Choices we have to make :-(

And thank you political cartoonists for being so direct and so right! Hamlet told his friend Horatio once - "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." What do we know about what must really be going on at the highest levels of global politics? But is it any wonder of the great friends American Government keeps to keep steady the price of oil? But then, I am just being hypocritical myself by saying only the American Government has to do this. Ive been hearing costly oil for a while now. Will anything ever spur us to start looking into alternative energy sources, and cleaner technologies to run our industrial behemoth?

Pat Oliphant,
www.slate.com
23 Feb, 2011

The Truth.

Drew Sheneman,
http://www.slate.com/

The Past.

Ted Rall,
www.slate.com

once again, the healthcare of a superpower?

In the midst of the Cricket World Cup, and if people can take their minds off it, the happenings in Libya and the rest of the Middle East, 12 would-be mothers lost their lives in the past two weeks in Jodhpur after being put on infected glucose IV drips. There were 7 deaths in the Umaid Hospital, and 5 deaths in the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital. The toll could go higher, with a few mothers battling for their lives in these hospitals currently. In Umaid hospital some time ago, a few children were infused with HIV positive blood.

Okay, what does this do to the trust that the local population has on the government machinery for healthcare? On the same note, what other options do the poor populace of the region have to obtain their basic healthcare?

Both are rhetorical questions but unfortunately, will never invoke the kind of self-analysis or debate that our society should be doing about the ability of the state to provide even the minimum required healthcare to its citizenry. Like I said, we are too busy trying to a global economic power, and I am quite sure that for a politician, providing incentives to business interests is any day easier than providing the most basic social infrastructure to his or her constituency, which in the case of the Governmint of India, is the citizens of the Republic of India.

Coming back to the tragedy in Jodhpur, the government, both at the state and center, seems to have swung into action, and everything seems to be pointing to the cause being spurious IV fluids being supplied to the hospital. Some officials from the Hospitals and other regional officials have been suspended, including the drug inspector for the area and a high level committee comprising a few doctors will look into the matter and give a report to the government in some time. This article from the Indian Express provides a timeline of the dealths, and also mentions that the health minister of the state actually visited the hospital after the first few deaths were reported but gave a clean chit to the hospital.

Would it be out of the ordinary for anybody to expect that everybody will forget about this tragedy in a few days, the media will move onto the next scandal, and after some exchange of funds and some scapegoats, life will be on as usual in our government hospitals?

While the news is being reported in the national media, their usual penchant for sensationalism and yellow journalism gets the better of them sometimes, as this headline from Prannoy Roy's New Delhi Television demonstrates: Jodhpur Tragedy: the Hospital that Orphaned 12 babies.

This permeation of spurious medication is widely prevalent all across the country, and it is very very dangerous, apart from being apalling that the Goverment of India and all the state governments are not keen to tackle this at a war footing. There is not one corner of this country which is safe from the tentacles of this potential tragedy. In Manipur, a fake racket was busted, and what shocked me the most was this line in that story: The two organisations set Surjit Singh free after making him sign an agreement that he would not repeat such fraud in future. Such people who have been making money at the cost of risking the lives of thousands of people do not deserve such mercy that the two NGO's of Manipur showered on this spurious drug manufacturer. He should have been castrated and then handed over to the police who should have thrashed him more and then registered a case.

There was another news item I came across recently, about the government finally waking up to the gravity of the situation, and medicine strips will have bar codes on them to allow for better monitoring.

Drug Consultative Committee (DCC) -- in its last meeting on Febuary 15 -- has approved the proposal that for every strip of medicine available in India ought to have a 2D bar code and a unique randomly generated numeric code (UID).

A phone number will be mentioned above the bar code, where the consumer can SMS the UID. A message will tell the consumer whether the drug is an original.

DCC's recommendation will now be sent to Drug Technical Advisory Board. The final notification will come from the Union health ministry.

Once approved, India will join Italy, Malaysia and the European Union to make 2D bar code and UID mandatory in an effort to curb spurious and counterfeit drugs.

DCGI will have to amend Rule 96 (manner of labelling requirement) of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, saying "every drugs manufactured in India shall bear on its primary label Unique Identifier Code and 2D bar code that shall be used for anyone to verify the drug through a system of SMS by mobile phone."

Experts say the proposal might face serious opposition from the small and medium scale drug firms, who will have to buy equipment for bar-coding which will increase their production cost.

"We will give these firms a good enough phase out time. However, we have seen that if 2D bar code and UID is printed on the strips, production cost goes up by just around 30 paisa. It will come down to 10 paisa once the technology is used by everyone," Dr Singh said.

Earlier, commerce ministry had passed a rule that all medicine packs manufactured in India only for export must carry a barcode as of July 1, 2011. This will allow medicines to be traced and tracked to its source of origin.

The fact is that while Indians suffer constantly from the menace of counterfeit drugs, fake Indian drugs have been making their way abroad as well, particularly into Africa. While there is a lot of things that the third world is suffering from, this issue of counterfeit drugs is something that is in their own hands to eradicate. No country can act as a silo today, and while I am calling for an urgent effort in India to eliminate spurious drugs and bring the manufacturers to justice, I would like to see this happen all across the world.

Qaddafi The Lunatic

Qaddafi has gone crazy in Libya. News reports say that he is increasingly losing control over many parts of the country, and his goons, and hired foreign mercenaries are literally walking the streets and shooting down protesters. Meanwhile, Qaddafi has called these protestors cochroaches and promised to whoever still supports him that he will fight to the last drop of blood. His equally crazy son, who was probably to succeed after him, has said his dad will fight to the last bullet.

In a big news, two Mirage jets of the Libyan Air Force were ordered to fire on the protesters. The pilots, two colonels in the Air Force, refused, flew the jets to Malta, and have asked for political asylum. This is big.

Associated Press, Monday Feb 21, 2011











There are news reports that say that Qaddafi is actually planning to sabotage his nation's oil wealth by blasting pipelines and inciting violence among tribes if he ever does go down fighting. Thousands have already been killed in Libya, and I will not be surprised before Qaddafi kills a few thousand more. Its going down man. Wonder what will happen next. Will KSA be affected? No middle east coverage today is complete without commenting on what the Americans are thinking. Shit, their well laid plans in the region that stood the test of time and money for decades seems to be crumbling apart. The bogey of Islamic fundamentalism has already been raised many times, but only time will tell how the middle east will shape in the future.

Our attention span's moved on, but Middle east is still simmering

We know that after Ben Ali (who people say is now in the hospital after a stroke), Hosni Mubarak has stepped down (and possibly left the country) and the "Days of Rage" are on across the Middle East, and most notably in Libya, against the well-entrenched Moammar Gaddaffi, in Bahrain, against the well-entrenched royal family (who's already unleashed the troops on the protesters and managed to kill many), and despite the political moves in Yemen and Jordan, the protests are still on in those regions.

The fact is that no matter how the future of the region looks on from here, these protests, for one, have scared the hell out of the incumbents. There are dole outs galore in almost all the countries in the region, and the big, orthodox, well-established House of Saud in Saudi Arabia feels the heat too.

Bahrain's king Khalifa has brought down the wrath of his army onto the protesters, with many losing their lives. Now Obama's already talked to the king to exercise restraint. Of course, his talk was filled with the classic American crap of "universal rights" for its citizens and "meaningful reform", but one must wonder why is Obama talking to the Bahraini king and as far as I know, he didn't talk to anybody else? I think the answer lies standing on the Bahraini capital Manama's port in the form of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, America's show naval might in these oceans and seas.

One could say that this will be the second time in the near past that the American Government is facing a test of its resolve to those oft repeated democratic and human rights principles, after its refusal to shut down or relocate its military base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, despite a widespread Japanese protest against the base. In fact, the then Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, had to resign when he couldn't deliver on his poll promise of removing the base from there.

But lets not get into history shall we? There's too many dark corners and double standards there which will only enrage me further. But it will be interesting to see how this American dilemma plays out. Already western media has started raising the bogey of the Islamic fundamentalists taking these regions over, which they say, is a very bad thing which the US shouldn't allow to happen.

Next comes another big gun, Moammar Gaddaffi. There were reports a few days ago of protests in Libya, which is actually ensconced right in between Tunisia and Egypt, so it has been feeling the heat for a long time now! Gaddaffi was already in action when the unrest had begun, and began announcing reforms and raising salaries. From what I read in the news earlier, the protests were first not against Gaddaffi, but against the Prime Minister and his government, but somehow, rather expected I should say, they turned to the fact that Gaddaffi's been the dictator for far too long now. Already more than three dozen people have been killed in the east of the country, a region which the media reported to always have been unfriendly towards Gaddaffi.

It would be safe to say that more than a 100 protesters in the region have been killed in cold blood by the armies/police forces of these countries, and many will be killed before any normalcy returns. The west is mainly concerned about the safety of the oil flow, and I suppose it would be unfair of me to say that the rest of the world isn't, but this year will definitely be an epochal time in the region's, and world, history. Never having known what democracy is, I wonder how they will manage.

What about Iran? There are simmering tensions there, but I think i'll leave that for another post.

Prime Minister's crocodile tears

I've always maintained that the UPA government has always milked their Prime Minister to the fullest when it comes to dealing with the public and media's charges of unprecedented corruption and misuse of power within their coterie. It seems that the Prime Minister's "meet the press" was just that.

The person I saw on television yesterday did not look like the leader of the government of India, but a powerless individual who, like any other citizen around him, is saddened by the state of affairs and is simply sharing his anguish.

The media, it seems, as brought it hook line and sinker. Very, very disappointing. I read this note from Aroon Purie of the India Today on the news conference, and was disappointed to say the least.

He says: "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh didn't deal with the question on 2G spectrum allocation too directly. I asked him why he re-appointed A. Raja if he knew that what he was doing was not right, but he didn't really deal with that question. He said he thought he (Raja) wasn't that irregular and followed the policy and he had therefore re-appointed him (Raja). He also said that these were compromises of coalition politics.

The prime minister appeared to be serious about going after corruption. He was concerned about the fact that the government had become scam-tainted, that the country had become scam-tainted. He felt that India's self-confidence should not be sapped by this atmosphere around the government.

I think it is good that the prime minister communicates to the people about what he thinks. He has voiced his opinion on certain issues and it's a good thing.
My first reaction was - thats it, Mr. Purie? I suppose its time to get on with our sorry lives now. Note the other bogey with governments in India use with utmost ease - the compulsions of coalition politics. So what is the message the Prime Minister is attempting to send to his coutrymen and women? That this is all acceptable because its a coalition? Thats the most absurd reasoning a politician can ever present, and unfortunately, its been used very frequently. I believe the real problem is that we simply do not have the laws to put an end to this supposed "helplessness" on the part of the Prime Minister of a country that says it wants to be a permanent member of the UNSC. Shameful.

Even Indian Express, a newspaper that I have a little inkling of respect for, is actually discussing the high points of the Prime Minister's interaction! What about the tough questions, you damn TV editors? Maybe its my mistake to believe you all have any other capability than present news that highlights the state of today's tabloids, bollywood and cricket.

Okay, let us take a look at some of his other gems, or rather, examples of his helplessness. But, I had said this in my previous post as well, perhaps there is a method to his madness. As many readers suggested, the Prime Minister is now simply speaking like a seasoned politician - skirting away from the tough questions, maintaining a line of innocence and finishing it out with promises of action. His press conference was filled with examples of all three.

Whatever some people may say, that we are a lame duck government, that I am a lame duck prime minister, we take our job very seriously, we are here to govern, and to govern effectively, tackle the problems as they arise and get this country moving forward.

The country voted our party to be the leader of the coalition, and we have a lot of unfinished business to accomplish ... I will stay the course. I wish to assure you and I wish to assure the country as a whole, that our government is dead serious in bringing to book all the wrongdoers, regardless of their position they may occupy.

As far as who gets licences, the first-come-first-served policy, how it is implemented, that was never discussed with me. Licences were not a matter which ever got referred to me or the cabinet. That was a decision exclusively of the telecoms ministry.

So did anybody gain anything from this media parlay? I doubt it. The media - the television media, particularly, got to hear what we've been hearing all this while already (coalition compulsions for example), nothing in terms of the decisions he is going to take, and how the media and the BJP are being so negative. So despite the hoopla that surrounded the meeting before it happened, this press meet will be forgotten before you wake up tomorrow morning.