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Wednesday,
August 28, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Relief over tribunals Will it go beyond rituals? In troubled waters |
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Facing the contradiction in creed How defence can benefit from private participation
Of three boys and a murder
How to avoid divorce Don’t
ignore early morning chest pains
Couple poisoned by mushrooms
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Relief over tribunals THE Union Government’s decision not to abolish the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has expectedly brought relief to lakhs of government employees. There was widespread resentment among them when the Union Cabinet last month decided to amend the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, which would have empowered the Centre to abolish the CAT and also consider requests from some state governments for doing away with the State Administrative Tribunals (SATs). The CAT was established in November, 1985, for the adjudication or trial of disputes and complaints with respect to the recruitment and conditions of service of Central Government employees. Its establishment by taking away the jurisdiction of the courts of law, including High Courts, in service matters was certainly an innovative step considering the faith and respect the judiciary enjoys in the country. The issue in question now is whether the CAT and the SATs have achieved the objective of providing quick and inexpensive justice in service matters to the government employees. The reason more cases are filed in the CAT than in the High Courts is not difficult to fathom. The long time involved in getting the verdict of High Courts because of their preoccupation with a large number of cases acted as a sort of disincentive to approach them except in serious cases. The High Courts entertained cases only under Article 226 of the Constitution when the rights guaranteed to government employees under Article 311 or their fundamental rights were prima facie violated. One problem these tribunals have been facing over the years is that the employees file applications before them even in matters involving minor penalties such as the stoppage of increments and censure, adverse entries recorded in their annual confidential reports and transfer from one post to another within the same station. Two questions arise in this regard. First, should so much of time and effort of a judicial body be used in matters where constitutional rights of individuals are not at stake? And, secondly, should the tribunals hear cases even in respect of grievances where the basic rights of employees are not involved and where there is evidence of the application of mind of a superior official without prejudice? Clearly, it should be possible for the government to ensure justice to the employees by providing a system of appeal in such cases to an impartial functionary within the government. The CAT should explore the possibility of evolving a procedure for the disposal of these matters on perusal of relevant documents and written submissions without providing for oral arguments and hearing. Even in cases where oral arguments are allowed, they should be restricted to, say, 30 minutes unless the tribunal specifically grants a longer time, having regard to the complicated nature of the case. The grievances of employees should be looked at not merely from the judicial point of view with reference to rights of individuals but also from the angle of public interest and administrative compulsions. This is the rationale for the requirement that each case should be heard by a judicial member and an administrative member sitting together. Often, orders of the tribunal flow from the failure of the government departments to properly project the administrative interest involved or even from their non-representation. It is in this context that the selection of tribunal members having extensive experience in dealing with service matters assumes significance. |
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Will it go beyond rituals? THE World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) which opened in Johannesburg on Monday is the biggest gathering of its kind ever, with over 100 heads of government or state attending it. The opportunities it offers are also gigantic. But whether something substantial will emerge out of it is highly doubtful. It is the past experience that makes one so cynical. The 1992 Earth Summit at Rio De Janeiro was similarly touted as an ideal means to bridge the gap between economic development and environment protection, but the link is still as elusive as ever. Nobody admits it publicly but The Rio Charter and Agenda 21 that it produced remained on paper mostly. It will be a miracle if Rio+10, as the current summit is called, achieves anything more. The problem is that so much needs to be done in the field of sustainable development that nothing gets done. The agenda of water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity concerns each and every person out of the six billion populating planet earth, but is somehow always given secondary importance. Inequalities between the developed and the developing world are so vast that they are living on different planets for all practical purposes. The differences show clearly this time as well. Various peripheral issues threaten to overshadow the summit. And yet, at least for form’s sake, the 4000-plus delegates are hopeful of a positive outcome. The overall focus is on getting commitments for integrating action in three vital areas. These are environment and social development, economic growth and equity and conservation of natural resources. The 10-day summit aims to halve the more than one billion people without access to clean water and the more than two billion without proper sanitation. Another aim is to develop specific plans for expanding the poor people’s access to electricity and health care, to reverse the degradation of agricultural land and to protect the global environment. The need for doing so is paramount. The Rio letdown has made life miserable for everyone except a privileged few. There has been a debilitating climate change, forests have been degraded almost everywhere and the consequences of unequal and profligate consumption stare the entire humanity in the eye. If only all the world leaders could put their heads together, they could improve lives of everybody with the least cost to the governments. That requires vision and statesmanship of the highest order. The chances of that display are bleak, what with the US President deciding to give the summit a go-by and holiday in Mexico! The USA could have been a catalyst for positive action, but its resistance to setting specific targets and its demands that poor nations show good governance before receiving financial aid might prove to be the undoing of the summit instead. The EU on its part has refused to drop subsidies that protect domestic industries and agriculture, an issue that infuriates developing nations struggling to get access to European markets. All such narrow divisions make the world summit a lame duck. |
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In troubled waters PAKISTAN’S inducting a new submarine in Karachi last week would have been a routine event, but for its timing. When tensions are already high between New Delhi and Islamabad, a Pakistani official Press release said that the induction of the Agosta 90-B class submarine, known as Khalid, would serve as “a deterrent against adventurous designs”. Such statements do not help the peace process. This submarine is the second in a series of three that are being built under a 1996 agreement between France and Pakistan. Earlier in the year, 11 French technicians working on the submarine were killed in a terrorist attack in Karachi, though work continued. The Agosta has anti-submarine and anti-surface capabilities and can also gather intelligence — all in all, an impressive machine. It seems that even as world attention is focused on Kashmir and land forces, Islamabad has continued with its naval build-up. There is no doubt that the Indian Navy enjoys superiority over the Pakistani Navy. India has 19 submarines compared to Pakistan’s 10 and the total strength of our Navy is more than double that of Pakistan. However, defence experts opine that the cutting edge of superiority that India enjoyed for long has been eroded. We have a massive sea coast that has to be defended from direct military intervention as well as infiltration. For this the Navy needs better infrastructure and modern weaponry, which is hugely expensive. The nation has only one aircraft carrier, though there has been much controversy over the carrier Gorshkov that the Indian Navy is supposed to acquire from Russia. Certain developments have made the defence establishment more aware of the need to keep an eye on sea lanes and the coastal regions, in order to prevent any “Kargil-style” infiltration. For such operations, the Coast Guard also needs to be strengthened. With increasing incidents of ship hijacking, gun-running, drug smuggling, etc, the line between war and peace is becoming blurred. The Navy has been conducting joint exercises with friendly forces. It has a reputation built up over the years. It even escorted US war cargo ships carrying fuel, ammunition, food and other supplies to Afghanistan in August. Indeed, the new situation in the subcontinent demands new responses. New challenges have to be met effectively. For this the armed forces must be fully modernised with the latest equipment to do the job expected of them. |
Facing the contradiction in creed PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s belated admonition on the outrageous remarks of the Gujarat Chief Minister about Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh is symptomatic of the malaise afflicting the Bharatiya Janata Party. There are not only different centres of power in the larger family, the Sangh Parivar, but they also possess the ability to push the envelope to secure partisan advantage. The BJP had set its heart on early elections in Gujarat to exploit the polarisation of the Hindu and Muslim communities following the terrible riots in the state. The bullying tactics of BJP spokesmen, ranging from Mr Arun Jaitley reading Mr Lyngdoh the riot act to another accusing him of being partisan to the opposition Congress, did not succeed. The federal government referred the matter to the Supreme Court through the country’s President. But Gujarat’s Narendra Modi was so frustrated that he sought to make fun of the election official’s name and imputed motives to him for declining to certify that elections could be held fairly, allegedly because he shared his faith with fellow Christian and opposition leader Sonia Gandhi. Mr Lyngdoh himself answered the charge by describing the criticism as “despicable” and called to account the dirty game of politics. Mr Murli Manohar Joshi was the first BJP leader to criticise Mr Modi but it took a further 24 hours for the Prime Minister to weigh in with his admonition through a statement put out by his office. It was as if the crudeness and religious bigotry implied by Mr Modi’s remarks and public astonishment over Mr Vajpayee’s silence had compelled the Prime Minister’s office to pitch in. And thereby hangs a tale. Having decided to resurrect an aggressive form of Hindutva to try to stem the party’s precipitate decline, the BJP has little leeway to discipline loose canons like Mr Narendra Modi. Normally, it is left to the affiliates of the Sangh Parivar to voice extremist and objectionable views on building the temple at Ayodhya as on other matters. But when the Chief Minister of a state ruled by the BJP chooses to broadcast his communal bias from the housetops, it takes on a different and more menacing complexion. In building its Hindutva platform, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s mentor, and the party have been careful to take all religions in the ambit of the concept although their antipathy towards Muslims is well known. It is in the larger cultural concept of Hindutva that the RSS and the BJP can accommodate India’s pluralist society and their adherence to secularism is similarly circumscribed. Thus, when a person holding the Chief Minister’s position demolishes this edifice at one stroke, it is at the very least a matter of great embarrassment for the party. The surprise is not merely in Mr Modi’s articulation of his feelings but in the Prime Minister’s apparent inability to sack a man who feels no compunction in misusing religion to condemn a high constitutional authority. It is no secret that Mr Modi enjoys the protection of the RSS whose functionary he has been and, as the Goa session of the BJP revealed, the hard line prevailed there, despite the shame of the Gujarat riots. The Prime Minister readily fell in line. A major problem facing the federal government is that a democracy cannot run without sets of rules and norms. There has been a debasement of values and rules in recent times cutting across all political parties. Older, better educated men and women espousing liberal values have been replaced by more parochial and narrow-minded persons, in many ways more representative of the country. Whatever its failings, this churning process is the essence of democracy providing the less advantaged with a peaceful road to power. But good governance has suffered as a consequence as the onslaught on constitutional institutions proceeds apace. Some states are better governed than others, but a matter of surprise was the descent of Gujarat into vicious communal riots and the flaunting by its BJP-ruled government of its Hindutva faith. Gujaratis are, as a rule, entrepreneurial people spread out around the world in an influential diaspora. Instead of repairing the immense harm done to the state by the riots, the BJP is conducting exercises in triumphalism. It is against this backdrop that Mr Modi’s remarks must be placed. If there is an awareness in the BJP of the party’s unguided missile in Gujarat, the central leadership seems helpless in countering it. For a British and international constituency, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani can declare in London that the Gujarat riots were indefensible. At home and particularly in the state of Gujarat, the BJP sings an entirely different tune. Mr Modi is, in fact, lionised by the party loyalists and has achieved the status of a folk hero. Where this cynical exploitation of religion in the quest for power will lead Gujarat and the country is another matter. The long and short of it is that the BJP is again facing the central contradiction of its creed: how can a party believing in Hindutva, with all that it implies, reconcile itself with the task of governing a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country? Mr Advani had, in a sense, brought the party to power in Delhi through his infamous Rath Yatra employed to arouse the voters to his religious theme song to great effect. The important point of difference between then and now is that the BJP was then in the opposition and the consequences of rabble-rousing religious discourses are entirely different for the party leading a coalition at the Centre. Perhaps only Mr Advani can begin to resolve his party’s dilemma. After the shock of election reverses in the states, the BJP had been gearing up to present a new, rejuvenated face to the country. The party’s president was changed and given a Cabinet portfolio, to the disregard of his own wishes. Mr Jaitley was demoted to the position of the party spokesman although later given the sop of a new Cabinet portfolio. There was an element of half-heartedness and desperation to these changes because party stalwarts had quickly grown used to the power and privileges of Cabinet berths and were loath to return to hack party work. As the run of scandals dogging the BJP leaders testifies, there seems little idealism left in lighting the lamps of Hindutva, except perhaps for full-time RSS functionaries. At the very least, the BJP has been unmindful of Lord Acton’s warning about the corrupting influences of power. The writer is a former Editor of The Statesman. |
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How defence can benefit from private participation INDIA’S dependence on war equipment imports came to the fore yet again as war clouds loomed large on the subcontinent. In May, 2001, the Government of India opened up the defence equipment manufacturing sector for private participation, yet more than 50 per cent of our requirement still continues to be imported at a heavy cost in foreign exchange. India has spent more than Rs 40,000 crore during the last 10 years on the purchase of foreign defence equipment. Had this been manufactured in the country, it would have not only saved the foreign exchange but also provided employment to the millions of unemployed youth in the private sector. The shortage of spares for aircraft, armour and artillery units would also not have been there as it is today. The government has fixed norms for these private participants as also for foreign direct investment in this sector. Any company that desires to manufacture defence equipment should be 100 per cent privately owned or a partnership enterprise, and can have foreign equity to the extent of 26 per cent. There is no minimum capitalisation provision in the norms for the private sector. The Ministry of Defence has invited the private sector to advanced armament production fields like surveillance systems, weapon locating radars, night-vision devices and long-range target engagement means where the country lacked the capability. India was facing two major obstacles in this field of “non-availability of technology and absence of advanced manufacturing capability”. The private sector has already made some access to ordnance factories and defence research laboratories. It has a different story to tell. Mr George Fernandes, Union Defence Minister, says, “the high degree of skill and relatively lower cost of our technical manpower” is India’s unique selling point. India provides an excellent opportunity for the developing and developed world “to source cost-effective goods and services from our defence production industry”. “As part of the 70 per cent self-reliance plan for defence systems by 2005, the government proposes to increase private sector involvement in defence design and production from 10 to 30 per cent.” It was to facilitate this that the government had opened up seven Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories to the private sector that dealt with dual technologies, biotech products and software engineering. The DRDO had originally designated 2000 as the target year for enhancing the indigenous content of defence equipment from the present 30 to 70 per cent. These are highly ambitious plans but unrealistic too. Mr Atul Kirloskar of the Pune-based Kirloskar group says that his enterprise has received no information regarding the technologies available with the DRDO laboratories, which the government claims to have opened up for the private sector. His group interacts with DRDO laboratories only to refine their products, which is a peanut. He maintains, “Cumbersome procedures together with the price and purchase preference given by the Ministry of Defence to the defence public sector undertakings, ordnance factories and those private enterprises quoting a lower price rather than considering vital aspects like quantity, after-sales support, product reliability and so on are keeping private participants away from the defence sector.” Though the private as well as the state-controlled defence sectors together produce around Rs 10,000 crore worth of military hardware annually, the private sector has primarily played a subcontractor’s role rather than that of a partner-in-arms. It has been reported that most of the 39 ordnance factories are functioning at half their capacity. The Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) has rapped the DRDO for squandering Rs 2,274.27 crore on delayed projects that have yet to come up, but the money has been sanctioned. The light combat aircraft (LCA) programme, for instance, has been held up for the last 10 years and has cost the country Rs 2,135 crore. For the upgradation of MiG 21 BIS, the country had to pay extra for a delayed action. Similarly, an additional Rs 60 crore had to be spent on the Indian version of the airborne warning and control system (AWACS) which is yet to be manufactured. For multi-barrel Pinaka rocket launchers an additional Rs 80 crore had to be spent for an inordinate delay on the part of the MoD. If the Pinaka rocket launchers were made available from the very beginning during the Kargil war hundreds of precious lives of soldiers would have been saved. The private sector feels that there is need for the government to be more transparent if proposals for cooperation are to fructify. Exposing the private sector and the military industry to each other will make them competitive and enhance the efficiency and quality of military supplies. This can be a positive step towards achieving self-sufficiency in the defence sector. The author is a retired Colonel and defence analyst.
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Of three boys and a murder Evenings for Lalita Prasad were equally grilling. He would do his home work for he loved his studies and then cook the evening meal before rushing to the pavement to help his father. The duo would return home only after 10 pm. But March 28, 1995, turned out to be a different day in the life of Lalita Prasad. His father sent him home at 9 pm with Rs 13,000 in cash, which he had saved for the whole month. Obviously, it was a day of achievement and happiness. He wanted his son to cook some special food that day so that they could celebrate. At 10.30 pm an elated Jagan Nath headed for his home. From a distance, he saw his home plunged in darkness. He was a bit baffled: "Yeh Lalita itni jaldi so bhi gaya"? The door was ajar and Jagan Nath reached for the electricity switch. Aghast, he saw the walls splattered with blood and his loving son lying in a pool of blood. His head was crushed with a stone. When the Sector 26 police team comprising Inspector Vijay Kumar, SIs Maghi Ram and Partap Singh, began investigations, it was a blind case. The cash (Rs13,000), a gold chain and a ring that Lalita Prasad was wearing were missing. For 39 days the team remained clueless. On the 40th day, the team noticed the sniffing dog was repeatedly reaching the door of a neighbourhood boy, Sanju alias Jumma, son of Sohan Lal. "The boy, aged 13, looked too young. Also, he did not betray any fears of the police and even served water, tea whenever we visited. When asked whether he had anything to do with the murder, he confidently denied any involvement and instead claimed friendship with Lalita. But the sniffing dog refused to budge. Finally, we arrested him as a suspect. He continued to mislead the police but gave the names of two other boys, Lakhwinder Singh, son of Chuni Lal, and Bir Singh, son of Kishan Lal, whom he claimed to have seen in Lalita Prasad's house on that evening. We then arrested the other two as well. "All the three stuck to their denial of any role in the murder. But when we brought the fathers of the boys to the police station, they panicked. The youngest of the three was the first to blurt out. The money had been squandered by the elder two and the youngest was happy to have a coke, an ice cream and a couple of packets of chips as his share", recalls Inspector Vijay Kumar. They were tried in the juvenile court at Chandigarh. The boys themselves helped the police recover the stolen goods like the gold chain, the ring, the purse and the wrist watch of Lalita. Taking into consideration all facts and the circumstances, the court ordered on March 24, 1999, the release of all the three on probation of good conduct on their furnishing personal bond of Rs 10,000 each and two sureties each of the like amount for a period of two years. Three years after the verdict this correspondent went on the trail of the three accused boys and Lalita Prasad's father. Wading through the stinking inner lanes, dilapidated staircases of houses with chaotic numbering, locating their houses in Bapu Dham Colony turned out to be an uphill task. Sohan Lal, father of Sanju, had sold his house within two months of the judgement and nobody in the locality was aware about their whereabouts. However, Lakhwinder Singh, alias Lucky, has taken his father's seat as a tea-vendor on the pavement in the Sector 26 subzi mandi. His mother, Kunti Devi said, "My husband is keeping ill-health and now Lucky takes care of the family". Lakhwinder reaches the shop in the wee hours of the morning and works there till midnight. His three younger brothers also help him. He is able to earn about Rs 5,000 a month. Bir Singh, on the other hand, works for a furniture contractor. He has learnt the skill of polishing wooden furniture. While his father is a mason, his elder brother, Sushil Kumar, works as a salesman in a jewelry shop. His younger brother works as an assistant with a curtain expert. Bir Singh brings home anything between Rs 2, 500 and Rs 3,000. The grief of Jagan Nath has aged him beyond his years. Even today his voice gets choked when he says, "I did not get justice". He has preserved the full file of the murder case of his son in the hope that somebody might reopen the case. He had disposed of his house within six months of the murder because he could not bear to live in the same locality. "Lalita Prasad's body and his splattered blood on all the walls haunt me till date. I could not sleep for months together. I have three more sons but my wife refuses to send even one here to me. She is so paranoid about them that she wakes up many a time in the night and checks each one of them to ensure that they were with her and alive. Look what these boys have done to my family”! "With great difficulty, I persuaded my wife to send at least my daughter here. She cooks food for me and is now studying in Class XII. But nobody can fill the vacuum left by Lalita Prasad. Do you think the police will reopen the case? Will the killers of my son get punished"? asks Jagan Nath with child-like innocence. |
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How to avoid divorce HOPING to avoid divorce? It helps if you’re wealthy, religious, college-educated and at least 20 years old when you tie the knot. Couples who don’t live together before marriage have a better shot at staying together, as do those whose parents stayed married. By age 30, three in four women have been married, but many of those unions dissolve. Overall, 43 per cent of marriages break up within 15 years, according to a government survey of 11,000 women that offers the most detailed look at cohabitation, marriage and divorced ever produced. Black women are least likely to marry and most likely to divorce, with more than half splitting within 15 years. Asian marriages are the most stable, with Whites and Hispanics in between. Women are waiting longer to get married than they used to, and after a divorce, they are less likely to remarry than women once were. At the same time, couples are more likely to live together without getting married: Half of US women had lived with a partner by the time they turned 30. The survey, released by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 70 per cent of those who lived together for at least five years did eventually walk down the aisle. But these marriages are also more likely to break up. After 10 years, 40 per cent of couples that had lived together before marriage had broken up. That compares with 31 per cent of those who did not live together first. That’s partly because people who choose to live together tend to be younger, less religious or have other qualities that put them at risk for divorce, said Catherine Cohan, assistant professor of human development and family studies at Penn State University. But that may not fully explain it, she said. “Many people enter a cohabiting relationship where the deal is, ‘If this doesn’t work out we can split up and it’s no big loss because we don’t have a legal commitment’,” she said. Still, many believe that living together first is an essential testing period for a relationship. “Most couples who decide to move in together do so because they take marriage very, very seriously. They want to be absolutely sure this is the right person before they say, ‘I do’ for a lifetime,” said Dorian Solot, executive director of the Boston-based Alternatives to Marriage Project. But she added that expectations better be the same. “If one of you thinks you’re headed for the altar and the other thinks you’re just splitting the cost of rent, you’re both in for a surprise,” she said. The report, based on 1995 data, found other groups facing a high risk of divorce, including: l Young people. Nearly half of those who marry under age 18 and 40 per cent under age 20 get divorced. Over age 25, it’s just 24 per cent. The difference is maturity, says Chicago psychologist Kate Wachs. l Non-religious people. Of those who don’t affiliate with any religious group, 46 per cent were divorced within 10 years. l Children of divorce. Women whose parents were divorced are significantly more likely to divorce themselves, with 43 per cent splitting after 10 years. Among those whose parents stayed together, the divorce rate was just 29 per cent. l Kids. Half of the women who had kids before marriage were divorced in 10 years. Nearly as many couples who never had kids also wound up divorced.
AP
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Don’t ignore early morning chest pains PEOPLE should not ignore chest pains occurring in the early hours of the day as it could be a sign of an impending heart attack, says an expert here. But K.K. Aggarwal, President of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), also said that people generally assume every pain in the chest as a prelude to heart attacks. “Any pain that can be pinpointed by the finger is not a heart attack. The pain of heart attack is never localised. They occur diffusely in the centre of the chest and the patient may feel either a burning sensation, chest pain or heaviness in the centre of the chest,” said Aggarwal. “Chest pains that occur for less than 30 seconds are not heart attacks. Patients normally panic after every pain.” The general indication of a heart attack is when a patient says: “I am feeling as if a heavy weight has been put over my chest.” About 2.5 million people die of heart attack every year in India, out of which 1.8 million die before reaching the hospital. Doctors say this is because patients are not able to diagnose the disease and ignore it as a normal pain that finally becomes fatal. “Early morning chest pains should never be ignored as most heart attacks occur in the morning,” said Aggarwal. Doctors say most heart attack related deaths occur in the first year of the onset of chest pain. “People often ignore these pains and pass it off as acidity or gas formation. This often end up in sudden death,” said Aggarwal. He said it was not necessary for a heart attack to occur with chest pain. Even unusual or unexplained chest pain and breathlessness may be a manifestation of an underlying massive heart attack. He also advised people to take honey and almonds and avoid white sugar in their diet. “People aiming to lower their cholesterol level should switch to honey instead of white sugar and eat more almonds, fresh fruits and vegetables,” he said. Studies show that almonds help to reduce cholesterol by five to 10 per cent.
IANS
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Couple poisoned by mushrooms AN Italian couple who mistakenly ate lethal Death Cap mushrooms have undergone emergency liver transplants in a desperate bid to save their lives, a hospital spokesman said on Monday. The married couple, who were not named, ate the highly poisonous fungus last week while on holiday in central Italy and were rushed to hospital in the city of Bologna just hours later after falling violently ill. The man and woman, aged 44 and 39 respectively, slipped into comas on Saturday. Four teams of surgeons carried out the five-hour-long liver transplants on Sunday and the pair are recovering in intensive care. Mushroom hunting is a popular hobby in Italy and following summer rains thousands of people scour the countryside in search of edible mushrooms for succulent risotti and pasta dishes. However, some mushrooms can be deadly and the Death Cap fungus is regarded as one of the most lethal plants known to science. A single bite into the white-fleshed mushroom can prove fatal, with its toxins attacking primarily the liver. There is no known antidote. Reuters
Dead foetus found in six-month-old boy
Indian doctors have removed a foetus weighing one kilogram from a six-month-old boy. “We could not believe that we would have to remove a dead foetus weighing a kilogram from a child weighing 6.5 kg,” Dr Pradip Kumar Mukherjee, who led the team of Kolkata doctors that operated on the boy on Monday, told Reuters. “It is a rare case.” Doctors use the medical term “foetus in fetu” to describe a phenomenon in which an imperfect foetus is contained within the body of its sibling.
Reuters Hand transplants more likely in future
Hand transplants are likely to be performed more frequently in the future as studies show that rejection of the new appendage can be controlled by drugs, experts said on Monday. Patients should be able to live relatively normal lives, they said. The world’s first hand transplant was performed in 1998 and since then only 11 cases have been reported. However, studies show that rejection can be controlled effectively with most anti-rejection drugs used in organ transplantation without serious complications, delegates at the Transplantation Society’s international congress heard. Critics have said such drugs can make patients susceptible to infections and tumor growth, calling into question whether the risks outweigh the benefits. But studies by Italian, French and U.S. teams said none of these complications have yet affected recipients of hand transplants. Some had transient problems such as high blood sugar but these were corrected.
Reuters |
Life like the ripples on waters is unstable; the charms of youth stay but a few days; wealth is like a fleeting memory; enjoyment of senses are momentary like the flash of lightning in the rainy season; so too is the delightful embrace of the beloved wife. Take heed, O man; to cross the ocean of life merge themselves in Brahma. We are like mere pawns in this world — a board — whereon God Mahakala is playing at dice with his consort Kali, the dice being the night and day. The enjoyments of the world, the pleasures of senses, are like the flash of lightning in the raincloud. The life of man is transitory like drops of water sticking to clouds scattered hither and thither by the blast of winds. The passions and hopes of youth are turbulent. Let the wise ones, therefore, collecting their mind with patience, enter yoga. Our parents have long left us. Our friends who flourished and grew with us, they too are now lost to memory. We are now like the trees that stand on the sandy banks of a river, with roots gradually crumbling and washing away with the dash of the inrushing currents. Like the dreaded wolf old age stands threatening at the door. Diseases like enemies beseige the citadel of health. Life like water from the cracked water-jar silently flows away. What a wonder that man, in the teeth of all these facts, should act in a way harmful to himself. O, the misery of old age! The body shrivels up. The gait becomes unsteady. The teeth give way. The eyes do not see, the ears do not hear. His mouth constantly begins to emit saliva. An old man’s advice goes unheeded. The wife or relations do not look after him. And to crown all, even a son rises in rebellion. — Songs from Bhartrihari *** Tell me O Shiva, when shall I find solitude, be freed from all desires and obtain peace? When shall my hand serve me as the sole receptacle to receive water, and the space around cover me as with garments? When shall I be able to uproot the tree, born of the fruit of my karmas, and obtain liberation from rebirth, the direct consequence of our actions? — Songs from Bhartrihari |
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LALITA PRASAD (14) was an obedient son. Although a student of Class 8, he also worked with his father, Jagan Nath, a vegetable seller. He used to wake up at 3 am with his father and go to the subzi mandi in
Chandigarh’s Sector 26 to buy vegetables. Both would then carry the gunny bags of vegetables on their backs and spread them on a pavement for sale in retail. The whole exercise would take at least two hours. Once his father would take charge, Lalita Prasad would run home and cook food for both of them. He would then rush to the Government High School in Bapu Dham Colony, not forgetting to leave the tiffin for his father. No wonder, he was the most adored son of Jagan Nath.