secure a sympathy
generated victory mandate for
Congress through the remaining
phases of general election.
Finally, it is the common man
whose verdict will make all the difference
even as Umapathy, a La Sahir,
yearns with a poetic wish to endear
Rahul to India's two hundred crore
populace through a desperate matronly
imploration laced in mother Sonia's
anxiety ‘‘.....Jise Tu Kabool Kar Le,
Woh Sadaa Kahan Se Laon !....’’
of domestic prices from the high world
prices by combining different measures
including high subsidies, lower
tariffs and export restrictions. The
price volatility in different foodstuffs
has also been very much different
from each other. The prices of cereal
and products which rose steadily and
reached a peak in 2009-10 declined
afterwards along with general food
group inflation as well as general
inflation, but the decline in rise of
cereals and products' prices following
2009-10 and showed no rise in 2011-
12. The pulses and products who registered
highest price increase (due to
the drought) in 2009-10, registered an
actual decline in their prices in the following
year and then showed no
increase in 2011-12. Not only the oils
and fats registered no rise in prices in
2008-09, they further faced a decline
in their prices in 2009-10 and showed
no rise in prices in 2011-12. The prices
of milk and products have shown persistent
increase year after year which
Imagination in education
M K Bhan
100 billions brain cells of babies form about 1000 trillion connection in their
bodies till they enter Pre-Primary age and stage and this connectivity is two
times more than what you and me keep as adults. Then what happens to the
children born with such capabilities and capacities during their schooling and at
colleges! Why only 12% of the high school graduates go for higher education?
Why educated youth of today fail to keep the connectivity between what they
possess and what they aspire for?
Question strikes, who is at fault and who will share the responsibility of
preparing such educated human products which have no "market value"! Let me
separate the term "market value" for education industry and give them liberty to
choose any one of terms 'Market' or 'Value' for applying in their respective industries.
With this choice we can either have right products for the 'Market' or at
least good human beings with 'Values' in morally degraded society.
Our education system is a training ground for people to go to higher education.
The question one should ask at this point of time is about the expectations
from the school education. Most of the curricula do not encourage the thinking
process in children. They normally emphasize giving information, reproduction
of that information into the examination system probably and most of the assessments
are done on how he can mug up and how he can reproduce it for the examination.
There is hardly any scope given to the children for any innovative thinking.
Most of the time, even off the cuff ideas that comes form children, are not
encouraged. We try to suppress and mould his thinking into what we think is the
right way of thinking. If you really see the long-term capability of the child, this
may not be a good approach all the time. Our rigid curriculum is imposed on
every child without worrying about their inquisitive capabilities.
We have a limited scope for accommodating people who do not fall in the
straitjacketed sort of pattern. What we do, we normally concentrate only on the
mean. We say 99% of our children are doing better. But remember, the 1% who
does not fit straitjacketed into our system, they are the ones' who are capable of
changing history, because they are the ones' who will challenge practically
everything whatever you say. They are the ones' who can become Srinivasa
Ramanujam, Newton, Einstein, Socrattes, Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ,
Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Karna of Mahabharatha……
ICT (Integrated Computer Technology) is becoming more dominant and is
the main concern for all of us because it uses only our two senses- Vision and
Hearing, but primarily-Vision. The touch, the taste and the smell is missing,
which are really important for the development of human beings. A touch on
somebody's shoulder conveys what millions of words cannot convey. So called
media-savvy young generation remain ignorant in understanding the relationship
between 'Education, Imagination and Natural World', its unifying capacities and
practical outcomes. The excitement which you get from many senses, if you
focus everything in ICT, you will not.
Seeing a rose-garden on computer and being in the rose-garden-makes a difference.
ICT is killing the imagination and the capabilities of our children by not
using it judiciously. Of course, ICT gives immediate solutions to the problems
and we miscalculate that -'faster you learn, earlier you forget'. A problem you get
solved in about two days, you will remember for whole life, as compared to getting
a solution in two minutes which lasts for 2 hours in our MMC (mind memory
card). The minds are to be challenged with the problems and seek solutions
using our all sensory skills. Now, think of giving lap-tops, computers and distributing
free tablets to the children- are they really going to touch the sky (Akash)!
What kind of generation we are creating? Will they be good technologists or
good citizens or good human beings?
Adults who were imaginative children often proved themselves as problem
solvers, innovators and creative thinkers. Unless the foundation at school education
is very solid, the next generation, the higher generation cannot really come
up to what really we are aspiring for. The thinking process, logical mind of child
must be encouraged in the curriculum, so that they do very well in higher education.
Right selection of books with exciting diagrams, languages and the presentations
will do much better in nurturing the talents in a systematic way.
One thing that bothers all of us is that our value system is slowly going down.
The value system is to be created at Primary age and not after reaching the age
of 20 or 40. We should rather emphasize more on value system in our education;
other things will automatically fall in line.
Finally; being a parent, be true to yourself first if you really want to understand
the world of fantasy of your children. Be ready to understand his inquisitive
feeling and answer his questions honestly. Give your children the wings of
imagination. Let them watch and enjoy the beauty of nature, colourful dances
of butterflies, humming bees in the corner side of garden, floating of paper-ships,
flying of jet planes, falling of apple, leisure flying of seagulls, change of season,
counting stars in the firmament, journey of the sun and the moon and what
not…. practicing real-life skills, making a child in outer-form and inner-spirit.
Don't show them apples in Nursery Rhyme Book…let them taste apples!
Imagination like the potter's wheel has got slowed down with the arrival of
sparkling steel and flashing speedy wheels on restless highways. A substitute for
imagination at the very outset in childhood is an open threat to nuclear families
and an invitation to calculated disaster for society. Let's stop the mushrooming
of educational business shops and creating a tsunami of aimless educated youth.
Let's rediscover the tender touch of education and magic of imagination for the
betterment of humanity.
The author is Director SGGJ Model Schools Sunderbani
Food crisis knocking our doors
is also growing with time though
steadily.
Food crisis is very much a manmade
crisis, resulting not so much
from ineluctable forces of global supply
and demand as from the marketoriented
and liberalising policies
adopted by choice or compulsion in
almost all countries. These policies
have either neglected agriculture or
allowed shifts in global prices to determine
both cropping patterns and the
The volatility in food prices is cause of worry for everybody
from an ordinary Indian to those in official circles with the
devastating effect they can have on food security. Price
volatility has a strong impact on food security because it
affects household incomes and purchasing power.
viability of farming, and also generated
greater possibilities of speculative
activity in food items. This is not to
deny the undoubted role of other real
economy factors in affecting the global
food situation. While demand-supply
imbalances have been touted as
reasons, this is largely unjustified
given that there has been hardly any
change in the world demand for food
in the past three years. In particular,
the claim that food grain prices have
soared because of more demand from
China and India as their GDP increas-
es, is completely invalid, since both
aggregate and per capita consumption
of grain have actually fallen in both
countries. Supply factors have been -
and are likely to continue to be - more
significant. These include the shortrun
effects of diversion of both
acreage and food crop output for biofuel
production, as well as more medium
term factors such as rising costs of
inputs, falling productivity because of
soil depletion, inadequate public
investment in agricultural research
and extension, and the impact of climate
changes that have affected harvests
in different ways
There is no doubt that India is facing
food crisis but is able to sustain
itself from this crisis in a better way in
comparison to other countries. Food
crisis is more a man created phenomenon
in terms of marketing network,
storage and infrastructure. India must
believe in a notion 'prevention is better
than cure'. India has to meet its needs
itself and the current market prices
make imports unviable. Future looks
uncertain if India and other countries
continue to neglect agriculture as has
been the case for decades. As due to
uncertain weather during 2009 the crisis
effected our country and there are
chances that it may come up with
more severe intensity. So improved
and sustainable agriculture and livestock
practices are the only ways out
which can insulate India from on -
going food crisis and prevent such a
crisis which is knocking our doors
from time to time.