New Delhi, December 26
Old persons living in nuclear families have very little say in the day-to-day life of their children or grandchildren, says a recent study by the Agewell Foundation, a consortium of over 150 NGOs and 6,500 volunteers spread over 540 Indian districts.

A more troublesome fact is that old persons have reported loneliness or alienation to be their main problem, says the study.

Lesser participation in family or social activities, isolation by relatives, neighbours, physical and mental abuse are some of the problems the elderly face in nuclear families.

A pathetic finding of the study also reveals that nearly every old person who participated in the study admitted to be having many health problems.

Nearly 20% elderly in nuclear families agreed to medical problems being most common, following social issues.

The study further puts forth the fact that despite the tradition of joint family system in India, nuclear families are gaining ground both in urban and rural areas.

The elderly in the family end up as “caretakers”—be it assistance in household chores or accompanying grandchildren to school or looking after the house property in absence of their children.

As many as 10,000 old persons (about 5,000 each from rural and urban areas) were interviewed in nearly 20 states for the purpose of the findings.

Almost 75% old persons are currently living in nuclear families both in rural and urban areas.

Owing to an increase in migration, the joint family system is losing ground in rural areas also.

Although old persons of cities are financially better off in comparison to those living in rural areas, when asked about interpersonal problems being faced in nuclear families, the majority of the respondents said that they were not happy with their current living conditions.

Noida, December 26
The Noida police has not learnt any lesson from the Nithari episode it seems, as it is still not lodging complaints about missing persons.

One such case has come to notice in Sector 26. A woman from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh could not lodge a report about her daughter who had been missing for the past one week. The daughter was working as a maid at a house in Sector 26.

The report was lodged only last evening after intervention from social workers and on the order of the SSP.

The mother, Satya Devi, said, “Around 18 months ago, a woman from a Jha family in Noida’s Sector 26 had come to Gorakhpur to visit her relatives where I used to work as a maid. She wanted a maid for her house and I sent my daughter Khusboo (15) with her. She had agreed to pay Rs 3,000 per month, besides food and clothes.”

“But the lady did not send us the agreed amount of Rs 3,000. We thought we would collect it later. My daughter used to call me once a month. But when she did not call me for one whole month, I called up the lady on the mobile number given by her, but there was no response. I then reached Noida on December 18 and went to the lady’s house. She told me that my daughter had gone missing a few months ago. I went to the Nithari police station to lodge a complaint about this, but was sent back without being heard. It was only after social workers intervened, that a police team took me to the police station. However, I still doubt the police will take any action as we are poor,” said Devi.

When asked about the matter, P. P. Singh, SHO, Sector 20 police station, said, “The said lady is not present at her B-210 house in Sector 26. She has gone out of station. Once she returns, we will question her. The neighbours have said they have not seen any maid at the house in the past few months. We are investigating the matter.” 

New Delhi, December 26
If you find your child suddenly behaving in a disoriented manner, losing focus, for a few minutes and then feeling tired after that, don’t brush it off lightly. It could be a mild epileptic attack, also known as absence seizures.

Absence seizures, which last a few seconds, affect mainly children and can progress to general epileptic seizures.

When Renu noticed her 12-year-old son begin at times to suddenly look distracted and then stare uncomprehendingly at his surroundings, she thought it was one of his pranks.

Her son, Aditya, had a learning and behavioural disability and had also been detected with asthma, and she did not dream it could be a neurological problem.

But the minor absence seizures continued, especially when Aditya would return home from school.

“We all thought Aditya was going blank because he was tired after his day in school. Once I did think of consulting a doctor, but as he would be fine after a two-hour nap, I let it be,” said Renu, a housewife.

After about a month, the child got an epileptic attack, which left his parents shocked as they did not know the reason behind his sudden moaning and shaking while in sleep.

When they approached their paediatrician, he recognised the signs immediately and recommended an EEG (electroencephalography), a test which records the brain’s electrical activity. The test did not show up anything, much to the parents’ relief.

A second epileptic attack took place within a fortnight, and this time there was no mistaking the rolling upwards of the eyes and shaking of the body.

Aditya was unaware of what was going on during his attack. When he awoke, he was aware of a numbing headache and feeling dull and very tired.

According to Sisir Paul, senior consultant, Institute of Paediatrics at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, Delhi, epilepsy among children is “quite common” and he gets around two-three new cases every month in his private clinic in Chittaranjan Park.

He explained that an epileptic attack was different from a seizure disorder, which could be due to tapeworm eggs getting lodged in the brain, also known as neurocysticercosis.

“In true epilepsy, there is no focus. In the case of tapeworm eggs, it shows up in the MRI scan or CT scan. They are not true epilepsy,” Paul said.

Other reasons to trigger epilepsy could also be due to a brain tumour or “scarring in the brain” from a head injury, he said.

According to Rajashekar Reddi, senior consultant neurology at the Max Institute of Neuro Sciences at Saket, “Adequate sleep for an epilepsy patient is a must. Sleep deprivation can act as a potential trigger for an epilepsy attack, and some common antibiotics can also trigger epilepsy.”

However, there are “very good” medicines to treat epilepsy nowadays.

Reddi, who gets about 15 new cases every month, said that the medication should not be stopped arbitrarily by the patient.

“Appropriate dosage of medication, and for adequate or sufficient duration, should be administered, and when a patient has not had an event (epilepsy attack) for around three years, then one can say he or she is out of danger.”

The Indian Epilepsy Association website terms epilepsy as a “common neurological disorder affecting an estimated 50 million people worldwide. India accounts for nearly 10-20 per cent (5-10 million) of the global burden of epilepsy.

“India has just one neurologist for a population of 1.25 million people, in contrast to the US’ one medical expert for 26,200 people.”

According to the site epilepsy.com, absence seizures are also known as petit mal (PET-ee mahl). IANS

New Delhi, December 26
Delhi Transport Corporation’s (DTC) swanky low-floor buses will go through intensive overhaul over the next 45 days in the wake of the recent incidents of buses catching fire in the national Capital.

Tata Motors have sent special engineers to the DTC for carrying out overall checking of the buses to crackdown the reasons behind the frequent fires.

In line with the decision, over 300 low-floor buses remained absent from the roads today. Hundred and fifty buses were sent for check up in the morning shift between 5.30 am and 1.30 pm and another 150 buses were sent in the evening between 1.30 pm and 9 pm.

“The engineers from TATA Motors are doing an overall checking of the low-floor buses due to which around 150 buses remained off the roads in the morning,” said Amit Kumar, information officer, ministry of transport.

The checking will continue till January 31.

However, Kumar claimed that the shortage of buses posed no problem to the commuters in the evening, as the buses which were sent for servicing in the morning were back on roads in the evening.

“Today was weekend and so there were comparatively less commuters. The buses which underwent checking in the morning were sent back to roads in the evening,” he said.

Though DTC did not use old buses to compensate the shortage of low-floor buses today, the officials said they might be used from Monday when the rush would be high.

“We use old buses on some of the busy routes when there is a shortage of new low-floor buses, but Saturday being a holiday, old buses were not used. We will put the old buses on roads from Monday,” he said.

It was after fire in nine low-floor buses in the past one month, that Tata Motors agreed to take action on the maintenance of the fleet.

“We are improving the strength of our maintenance staff at all depots. We have decided to carry out rigorous checks of each and every bus in a time-bound manner. We are carrying out a complete check-up of all the 950 buses by January 31,” said Ravi Pisharody, president, commercial vehicle business, Tata Motors.

New Delhi, December 26
A 21-year-old civil defence cadet was allegedly raped by a man twice inside his car after he offered to drop her from a Chanakyapuri bar last night. The man later dumped her in an unconscious condition in the Dwarka area of south-west Delhi.

A case of rape has been registered at Dwarka police station this morning.

According to the police, the victim had met the accused in a Christmas party at a bar in Chankayapuri. He offered her lift in his car in which he raped her and later dropped her near the Metro station at Dwarka sector 9 last night around 11:45.

A senior police officer said that a case of rape was registered with the Dwarka police station after the girl approached them.

“Neha (name changed) lives in the Safdarjung Enclave area of south Delhi. Last night she had gone to attend a Christmas party which was thrown in a Chanakyapuri bar where she happened to meet one Raj. Both grew intimate and became friends. Raj offered to drop her at her residence. But when the car crossed Dwarka, he gave her something to drink after which Neha staggered. Raj raped her and later threw her in an unconscious condition near the Metro station,” said a senior police officer.

The police officer said that she was taken to a nearby government hospital where her medical examination confirmed rape.

“Neha knows only the name of the accused. She could not note down the car’s number plate. Police has taken her statement and investigation is on,” added the police officer. 

New Delhi, December 26
Cutting short vacations, filling in niggling details on heaps of admission forms, or sitting at the computer for hours - the Capital’s nursery admission process has left the parents of toddlers a worried lot.

According to most parents, the admission process if full of hassles this time - much in contrast to the government’s claim of making it a regularised and smooth process.

Parents say that while all schools started giving the forms on the same date, December 15, the schools had their own different dates of accepting the completed forms.

Said Amiya Sharma, mother of a four-year-old: “The directorate of education (DoE) may be saying that the admission process has been made regular, but the reality is that schools are still doing things as per their own whims and fancies.”

“Almost every school has different dates for submission of the forms. Initially when the process began on December 15, the impression was that it will be a uniform affair. But now some schools will start accepting the forms only next week, while there are others that would have closed form submissions by then,” said Sharma.

“I am so worried that we may miss some deadline, that I have cut short our family vacation to Mumbai from two weeks to one. I don’t think I will be able to enjoy the holidays until my daughter’s admission is done,” Sharma added.

Tedious paper work and questions demanding lengthy answers on the application form which have to be filled by parents is another often heard complaint.

Avanti Das, a bank employee, said that she and her husband had been staying up late into the night to fill up the lengthy forms. “Yesterday I was filling the online form of a school, and when I scrolled down I saw a few questions which needed in-depth answers expressing our opinion. So I had to log out, write down the answers separately, discuss with my husband, and then fill in the form,” Das said.

“Questions like how can the school and parent work together for the benefit of the child, are expected. But to ask me what do I think about the current education system, or have I read any text of Aurobindo is not!” she added.

Sharma further said the process was made “unnecessarily” complicated by some schools that were asking for affidavits which had to be attested by a first-class magistrate and photocopies of educational qualifications of parents attested by a gazetted officer only.

Sharmila Ghosh, an entrepreneur, said: “The government may have said that no school will conduct interviews, but schools are doing it on the sly. I had applied in a south Delhi school for my daughter and yesterday was the last day of submission of the form. I sent my driver to submit it. He called me to say that my husband and I have been asked to come for an interaction immediately.

“The school had only mentioned the time of submission of the form - but it was actually meant for the interaction. Since my husband was at work in Noida and I was in my office in west Delhi at the time, we couldn’t make it to the interview,” she added.

Ghosh said after the experience, she and her husband had decided to take turns to fill and submit forms personally, and had pushed back their vacation until the process is complete.

Since the admission process began for nursery classes on December 15, the education department has received more than a hundred complaints against various schools. Last week, the department warned 19 schools after receiving complaints against them. — IANS

New Delhi, December 26
Irritated with the everyday struggle with the Capital’s unending traffic jams and unexpected processions?

A newly launched website -www.thetrafficpeople.net - is worth checking out before you take to the roads.

Shailesh Sinha, the brain behind the website, said: “We give updated traffic information from time to time. My team members go out on the roads to calculate the actual time lag because of any traffic diversion like a procession or jam.”

The information is regularly updated during the peak traffic hours, between the morning office hours and again from 5 pm to about 9.30 pm.

Sinha said the idea to start a website struck him after his experience of driving to work everyday through patience-testing traffic.

“My team constitutes of all young guns. Some have four years of driving experience, some have six, some are fairly new and others who are as old as 10-year roadsters. We are all united with one aim - to do something about the traffic scenario of the city,” he says on his website.

The website gives driving tips too. It also gives one the option to get SMS alerts on traffic information. — IANS