The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Lyngdoh talks tough
Election season begins on a fair note

ONLY James Michael Lyngdoh can manage the contradiction of talking like an angel and yet making crooked politicians tremble with fear. In the badlands of manipulative politics he is what Phantom is in the world of fictional crimes. He is now virtually on the go to ensure free and fair assembly elections in five states between late November and early December. The beleaguered Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Mr Ajit Jogi, has been told by him to stop the distribution of school bags carrying Mr Jogi's picture. Under the tough provisions of the model code of conduct it is an unfair electoral practice. When Mr Jogi was charged with having forged certain documents, a day after the announcement of the poll schedule, he said the exercise was politically motivated. He cannot hurl the same charge at the CEC without the risk of causing further damage to his already bruised political image.

Not that Mr Lyngdoh has not been called names by politicians. The top boss at Nirvachan Ayog never allows personal attacks to stop him from doing his duty faithfully and efficiently. The Gujarat elections were held under extremely trying circumstances. However, even the aggressive and boorish approach of Chief Minister Narendra Modi did not make the CEC throw up his hands in despair. He is indeed a tough nut to crack, particularly under hostile conditions. The proof of his efficient and fair conduct of elections in Gujarat and later Jammu and Kashmir came in the form of praise from the international observers.

Mr Jogi is not the only leader who has been served notice by the Election Commission. The Madhya Pradesh government was recently told to put on hold its on-going projects. The banners and posters put up by political parties and prospective candidates in Delhi were removed on the directions of the EC. On Wednesday Mr Lyngdoh along with his colleagues visited Rajasthan to examine complaints of violation of the model code of conduct by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and other ministers. The Centre too was told to stop the high profile advertisement campaign highlighting the government's achievement in the past four years. The prompt response of the Election Commission in dealing with complaints of abuse of power for influencing the voters is good news for the image of parliamentary democracy. A much bigger test lies ahead. Mr Lyngdoh may have to crack the whip again if crooks and criminals are allowed to enter the electoral arena by their political patrons.

Spare IOC
Split will damage the oil giant

THE recent decision of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment to split the Indian Oil Corporation and privatise its retail business has generated a lot of heat and the government has deservedly drawn flak from informed quarters. After the Supreme Court gave a jolt to the disinvestment programme by directing the government to seek prior approval of Parliament before selling off of its stakes in Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), the government thought of an alternative and decided to put a part of IOC on the block in a desperate attempt to meet its target of collecting Rs 13,200 crore through disinvestment this fiscal. This has shocked even some of the supporters of the privatisation plan.

IOC is the country’s only Fortune 500 company, an integrated oil major with the net sales of Rs 1,19,948 crore and a net profit of Rs 6,662 crore. The company paid a dividend of 290 per cent, which works out to Rs 2,258 crore, to the government for the 2002-03 financial year. A large part of the IOC profit (almost 60 per cent) comes from selling petroleum products through its retail outlets. The world over refining business has been giving diminishing returns in the past some years and top oil companies are increasingly focussing on the more lucrative retail business. Besides, after establishing IOC as an integrated oil company, why this sudden U-turn to split it?. The decision, if implemented, would definitely harm the company.

By pushing through the disinvestment programme in the strategic oil sector in the face of stiff opposition from other parties as well from its own supporters, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has displayed indecent haste and lack of maturity. National assets, developed over the years with tremendous effort and large investments, cannot be disposed of in a hurry in the pursuit of meeting the short-term goal of reducing the fiscal deficit. It is true IOC had made profits in a monopoly situation, but it has an inherent advantage of having an effective retail network and is capable of meeting competition from private sector players like Reliance provided it is allowed to be run professionally without political and bureaucratic interference. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about the public sector. PSUs like BSNL have displayed that these can function effectively even in the changed economic scenario and meet competition head-on.

A hint of change
S. Arabia begins looking forward

THOUGH unbelievable, there is an indication of change in the conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Among the significant developments in this regard is this week’s historic approval for elections for municipal councils. In a country where women cannot travel alone, they have been promised job opportunities on a large scale. Last January the monarchy disclosed to the visiting representatives of the New York-based Human Rights Watch that it had a plan to maintain tough human rights standards. It is, therefore, not surprising that Riyadh hosted for the first time a human rights conference on Tuesday. There is a move to reform the judicial system too.

Saudi Arabia has been claiming that its laws are based on the Islamic shariah (as interpreted by the Wahabi school of thought), but it is partly true. It has never allowed a debate on remodelling the system in accordance with the demands of the time. Will it do so now for reforming the system of governance? The exact plans of the kingdom are not known, but the decision about the municipal polls makes one believe that there is a move towards redefining the monarchy’s role. One should not, however, expect the Saudi rulers to go in for a western-style democracy.

Reports suggest that the people desperately want a change, but whatever little is happening is mainly because of the after-effects of 9/11— to appease the Americans. The monarchy, faced with two opposite pressures — from the US and the local public — is finding it difficult to breathe comfortably. With a view to easing the pressure from Washington, a large number of prayer leaders in mosques have been punished for preaching against the West, particularly America. But the action has hardened the attitude of the people, who quietly accuse the monarchy of playing into the hands of the Americans. In a liberalised atmosphere, the Saudi rulers may be able to at least explain that the people are free to express their opinion under the changed circumstances.

Thought for the day

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

— Samuel Johnson

OPINION

Congress party’s mounting woes
Kerala revolt to Mumbai “ultimatum”
by Inder Malhotra

ONLY a few months ago, the Congress Party, led by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, was in an upbeat mood. Its victory in the state assembly election in Himachal Pradesh last year had restored its morale after the ominous and overwhelming triumph of the BJP in the post-carnage Gujarat, with the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, becoming something of a Hindutva icon.

An even bigger achievement followed when the Congress, with the help of its junior partner, the People’s Democratic Party, won the historic election in Jammu and Kashmir, an election that was internationally recognised to be free and fair. Mrs Gandhi’s gracious and wise decision to concede the leadership of the new state government to the PDP leader, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, for the first half of the assembly’s term, further boosted the Congress prestige. A lot of people started talking of a “grand Congress revival”, while Congressmen, suffering the torment of being out of power for seven years, were cheered by the visions of a return to office.

It was in this heady atmosphere that Mrs Sonia Gandhi held a conclave of party leaders, including some representatives of grassroots workers, in the sylvan surroundings of Shimla. The “Shimla sankalp”, adopted at the brainstorming session, was nothing short of a blueprint for winning the Lok Sabha poll, due next year.

For, the Congress President and her followers resolved to get off the Pachmari high horse, abandon the dream of ruling at the Centre on their own and appeal to “like-minded secular” parties to join a coalition to oust the BJP-led government. The initial reaction of secular leaders, such as Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi party, who has since become Chief Minister of UP, was encouraging. But later things began to change.

Now it seems that the last year’s “Shimla spirit” within the Congress ken is evaporating almost as fast as had the more famous one in the subcontinent, following the 1972 Shimla Agreement between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Far from being buoyant and go-ahead, the Congress, still the largest national party, is being buffeted by one setback after another.

At first there was the pointless motion of no-confidence in the Vajpayee government that Mrs Sonia Gandhi had moved suddenly, surprisingly and in something of a haste. She did work hard and spoke with greater effect that she had been able to do in the past. But the debate could not serve the desired purpose if only because it had quickly degenerated into an exchange of abuse in the most raucous tones. The Prime Minister, speaking just before midnight, was dismissive of the whole exercise.

Plentiful rains have robbed the party of an opportunity to corner the government on its economic performance at a time when four major Congress-ruled states — Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — are in the throes of assembly elections. The feel-good atmosphere is accompanied by a rise also in industrial production. The BJP is laughing all the way to the votebank.

Worse has since followed. In the prestigious Ernakulam parliamentary byelection in Kerala, the Congress was worsted by the “enemy within”. The wily veteran, Mr K. Karunakaran, furious because the candidate named by his rival and the state Chief Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, was preferred to his nominee by the “high command”, saw to it that the luckless man was defeated.

A fortnight has since elapsed. But Mrs Gandhi has been unable to either discipline the defiant Mr Karunakaran or to bring about a rapprochement of sorts between him and Mr Antony. For his part, the old fox has said that if the Chief Minister was not replaced by November 19 (Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary, incidentally), he would announce his next step. A threat to split the party in a state where political fortunes change with a 1 per cent shift in the vote could not have been more blatant.

Even so, the Congress party’s defeat by a huge margin in the Sholapur Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra has been a bigger blow to it. For, this is a traditional Congress stronghold and was vacated recently by Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde on becoming the state’s Chief Minister. The consequent convulsions within the Maharashtra unit of the Congress have not yet subsided. And it is in this context that the party is confronted with a more shattering crisis in Maharashtra that has much wider countrywide ramifications. For, the point at issue is the familiar and vexed question of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s “foreign origin”. For the benefit of those with short memories, the background to what has hit the headlines needs explaining.

In May 1999, in the run-up to the parliamentary election, Mr Sharad Pawar, a Congress stalwart with a following in Maharashtra so substantial as to confer on him the sobriquet “Maratha strongman”, masterminded a move to ask Mrs Sonia Gandhi to disavow prime ministerial ambitions. She was infuriated but silent. But her loyal followers worked themselves into high dudgeon, abused Mr Pawar and his cohorts in choicest terms and summarily expelled them from the party. Mr Pawar’s response was to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with a single-point manifesto: “Raj karega Hindustani (only an Indian national would rule)”.

Undying ironies of Indian politics then came into play. Maharashtra assembly elections had coincided with the parliamentary poll. The fragmented results in the state had a clear message: either the Congress and the NCP should join hands to form a coalition government or let the BJP-Shiv Sena combine return to power. Despite their intense mutual hostility, Mrs Gandhi and Mr Pawar decided to cooperate. For four years the coalition government has survived but strains within it have been close to the surface. These were heightened by the Sholapur byelection because the NCP’s non-cooperation was partly responsible for the Congress discomfiture.

Then all of sudden Mr Pawar casually announced at an election rally in Delhi that in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, his party’s main issue would be Mrs Gandhi’s “foreign origin”. The Congress reaction in New Delhi was cautious. But Maharashtra Congress leaders gave Mr Pawar a seven-day ultimatum to withdraw his statement against “our leader” or face “dire consequences”. Ridiculing the Congress stand, the Maratha strongman has raised the ante.

Surely, it makes no sense for either side to bring down their own government in the country’s financial capital. But to avert this disaster, both have to resolve the crisis somehow. However, both have painted themselves into opposite corners. The plot has thickened.

MIDDLE

A recipe for happiness
by Ram Varma

ONE meets interesting people on morning walks. There are those that belong to the laughing cult, who taking a cue from each other, join in a serial bout of laughing. Their laughter resounds in the stillness of the morning. There are others who are deeply religious and go with a rosary in the hand. One man I meet walks singing stretches of devotional songs in his high pitched voice; while there is a group that squats on the grass lawns and has a soulful bhajan recital session. Many others walk mumbling some mantra to themselves. Some like me have only the physical well-being in mind.

Early morning walk has been an essential part of my daily routine for close to 30 years now. It began on medical advice. I used to sit late in office and had started experiencing a numbing sensation in my toes. I consulted Dr B.R. Verma, a noted physician, who cautioned me against lack of exercise and advised me to take, apart from medication, brisk daily walks. We lived in Sector 18 then, and I started to walk to the lake in the morning. It was to become an addiction, for such is the alchemy of this little lake nestled in the lap of the Shivaliks. If I was in town, I had to be on the lake in the morning, braving even the hurly-burly of a storm or rain.

To watch the changing moods of the lake as the sun’s orb bobbed up from behind the hills became a passion. Wordsworth believed that the beauty of one’s natural environment influenced one so deeply that it passed into one’s face. I don’t know if the lake’s tranquillity smoothed the rough contours of my rugged face, but it always soothed my frayed temples, lifted my spirits and helped me in thinking my thoughts with greater clarity. It made me more alive.

Now I live in Panchkula, and am deprived of the pleasures of walking on the lake’s promenade, and listening to the soft music of its waves lapping the shores. But as I step out a dawn on Panchkula’s tree-lined avenues with my dog Winston, the bulbuls lisp their half awakened notes. I mimic them, whistling the same notes, and they seem to like it and repeat the notes with gusto. Blackbirds with forked tails perch on wires, singing by turns.

This year the months of Sawan and Bhadon have been particularly wet. The other day a soft drizzle fell from a cloud-packed sky. It was still dark. There was no other walker in sight. A koel’s plaintive call enhanced the hush. Later the drizzle ceased, and I spied an old man with an umbrella coming towards us. He was one of the “regulars”, short and frail, with a puckish face and smiling eyes, whom I had met often. He seemed pleased at finding a kindred soul in me who was out walking, disregarding the rain. He stopped, looking at my dog, and said: “A faithful dog, an old wife and ready money, these three things are a sure recipe for happiness”. I was amused by his adage and nodded in agreement, and he asked me: “Do you have all the three?”

I was unprepared for this question, and told him, yes, with God’s grace, I had enough money for my needs, and had this loveable and loving dog, and not a very old wife. His eyes beamed, his wrinkled face lighted up and he said: “You are truly blessed”, and turned to go. But he stopped again and asked: “You will have tea with your wife when you reach home?” I nodded my assent, smiling, and he added: “Tota-totti ki chai?” (sip tea sitting close like a parrot couple). I humoured him and said: “Yes, beak in beak”. He was tickled by my answer and burst into an uproarious laughter and departed winking at me.

It occurred to me that his high-voltage mirth was strangely tinged with a deep sadness. Perhaps his wife had died and he missed her.

IN FOCUS

The state of medical institutions — 3
Ludhiana CMC goal — is it charity or commerce?
Plans to set up Medicity and offer medical services on telephone
by P.P.S. Gill

CMC is striving to refurbish its image.
— Photo by Pradeep Tewari

CHRISTIAN Medical College (CMC) and Hospital and Dayanand Medical College (DMC) and Hospital are situated at the opposite ends in Ludhiana, which has two other hospitals and about 100 major private clinics as well.

Though CMC was born in March 1957, its origin dates back to January 1895. It was Dr Dame Edith Mary Brown, who set up a medical school in a rented building, as the place already had an American Presbyterian Mission Centre. As head of the women missionaries, she found a willing helping hand in Miss Greenfield, a Scottish woman, who later loaned a 30-bed hospital for the medical centre in memory of her sister, Bessie. And she also assisted Dr Brown in administration and care of the students. Initially, there were four students, two dispensers and 15 nurses.

Dr Brown would pay four annas to attract midwives, untrained ‘dais’, in the age group of 20 to 80, where they learned, for the first time, the need for “cleanliness” and also to “call a doctor”. She managed to “drive plough-share through the tangled roots of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and superstition”.

Having worked through the vicissitudes of time and events, like the great plague epidemic of 1901-02, the Kangra and Quetta earthquakes, which added strength to the determination of Dr Brown and her mission, her work earned her the Government of India’s award — first the silver and later the gold “Kaiser-i-Hind”. Even the British Crown named her a ‘Dame Commander of the British Empire’. She retired to Kashmir in 1948 and died there in 1956. But Dr Brown still lives as much in the memory of people as in the labyrinth lanes of the city and the red-brick-structures of the old and the modern CMC, spread over 50 acres. Even today some fondly call the present CMC “Brown Hospital”.

Interestingly, Brown Hospital cared and treated only women and children for 50 years. Then on Independence, communal passions that resulted in a great loss of life and tragedies, changed it all. For the first time the hospital opened its doors to men. There was no looking back.

Besides the three colleges —Medical, Dental and Nursing —CMC has a 785-bed hospital with multi-speciality facilities, a 110-bed critical care unit and a state-of-the-art medicare technology that goes with any tertiary care hospital. Earlier this year, CMC celebrated the Golden Jubilee of its MBBS course. It has now plans to increase intake of these three colleges that attract students from all over the country. CMC conducts its own admission examinations. Its MBBS tuition fee is around Rs 70,000 plus some essential charges and there is no capitation fee. CMC needs more hostels, particularly for dental college students, apart from a staff residential colony.

The Medical Superintendent, Dr John Abraham, says, “If we were the pioneers to initiate renal transplant, dialysis, open heart surgery, micro-vascular surgery, chest/lung surgery, paediatrics surgery, cancer chemotherapy, cardiac cath lab, CT scan (spiral), radiotherapy and emergency and trauma centre, we also have today a string of 27 specialities and super-specialities”. A visit to the emergency and trauma centre revealed that it has 25 beds with provision for further expansion and two fully equipped resuscitation rooms and 12 beds fitted with cardiac monitors.

CMC is once again striving to refurbish its old image of a charitable institution, restore people’s confidence, consolidate and expand its sphere of medicare. It has managed to salvage its credibility and credentials after having passed through a rough, bad patch that lasted between mid-80s and 1996-97.

The Medical Superintendent says, “That sloppy period was due to combination of several factors, internal as well as external and, of course, connivance of circumstances. As a consequence, some top faculty had left the institution, intake of patients had dipped and liabilities had mounted. Then there was a change of guard at the management level. The things are now looking up. The Director, Dr Silas J Charles, is introducing medicare and management changes and importing to CMC the latest in medical science”.

This change was fairly evident from the role that CMC played during the past and recent mishaps — the Khanna train accident, the Jalandhar MIG-21 crash, the Khud-Mohalla fire, the Frontier Mail tragedy and even the Gujarat earthquake.

But the Brown Memorial Hospital Employees’ Union General Secretary, Mr V M Frederick, disputes that things are looking up. He is sore over the absence of the Director, who is stay put for most of the year in the USA. He also talks of a major shift in the hospital’s mission statement from “charity” to “commerce” or shedding its secular image or denial of service benefits to the employees. He refers to the coterie that runs the day-to-day affairs of the institution. “All these factors have contributed to the woes of the employees, who are denied their dues and have often been forced to take course to legal remedies”.

Mr Frederick is also unhappy with the dispute settlement mechanism as it “denies the employees an access to the governing body. While, senior doctors and management representatives claimed that there were neither any major outstanding demands nor any unrest, Mr Frederick countered saying that the union was not satisfied with the mechanism for the redress of the grievances and several employees had been denied their financial dues, just as some patients in the low cost ward were not cared.

Dr Abraham, however, proudly talks of poor patient care under which Rs 2 to 3 crore worth free medicare is given to the poor sick. At least 5 per cent of the total budget or 20 per cent of the hospital fees goes into the care of the poor, who cannot afford, and are admitted to the “low cost” or “Brown ward”. But the union leader remains skeptical of this claim!

CMC’s “Smile Train Cleft Clinic” is as unique as its department of Plastic Surgery or Adolescent Clinic. Dr Vijay Obed has performed over 300 surgeries to correct cleft lip and palate, since January 2001. This deformity affects one baby in every 700 born. Each year some 35,000 children are born with cleft deformity and only 10,000 receive medical treatment and the remaining go about their life without ever being able to smile, he added.

A Senior Consultant and Head, Nephrology, Dr Basant Pawar, says there is a Cadaver Transplant Act and also broad regulations. He wants the government to make these applicable. On cadaver transplant, he says no religious concerns are involved.

CMC, he says, is now focusing on diabetes, which will affect at least 20 million people in the next five years of which about 20 per cent will develop kidney complications, including renal failure. Then there is a group of diseases that attack the immune system. “We are not in the business of profit-making. We are now laying stress on cancer, haematology, heart diseases, endocrine medicine, radiation oncology, urology, gastroenterology etc”.

CMC is preparing to apply for a certification by the National Accreditation for Blood Banks and Laboratories, which audits technology and techniques of testing blood and other samples. CMC is also forging foreign tie-ups for teaching and research and is out to computerise its medical management systems and introduce tele-medical services through networking of its hospitals and clinics in a radius of 50 km. Plans for medical education and informatics and quick service for lab tests are on the anvil, including a programme for “film-less” x-rays, MRIs, CT-scans etc.

CMC finances are shrouded in mystery. Officials say that the finances flow from various fees and donations received at home and abroad. There is a “Friends of Ludhiana” group as also a US board. The annual budget is close to Rs 55 crore. There are CMC alumni in several countries. The figures of out patient (52,000 in 2002-03) and inpatient (20,000 in 2002-03) and casualties treated (16,000 in 2002-03) or 400-odd bed occupancy per day at CMC makes an impressive reading. These figures are cited as an example of how CMC is looking up now.

Others say that a former Executive Director of the CMC Board, Dr Charles Reynolds, had collected over US $ 30 million during his 30 months stay. The crux of the matter is that as a “minority” institution, CMC is not starved of funds and the goodwill Brown Hospital or CMC has built over the last one century has enabled it to keep its financial quotient flowing. It also enjoys duty-free import facility and name any equipment, CMC, probably, has it.

The faculty is not permitted private practice and 170-odd faculty seems contented and nursing care is appreciable, leaving aside aberrations here or there.

The Deputy Medical Superintendent, Dr Rajeev Kapoor, says that CMC is reaching out to villages. “Our retrieval service is expected to take-off shortly as the paramedics who are to run a 15-man squad are under six-week training from experts in the UK.

One unique feature of CMC’s “emergency and trauma” services and wards is the provision for “wheel-in” patient trolleys in case of disasters. It provides oxygen, suction and ventilation to several patients, simultaneously. Similarly, the mobike paramedic or commandos are well equipped with life-saving essentials, as in the UK where from the idea is being replicated here. This 15-man squad on mobikes will reach an accident site much earlier than can an ambulance. A special ambulance, an operation theatre on wheels, is also being equipped, as back-up support to the mobike squad. For this CMC has been allotted 104 as the emergency telephone call number.

Perhaps, the most outstanding features of CMC will be its proposed Rs 200-crore “Medicity” project at Rania and Rs 14 crore 7-storeyed hospital complex for housing the super-specialities on the main hospital campus. This building will have a helipad at the roof. The building plans for the two projects are ready. However, work on the 7-storeyed building is stuck up in the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation, which has been embroiled in the usual red-tape syndrome with CMC over petty issues for the past six months.

For the Medicity, 20 acres were donated by Mr Ghansham Singh Lotey to set up a complex in memory of his father. The Medicity will deal with deadly diseases, like AIDS, thalassemia and cancer, besides having five units for facilities in medical, surgical and diagnostic clinics. A rehabilitation centre for the physically challenged children and a hospice unit will ensure gentle care for the terminally ill patients.

CMC, striving to get the status of “deemed university”, is undertaking several social research projects and is keen on “cancer registry” for Punjab with help from the government, NGOs, individuals and institutions for networking to make the region disease-free. All this, despite the inherent infirmities and the discordant notes within CMC.