Sunday, December 30, 2012

"Daughters are neither Safe Inside the Womb nor Outside"

A poster that was widely circulated on Face book saying "A nation where daughters are neither safe inside the womb nor outside" very aptly highlights how badly women are treated in "Shining", "Incredible", and "Developing" India.   

 

Right to Equality: The Constitution of India prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. But even after more than 60 years, the Gender Equality & Empowerment of Women continues to remain in Millennium Goals of Govt. of India. The disparity is evident from the fact that percentage of Women in Parliament is hardly 10%, while the employed women in non-agriculture sector (2005) is around 18%.

If the political leaders shedding the crocodile tears and making right noises over the reprehensible crime in New Delhi on 16 th December, are serious and sincere about empowerment of women, they should immediately pass the 'Women's Reservation Bill" so that at least 180 Female MPs can be present in the next Lok Sabha.

The 23 year old brave daughter of India, as one research scholar has rightly put it, did not die of multiorgan failure, but it was the multiorgan failure of this Society and the State which killed her.

What is the accountability of Senior Politicians and Officials presiding over malfunctioning of the State Administration? It is not as if  there are  no laws dealing with rape and sexual assault, but it is the monumental apathy and failure of the insensitive and unresponsive  Police, Judiciary and Neta/Babu Nexus, made them ineffective and non functional.

As a society and individual, we are equally responsible and accountable, because of our apathy, lack of compassion and not raising our voices against incidents of this nature happening around us. Every one of us can make a difference by our attitudinal and behavioral change, to raise our voice and make it heard in the right quarters against atrocities of this nature.                             

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Bulk Drug Industry Corporate Commitment to Community

Blanket of Corruption between Politics, Administration & Bulk Drug Industry seems to have been too tightly woven!

The AP Pollution Control Board (APPCB) Task Force meeting scheduled to be held today, Thursday, 13 th December is understood to have been postponed, because of the absence of Member Secretary on health grounds. It is reliably learnt that Member Secretary chosen to keep away from the meeting to avoid decision making under duress from the powers that matter.

As a result, the defaulting 12 major Bulk Drug Units, indulging in the production of un-consented products and/or producing more than the permitted capacities, under the disguise of Zero Liquid Discharges ( ZLD) got out of the net for the time being.

In the meantime, there is every possibility of the state government acting on the recommendation of APPCB, in its meeting held on 4 th December and accept the recommendation of High Level Expert Committee namely- permitting expansion of existing industries having ZLD facility, on case to case to basis in relaxation of Ban Order, based on legal advice.

 

What more does the Bulk Drug Industry want? The Bulk Drug Industry is willing to take risk to the bitter end, in their greed for profit paved with the lives of the people. The state is not prepared to take action against these irreprehensible environmental crimes, which often damage the community more seriously than the criminal offences of the conventional kind.

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National Investment Board

 The high power Cabinet Committee on Investments (National Investment Board), under the chairmanship of Prime Minister to accord expeditious approval to projects of over Rs 1,000 Crore, is only meant for the benefit of large firms and investors and  to bypass the required green clearances for mega projects, while having no provision for redressing the concerns of the people affected by these projects.
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Sunday, December 9, 2012

Dishonesty of Pharmaceutical Industry?

 "If the whole pharmacopeia were to be sunk to the bottom of seas, that will be that much good for people and that much worse for the fishes"

                                                                                                                                                                 - Oliver Wendell Holmes

 "There is no pill for every ill but there is definitely an ill following every pill"

                                                                                                                                 - Professor H.M.Hegde

 

"The pharmaceutical industry is the most lucrative, the most cynical and the least ethical of all the industries.  It is like an Octopus with tentacles that has infiltrated all the decision-making bodies, world health organizations, governments, parliaments, high administrations in health and hospitals and the medical profession."

                                                                                                 - Professor Philippe Evans, Director of Necker Institute, France

 

"In all, 26 companies, including eight of the 10 top players in the global industry, have been found to be acting dishonestly"

                                                                                                                                                             -  The New England Journal of Medicine  

 

Acknowledgement: Extracts from the Article "Money is Mammon in pharmaceutical   world "by Prof.H.M.Hegde published

                                      in THE HINDU, December 09, 2012

 

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