YOU THOUGHT H1N1 IS A KILLER VIRUS, INDIA OFFERS WORSE

STUNG TO DEATH IN BIHAR

In 1 month,brain fever malaria kills 30 in Munger (Bihar). Recent news is stipulating already 60 deaths

WHAT IS IT? A form of malaria, it affects brain and may prove fatal in 24-72 hours Symptoms | Impaired consciousness, confusion, and drowsiness Cause | Mosquito bite Affected area |

Munger: Five children succumbed to cerebral malaria in Munger in the last 48 hours taking the death toll to 30 since the outbreak of the disease in the first week of July.
The deadly brain fever is caused by a mosquito bite and is fatal if not treated in time. It has so far affected 1,500 people, said B Sahu, Munger malaria officer. ‘‘Out of serum samples of more than 1,450 people tested in laboratories, 565 were positive,’’ he told a news agency.
As the situation is turning grim, a team of eight doctors from New Delhi-based National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme reached Munger on Thursday night. Their job is to establish the cause of cerebral malaria that has spread to 92 villages in Haveli Kharagpur sub-division of Munger.
‘‘The central team, which arrived on Thursday evening, has fanned out in affected areas in four batches with technicians,’’ Bihar health department’s joint director-cum-programme officer R N Pandey said at Munger Sadar Hospital.
So far, there is no word from the expert-team headed by joint director, central health services, S N Sharma on the nature of the disease. The team will submit a report to the Centre after its tour of the affected areas.
Twenty people are being treated at Haveli Kharagpur primary health centre and three at Munger Sadar Hospital. Officials said there is sufficient stock of medicines and DDT fumigation has been completed in 72 villages.
‘‘The situation is under control,’’ Pandey said. ‘‘The death toll hasn’t gone beyond six,’’ Munger civil surgeon Sreekrishna Chandra Singh added.





Kashi Prasad | TNN

EVALUATION OF INDIAN ROAD CONDITIONS

6 FATAL MISHAPS EVERY KM
Ma Anandmayee Marg figures in the list of 10 most accident prone roads in Delhi. It saw 34 fatal mishaps in 2008. Times City drove down the busy 5.6km-long stretch with an expert to find out reasons behind accidents
Megha Suri | TNN

In this article the deplorable conditions for a particular road is described but more in general it can be used for almost all non- highway roads.

Abusy thoroughfare in south Delhi, Ma Anandmayee Marg has earned the dubious distinction of being a killer stretch, recording six deaths per kilometre in 2008. Figuring in the list of 10 most accident-prone roads in Delhi in 2008, it is the deadliest stretch that witnessed 34 fatal accidents last year. Bound by MB Road on one side and Outer Ring Road on the other, the 5.6km-long road leads up to Okhla Industrial Area and connects to Faridabad. Times City drove down the ‘‘killer’’ road on Wednesday and found that almost everything is out of shape — non-functional traffic signals, encroached footpaths, potholes, haphazard construction activity and absent road markings.
Traffic expert and president of Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) Rohit Baluja accompanied this correspondent to point out what makes the road stretch so perilous. ‘‘We are reaching a stage of congested failure and the main reason for this is the absence of standard procedures within agencies like MCD, PWD and DDA. There is no coordination between agencies either while planning or maintaining roads. Like on this stretch, the bus stops, Metro construction, road and street furniture, everything has been planned in isolation,’’ he said.
Here’s what’s not in order:
SIGNALS NOT WORKING
Six out of the 10 traffic signals on the stretch were not working, and even at crossings like the one near the Govindpuri market, where the signal was functional, it was not visible from a distance due to thick foliage and presence of light poles in front of the signal pole. At another intersection in Okhla, the secondary signal — the one on the other side of the crossing — was missing so vehicles which had stopped beyond the first signal are left with no option but to jump it.
INACCESSIBLE BUS SHELTERS
Critical bus shelters like the one opposite ESI Hospital and Okhla Phase II are in a shambles with missing roofs. The shelters have been constructed on concrete platforms which are several feet high, making them impossible to access. A bus shelter opposite the Govindpuri market was flooded with water and all the pedestrians had to stand on the main road to wait for buses.
NO SPACE FOR PEDESTRIANS

HAPHAZARD CONSTRUCTION
Despite the fact that the stretch sees very heavy pedestrian movement, there’s no footpath. This also reinforces why more than half the victims of road accidents in the city are pedestrians. At places like Okhla, the footpaths have been dug up. The situation is even worse near Indira Kalyan Vihar where all inhabitants of a slum cluster come out and defecate on the footpath. Near the local Govindpuri market, the footpath has been dug up forcing people to walk on the main road.
UNAUTHORISED PARKING
A market, bus terminus, busy industrial area and the Inland Container Depot are located next to the main road. This means that private vehicles and car mechanics near the Govindpuri market, chartered buses waiting to pick up staff from Okhla or big container trailer trucks waiting on the backside of the Tughlaqabad ICD occupy most of the extreme left lane meant for buses. As a result, there is rampant violation of SC orders as buses can be seen driving outside the bus lane and stopping at will.
BAD STATE OF ROAD
The road is in a pathetic condition and regular users say that accidents happen at an alarming frequency. At one of the main intersections, right next to a Delhi Jal Board pumping station, tankers move in and out splashing water all over the road. The surface has completely got eroded and traffic jams have become a regular feature on the stretch.
Part of the road between Kalkaji Mandir and the DTC depot at Okhla has been taken over by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for construction of the Badarpur line. Unlike the rest of the city, here the Metro barricades are missing and construction waste has been carelessly stacked in the middle of the road. At places, construction sites have been left unguarded as barricades abruptly start and end, or taper.
NO CYCLE TRACKS

In complete contrast to the pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor where the government fought for cycle tracks for just a handful of cyclists, scores of cycle riders use Ma Anandmayee Marg on a daily basis to reach their workplaces in Okhla Industrial Area. Even though a cycle track runs along the main road through the stretch on paper, in places it is dug up or converted into a garbage dump or used as an unauthorised parking lot.

Copied from Indian Times

MALNOURISHED KID SHOULD REMAIN MALNOURISHED KIDS BY GOVERNEMENTAL DECISSION

The UN says it has withdrawn a high energy food for children in India after the government said it had been distributed without permission.

A senior official from the UN's children agency, Unicef, told the BBC that malnourished children would now be given a locally available product.

He said this would be instead of the imported ready-to-use therapeutic food.

Unicef had been distributing the food, made of peanut paste, to malnourished children in two Indian states.

It said food provided locally in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh was not sufficient for children in a critical condition.

Malnourished children

Unicef says the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) is a high energy relief treatment given to thousands of severely malnourished children around the world.



The government says improvements have been made to food distribution
It says children with acute malnutrition require life-saving treatment, which is sanctioned by the World Health Organisation.

India is home to the greatest number of malnourished children in the world and it is estimated that more than half of them are in the two states.

Unicef was asked by the two state governments to distribute the high-energy peanut paste to affected children in two provinces. It imported about $2m worth of the food for distribution.

"The government of India was not aware of this, it felt that it was not adequately tested. So they have asked us to take it out of India, which we have now done," Daniel Toole, Unicef's regional director for South Asia told the BBC.

The agency has now re-exported the therapeutic food to Afghanistan and Madagascar, where it has been used for a long time.

Indian officials say that imported peanut paste is expensive and that they are not convinced about its effectiveness. They want the product to be approved by the Indian health ministry first.

'Easier'

"Nothing should come behind our back. Nothing should be done in the name of emergency when we have not declared an emergency," Shreeranjan, the joint secretary of the Ministry of Women and Child Development told the Reuters news agency.

Indian officials have told Unicef to use locally available alternatives like therapeutic milk. But there are differences between the two products.

"What we have seen in parts of Sri Lanka, Pakistan and in Africa is that... peanut paste for children is a little bit slower but it is much more steady and easier. And mothers can take it home even after they start the treatment."

In addition, the food does not require refrigeration or added water.

Health campaigners have criticised the Indian government's decision saying it is an over-reaction. They say despite various nationwide measures to end malnutrition, the country is still facing the problem.

The country's booming economic growth, they say, is not trickling down to millions of poor.

RAKSHA BANDHAN

Today is RAKHSA BANDHAN

Raksha literally means protection and bandhan means binding. This festival of love between brothers and sisters is a major Hindu festival which fall in the full moon day of the month of Shravana in North India . It is marked by sisters tying a protective amulet on the wrist of their brothers for their long live and protection. The brothers on their part pledge to protect their sisters against any danger.

Is indeed a very nice opportunity for a celebration missing in the W- European world and maybe more valuable than Valentine da , which in his commercialized form coming over from the US makes no real sense at all.

NO BRIDES,THAN MARRY THE TEENIES- THE BARTER SYSTEM

Divya A., What is the barter system ?

In Haryana’s sex ratio is 861 females/1000 males, compared to the national average of 933/1000 to overcome the lack of brides family promises a daughter in exchange for a bride for its son. The promised daughter may not be adult but is married off to keep the bargain Some believe Haryana's practice could make daughters more relevant within the family but others believe it means the exploitation of minors. Kumari says, "The police may have been able to stop a couple of such cases but the ground reality could be scary. Many teenage girls must have been passed off as brides to middle-aged men only because their brothers or uncles needed a wife. Such a practice makes them victims of easy exploitation."‘‘Families with large land holdings don’t face much of a problem finding brides for their sons,’’ says Chandigarh social scientist Manjit Singh. ‘‘But small and marginal farmers have no choice but to marry their own daughter or a female relative into the family from where they expect a bride for their son.’’ No one is keeping count but the numbers might be huge in a state where more than 14 lakh people don’t have a house and live in slums, according to a 2006 state government report. Singh says that the barter system was earlier limited to the Bishnois and a few other communities, but it is now being adopted even by Jats.



Original from INDIAN TIMES.
Can't find brides, Haryana barters away little girls
Divya A, TNN 2 August 2009, 01:19am I

A case recently came to light in Jandli Kalan village of Haryana's Fatehabad district. One Nathu Ram was to marry Geeta. His sister was to
marry Geeta's maternal uncle on the same day. But Geeta's father complained to the deputy commissioner of police that his daughter was just 15 years old. He said his wife and her family had conspired to marry her off in order that his brother-in-law get a bride under the 'barter system'. The authorities swooped down on Jandli Kalan village and stopped the wedding, but the family had a contingency plan. They produced Geeta's cousin Savitri as a replacement bride. But she turned out to be a minor as well. Under pressure, Geeta's relatives frantically searched for a bride within the extended family and finally found a 20-year-old.

Fatehabad deputy Commissioner CG Rajnikanthan said that when his team went to stop Savitri's marriage, her family tried to convince him that the girl was adult even though the girl herself admitted she was born in 1993. "It was only after I categorically told them that criminal cases would be registered against them in case they went ahead with their plan without producing evidence that the girl was a major, that they stopped and gave me an undertaking they would not marry off the girl till she's of marriageable age."

The Jandli Kalan case may be extraordinary but it is hardly unusual. The same thing happened almost 100 km away, in the Keharwala village of adjoining Sirsa district, except that the prospective brides were even younger 12 and 14.

Haryana is reduced to this because of its deeply skewed sex ratio. A state government report admits there are just 822 females for every 1000 men in the 0 to 6 years category. The ratio falls even further in the literate population: 618 females to 1000 males. In some villages in the state, notably Malerna and Duleypur, the sex ratio at birth is 370 and 400 females per 1,000 males respectively.

So rural Haryana operates a barter system so that its sons can find brides. But every family does not have a girl of marriageable age to exchange; some marry off minors to keep their end of the bargain.

"Families with large land holdings don't face much of a problem finding brides for their sons," says Chandigarh social scientist Manjit Singh. "But small and marginal farmers have no choice but to marry their own daughter or a female relative into the family from where they expect a bride for their son."

No one is keeping count but the numbers might be huge in a state where more than 14 lakh people don't have a house and live in slums, according to a 2006 state government report.

Singh says that the barter system was earlier limited to the Bishnois and a few other communities, but it is now being adopted even by Jats.

Asha Setia, officer of the state's Integrated Child Development Scheme, says that few cases come to light but "we fear it goes on". She says the state government has recently deployed one child marriage protection officer to each district. His job: to convince village heads such practices are wrong.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, takes an uncompromising view. "Only in Haryana are women treated as commodities they are bought, sold, killed, discarded and even exchanged. Honour killings, child marriage and female infanticide all are taking place in the name of custom. It shows a totally desensitized political class," she says. Is this the state that was once home to the Arya Samaj movement, Kumari says scathingly.

Unicefs 'State of the Worlds Children-2009' report says that 40% of all child marriages in the world occur in India. Girl's may be married off early in many parts of Africa too, some even before puberty. But there is a difference. The African brides parents are paid in cash, cattle or other valuables and her bride price falls steadily as the girl gets older. In Pakistan, the tribal custom of 'watta satta' has families betroth a son and a daughter together to another family.