Ludhiana, January 19
Rural women working on farms, in grain markets or at home, who clean and pack foodgrains do so at the cost of their health. They suffer from muscular stress and pain in joints. All this is due to the wrong body posture while performing these chores.

A recent study by PAU Home Science College’s Family Resource Management has reveals that the rural women engaged in such operations are waiting for innovations that will minimise their agony while cleaning grains and filling gunny bags, an operation which requires them to bend, sit, squat, twist, pull and stretch their body, often the wrong way, leading to lower backache, pain in the forearms, hands, wrists and thighs.

Home scientists Krishna Oberoi, Harshpinder and Ritu Gupta studied 30 rural women randomly selected in Ludhiana to find how they used their energy and measured their heart beat rate and blood pressure as they worked.

The sample women were in the age group of 21 and 45 and of average state of health. The researchers measured the heart rate of the selected women before, during and after performing the various tasks while standing, bending, sitting or squatting on the ground.

It was observed that cleaning of grains was very stressful and tiring and the angle of deviation was more when women bent during work as compared to when they sat or squatted.

The study observed: “Bending and squatting postures were found to be very tiring for women and made them drudgery-prone”. As a result, women experienced more pain in their upper arms, hands, wrists, the lower back and thighs.

The other observation was that the frequency of body posture changes was more while performing the task — sitting, followed by standing, squatting and bending. The higher the frequency of postural changes, higher the muscular stress. “Their grip strength decreased by 8 per cent to 9 per cent. It was more for the left hand”.

Mechanisation has quickened the pace of farm operations and also added to the indebtedness of farmers for want of optimum use of tractors and ancillary machines. Also, mechanisation was “male-centric”. Why have farm, market and home operations requiring involvement of women been overlooked when machines have been designed, modified and invented to make farm operations drudgery and strain-free? Will farm machinery engineers and manufacturers work to devise tools to lessen the drudgery of rural women lending a helping hand to men in agricultural operations?

Ludhiana, January 19
Singapore is fast becoming one of the favourite destinations for Indian students because of its low-cost study packages as compared to other countries. A majority of Indians are showing keen interest in streams like information technology, hotel management, tourism and fashion designing, Mr Kenneth Lim, Area Director, Northern India, Singapore Tourism Board, said here today. He was here in connection with the India International Education Fair.

He said job placements in Singapore were based on merit. Final year students were called for interviews by different companies. University degree holders were getting anything up to Rs 50,000. “As far as the cost of education is concerned, it is much less than other overseas or European countries”, he claimed.

From an international student population of 57,000 in 2002, there were more than 66,000 international students in Singapore. About 5 per cent were Indian. While the students came from more than 60 countries, mostly Singapore attracted students from India, China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Mr Lim said Singapore Education was a multi-government agency initiative launched by in 2003 to establish Singapore as a premier education hub and help international students. As the promotion agency for Singapore Education, the Singapore Tourism Board engaged in promotional activities, including organisation of education exhibitions, conducting public seminars, training of education counsellors and advertising.

Besides, Singapore Education also promoted a mix of educational services with the focus on basic education, higher learning, corporate education and enrichment courses. Mr Lim added,” In order to ensure easier access to credible and accurate information, Singapore Education provides frameworks and processes for admission and student visas for Indian students and the network of Singapore Education specialists accredited in India will grow from 11 to 50 specialists by the year end”.