Does India need land reforms?

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The litchies have disappeared from most of Uttranchal. Its rice famous the world over and exported to western and middle east countries is dwindling.

There are no parks for kids to play.

There are no grounds either. Streets ae not safe to play as they were in seventies.

Houses are built that are juxaposed to each other.

Income tax exemption for house loans exist.

The question is how many houses can or should a family own? People not only buy property which gets appraised easily but also shave off agricultural and forest land.

Housing policies either do not exist or are overlooked.

Is it not the time we have a land reforms policy?

Let people own the property but t has to built according to the conventions. Facilitate owning the first house, impose heavy axes on second and third houses some of which are not occupied.

Let the houses be constructed by either (hitherto corrupt) government sector or by MNCs. Let there be heavy penalty for poor construction, poor compliance with the rules.

Preserve some land now.

Gone are he days when the forest cover was estimated by indirect means. now you have satellite pictures for the real data. So why not have a land reforms act?

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Welcome to the youngest republic!

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I am a common (Indian) man.

I live in a neighborhood where there is no drainage. People constructed houses but did not leave any space for draining channels; instead they encroached part of the road as well. As a result the road is very congested.

The garbage from my house is collected by a woman who brings a cart. I recently realized that the garbage is dumped in a canal which was once meant for irrigating the fields. As a result it often gets choked by polythene bags. Most of my neighbors discuss, we don’t have civic sense when we visit each other. Then we turn a blind eye to the problem.

When I was a kid, I had learnt about the civic amenities in ancient India especially the roads, the drainage system and the houses. But thousands of years later, we still struggle, basking in past glory!

I own a car and a bike – not because I was too fond of these, but because a public transport never existed in my town. People have more vehicles per capita than I have. That doesn’t help because finally those vehicles have to be driven on the same dilapidated roads.

I hear about how toddlers fall in the drill holes that are abandoned after use. I stick to television whenever such a tragedy strikes. TV and other gadgets require electricity. Like most households I need my own alternative to the electricity supply. Most have invertors, some even have generators. I have both for my clinic, but neither for my home.

Most of us have our own water storage system that is meant to store water in surplus to avert a crisis; once through we don’t mind wasting water the most useful commodity on earth. Since we live in a rented house, where an underground tank was not constructed, we were the only one to face the problem when silt clogged the incoming channels after incessant rain. We did a little bit of “water harvesting” by keeping small pots under the front porch.

The water that I get is not fit for drinking or cooking. Therefore I have installed an aqua-guard purifying system in my house. But it gets clogged very frequently. My kids need boiled water to ward off gastrointestinal upsets. I have seen the municipal water purifying plant- lesser said the better. When I raised that issue with authorities few years ago, everyone mocked as apparently I “could not afford” even an aqua guard for my family. Mine turned out to be the loan voice.

The vegetables and fruits I get are far from the best: not only do they contain pesticides through contaminated water, but worse. I see bright green peas in the market. You soak them and the colour goes off. I got adulterated stuff recently during a festive season.

On TV I see, how one can make a fortune by adulterating harmful chemicals to milk. I wish I had space to cultivate my own crops and owned my own cattles. But farming space is dwindling not because of increased demand for land for housing, but due to “investment” in property as there are no land reforms or land management policy.

I am a doctor, but realize that availing the best medical care is elusive in India for most even as India pushes itself as a destination for “health tourism”.

My kids go to a decent school, but most of the formal and informal education in true sense is looked after by us – the parents.

Recently we had a theft in our house. We had to collect the facts about the suspects. Even when we handed over a fifty page dossier to the police, they wanted us to hire a vehicle to be used in a raid. We complied, the suspects were nabbed. Our stolen articles were retrieved according to the press reports, but in reality only “restolen” by the police from the culprit’s house.

I pay taxes. But unlike many, I do not have a parallel “invisible” economy. I wonder why should I, if everything has to be arranged on our own. Over the years, I have developed several abilities that are taken for granted in other countries. If I have to fetch my own water, dump my garbage safely, rear my own cows to ensure qulaity milk supply, cultivate my crop, generate electricity when there is electric failure, be my own policeman, tell me what should I do?

Should I stop paying my taxes?

When I am the one to fix most of my problems, tell me why shouldn’t my house qualify to be the smallest (and youngest) republic of the world?

Why not?


Any one interested in being a citizen? Apply with a detailed account of the skills you posses to survive.

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Can you tell me where is Bangalore?

Flight from Bangalore to Buffalo lands at Baghdad...

Bangalore....

I last heard that name in President Barrack Obama's speech where he wanted American kids to be more serious with their studies so that certain kind of jobs are not outsourced to Bangalore or Beijing....

I hope now the reader understands which Bangalore I am trying to recall.

Some people have renamed it as Bangaluru, its original name. However a change of name can not change the character of a city. Can it?

A muslim girl lives in Bangalore. She was interviewed in a college for admission to a graduate programme. She wore a burqua to her interview. The Principal of the college was present there.

Now after her admission some fundamentalists wanted her first to stop wearing her burqua and then even the scarf over her head. When she did not, the Principal, unable to withstand the wrath of fundamentalists asked her to stop coming to college. That was his wisdom. The Vice Chancellor of the University finds this to be a disciplinary issue beyond their control.

Do you still think this is the same Bangalore that was perceived to be a threat to the kids in Buffalo?

Or is this Bangaluru (no offence to those who support any of the names), a place somewhere near Baghdad?

What should one wear is a personal choice in a democracy.

You don't win elections this way: even if you indulge in introspection exercises after debacle. Introspect and also take issues and not non issues! Thou shall win!

MEDICAL TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY IN INDIA

Few years ago I had heard of an Irish girl seeking the court’s permission to travel to the United Kingdom for terminating her pregnancy following a rape. Here are some case reports of how the issue of abortion is handled in India:

Case I

A mentally challenged woman conceives through rape. A high court in India approves abortion. She has a counsel. (I do not know how she put across her views to the lawyer if she indeed was significantly challenged mentally). They appeal against the verdict citing the victim’s right to maternity. A person who doesn’t have any biological relative should be allowed to have one, the lawyer argued.

The Supreme Court allowed the woman to maintain her pregnancy. I am not sure if she understands the consequences.

Case II

A couple sought the intervention of the court in Mumbai when they learnt their unborn child may have congenital cardiac abnormalities. The court turns down the appeal as the pregnancy is at a rather advanced stage & the likelihood of congenital defects only a possibility that is not established beyond doubt.

The couple is dejected but later has a “spontaneous abortion”.

Case III

A Pediatric intensivist from Delhi’s Escort’s heart institute & research centre (EHIRC) informally shares with me a case of a Gynecologist who went ahead with medical termination of a very advanced (8 months’ plus) pregnancy when she learnt the baby (fetus) had a “patent foramen ovale” reported on an ultrasound!

Foramen ovale is a natural passage meant to support the blood circulation in a fetus: it closes spontaneously after birth. A student of anatomy (subject taught in the first year of MBBS) is supposed to know this elementary fact.

No violation of law, since nothing is official about it!

Case IV

In my own town a prominent clinic resorted to MTP after a triple test (read about the ambiguity of the test in special circumstances in my comments) suggested a possibility of Down’s syndrome. Incidentally, the woman had been treated with certain hormonal preparations including the human chorionic gonadotriphins for her recurrent fetal loss. Whether this could have skewed the test result was not looked into.

Interestingly, the said MTP was undertaken as the pregnancy was at an advanced age!!

In a suspected case of Down’s syndrome, there are better ways than a triple test to determine the risk: chorionic villi sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis.

But such is never the practice in tier II or III cities in India! I seldom see physicians sending in their patients for such screening or genetic counseling.

Why refer when you can have an abortion in the city is the norm for most.

As father of a child with congenital disease, I feel the law needs to be reviewed.

What do you feel?

Please put across your views.

Cheat everyone you can…..

….. no one looking around!


Venu Eye Institute, New Delhi, December 1998.


A cute school girl in her early teens comes with her blind parents: She leads them - her mother holds her shoulder & father holds mother’s. The trio needs help to ensure they don’t bump into the furniture in the passage. Parents had disfigured blind eyes, (we term such eyes pthysical or atrophic).


The child needed an eye examination. The parents did not have any idea what a healthy eye was. Having been blind all their lives, they were alarmed when the child told them she had an eye trouble.


They came to us for a second opinion fearing their child had an ailment that is in some way inherited and she would be blind too one fine day!


But the child only had an episode of viral conjunctivitis that would heal in a week’s time or so.


They were difficult to reassure.


Apparently they had been told by some practicing Ophthalmologist that the child had imminent blindness – it required treatment that was expensive!


The cost of treatment of viral conjunctivitis in India is just around Rs. 50-80, which is less than $2!


Question that baffles me:

It’s bad enough to be blind. Why did the consulting doctor try to extort money from a poor blind couple?

India is a deeply religious country where people pray to appease their respective gods.

They go to temples in the morning & then they go to work to do "diverse activites". No guilt, no insomnia?

Why?

Was President Kalam frisked….

Was President Kalam frisked….

The Continental Airlines has apologized. Or so is the news. The question that remain are

(1) Was he frisked?
(2) If so, how does it matter o a common man?
(3) Why this hype, especially if the man himself chose to be quiet over the issue.

My random thoughts over the issue:

Knowing what the former President, Mr. Kalam is, I was not surprised the way he responded to the issue. It was a graceful response. Should he instead have chosen to argue with the airlines authorities? I disagree.

Why did the airlines treat him the way they did?

Mr. Kalam is not Narendra Modi, who was denied an American visa recently.

Mr Kalam is not Kurt Waldheim either, the late former Secretary General of the United Nations who went on to become the Austrian President and eventually denied entry to the US for his pro Nazi past.

When another former Indian President, Mr. K. R. Narayanan was asked in Paris if he was “untouchable”, he had addressed the issue by politely saying, “I am just the President”.

An Indian former President is just that – a former President with whom I associate my national pride. Mr. Kalam, the people’ president has a Pan Indian appeal, that is what I would like the Continental Airlines to know.

Compare our former President with some others across the border:

During President Zia’s martial law in Pakistan, Cops fired and killed a dog, since some one painted, “I am Zia” over his body!

If you circulate an SMS joke about Mr. Asif Zardari, they now have a provision of fourteen years’ imprisonment!

Go further ahead and compare the simple life style of Mr. Kalam with those of Mr. Silvio Berloscuni or Sarkozy and you would no why he was the people’s President. Sarkozy reportedly spends around £ 660 over flowers for Carla. Berloscuni indulges in things that will put Bill Clinton in shame!

If instead of Mr Kalam the airlines had chosen to rub any of the petty politicians of Indian origin, such as the one obsessed with erecting her own statues across her state, it would not affect the common man that I think I am.

Someone rightly said that Air India wouldn’t treat Hillary Clinton the same way!

I don’t fly overseas, but would like to remember the Continental Airlines so as not to board any of their flights.

An infrequent flier.

Did you find it difficult to get a disablity certificate?

Year: 1991.

Place: Office of the Disability board, at a government run hospital near second stop, 1250 quarters, Bhopal.

Purpose of visit: To obtain a disability certificate for a patient.

I had accompanied a person with disability to this hospital. We wanted a certificate for which this was the scheduled day. Once a month or so this board used to meet.

The concerned patient was examined by an Orthopedician and we were sent to an adjacent office.

That's where we were asked to pay ....

There was a nominal charge for the procedure. We tendered the amount but the extra money was not returned to us, instead we were asked for a "handsome amount" as official fee. We asked for a receipt. We were denied as that happened to be a Saturday and the receipt book was in a locked cupboard, which could only be opened on Monday, when another clerk would be on duty!

So far, I had not revealed my identity as medical resident at a hospital associated to the medical college in Bhopal.

I decided to meet the Ophthalmologist, a lady called Dr. Bakshi who eventually helped us.

After resolving the matter for us she took us to a senior doctor and said, "Sir, all this needs to be curbed, else everyone who comes here would feel we have a share in the transaction". She urged a serious response and she looked sincere.

I don't know how many patients would be going there without a resident from a medical college.

Most would pay! Some would bargain - and settle for a smaller amount! Others would use a contact who would make a call!

Not many tend to fight for hundred rupees in India! Most have an opportunity to siphon off thousands from other places!!

But as a practicing ophthalmologist, I know many of my visually challenged patients do not earn enough and certainly have no potential to siphon off money from elsewhere.

Can't the corrupt system be a bit lenient to people with difficulties?

That's a point to ponder.

Let's try to bell the cat!

The girl who fought for Rs. 100/-

This girl is Megha Jacob from Kollam.

A girl who took on the education system, for a paltry scholarship of Rs. 100/- that was being denied just because the person in charge of the affair was on leave. She begged the scholarship when she was 10, but got it now that she is 13.

She thus became the youngest RTI activist in the country. Her stand helped others get the same scholarship as well.

Hats off to her!!


Manish

Introduction

When was it you visited a government official or a babu who declined to offer you what you felt you always deserved as a citizen of this country?

May be you wanted to know why there has been delay in providing you some information, a document or some thing of that sort?

May be a telephone needs to be shifted somewhere, but you are told you need to contact the line man first?

Or, may be the boss is not around?

Or, Vermaji who normally looks after the specified job is on leave?

If these are the excuses for delay in accomplishing the task, you are welcome to this blog.

Please share, what happened an how did you manage here. It will help many other Underprivileged Indians like you!


Manish

Introduction