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

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The UN says it has withdrawn a high energy food for children in India after the government said it had been distributed without permission.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

INDIAN MATERNAL MORTALITY FIGURES & CHILD FATALITIES

Every 7 minutes a woman dies due to childbirth complications’

From Kounteya Sinha | TNN

New Delhi: Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. This means on an average, one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes.
But not only the mothers are dying one million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK. These are some of the shocking findings of UNICEF’s ‘State of the World’s Children 2009’ report released on Thursday.
According to the report, an Indian woman is 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy-related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes. Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home.
In India, more than two thirds of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states — UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In UP, one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death, compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala.

EIGHT OF A FAMILIY BEHEADED - INDIAN FARWEST

NAUGACHHIA (BIHAR): In an honour killing of arguably the worst kind, eight members of a family were shot, beheaded and their bodies thrown into the
Ganga in Binoba riverine area of Bihar's Naugachchia police district on Monday.
An eerie calm now prevails in the village where 21-year-old Ratan and 18-year-old Kanchan once met each other clandestinely. On January 14 this year, the duo eloped and tied the knot at Mandar temple at Baunsi in neighbouring Banka district.
While Ratan is almost illiterate, Kanchan has studied up to Class VI. Both belong to poor families and hail from Gangota caste. Yet, the elopement caused acute tension in the small village. For, the two families happened to be sympathisers of two rival gangs of criminals. "That's why we earlier thought it to be a gang war of attrition," a police officer said on Wednesday.
While one gang was led by Bhajjo Mandal, the other is led by Kongresi Mandal. Bhajjo, in fact, was uncle of Ratan while Kanchan's father Masudan Mandal is said to be an associate of Kongresi.
Masudan and his men started threatening Ratan's father Rupan with dire consequences if Kanchan did not return home. Villagers sympathising with Masudan later approached Rupan and Bhajjo and persuaded them to attend a "panchaiti" (a self-styled village court) for an amicable settlement of the matter.
However, when Bhajjo and his men reached for panchaiti , hundreds of armed men of Kongresi gang, who were called by Masudan, rained bullets on them.
"Kongresi was more keen on eliminating Bhajjo and his men than assisting the girl's family settle the matter," Naugachhia SP Gopal Prasad told TOI, adding that the deceased included Bhajjo.
An FIR has been lodged on the basis of statements of Bhajjo's brother and Ratan's father. "My son would never have married the girl had he known it would lead to so much of bloodbath," Ratan's mother says.
The lovebirds, meanwhile, remain incommunicado.

THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE DALITS IN BIHAR

I am still not in India and by lack of own material I would like to copy an article of todays BBC online which is so touching that I could not resist to infringe the copyright. May BBC online forgive me





Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless after floods hit the Indian state of Bihar last month.
Some of the victims face the additional hardships that come from being members of the low caste dalit community. Rajan Khosla of the charity Christian Aid has been meeting some of them in the village of Mirzawaa, where 500 families live in temporary shelters."Let me be born again as an animal rather than as a harijan (dalit). We face more humiliation than they," says Tetar Rishidev, a dalit from Mirzawaa village, in the district of Supaul.
After the floods in Bihar millions of people lost their homes, belongings and even family members. But for the dalits of Bihar there is further misery: the caste system.
In Mirzawaa village, Sakal Sadah is a dalit.

Today - unusually - he is happy. There is a food distribution and his family will get food. His children have been surviving on some leftover rice once in a day.
Sakal Sadah is a landless agriculture labourer and earns about 40 rupees (80 cents) for a 12-hour day.
Sakal Sadah works hard for little food
Now he's worried: "Where will I get work now? Everywhere is water. No one is going to employ me, I am a harijan."
Hundreds of dalit families are in the same situation as Sakal: they have been hardest hit by the Bihar floods.
In this emergency, when everyone should be provided with food, certain groups are denied access.
The plight of these communities in remote, rural areas is very serious - especially in the feudal state of Bihar.
They cling to the little they have. Many families have left behind one male member to keep an eye on their house and belongings.
Segregated society
Asdev Sadah, an elderly dalit, stayed behind to guard the house of his upper caste employer.
"I used to work in their fields," he said.
"They wanted me to watch their house and belongings. I have to listen to them. They will provide my family food and work once they come back.
Many have been left with nothing after the floods
"I have nothing left in my house - because it was made of mud it has already collapsed. My malik's (employer's) house is strong and they have stuff kept inside."
It seems a strange sort of society where an old man stays back, without food or shelter, taking numerous risks to guard the house of his feudal lord.
But Asdev no doubt knows full well that in this segregated society, there is no other support system for him and his family.
The relief camp in Sabela School in Madhepura is run by one of Christian Aid's partner organisations who are doing all they can to help.
It was set up because organisers knew there were many dalit villages in the area.
I met Jamuna Devi and Puliya Musamaar here.
For many it has become a question of survival
They told me that they were not allowed to use the hand pump to get water as it belonged to upper caste people.
The same upper caste people also asked the camp organizers to move displaced people away because as Dalits they would contaminate the entire place. Their request was refused.
"When will people understand we are also human beings?" Puliya asked. "We need food and water, our children also feel hungry."
I asked one of the aid agencies running another relief camp whether they would have a dalit cook.
Their response was negative. They felt that not everyone would eat food cooked by dalits.
Christian Aid and its partner organisations are including two dalits in the cooking teams in the relief camps they run - thus ensuring that they are not excluded.
Everyone needs food in this crisis situation, so why should people like Sakal Sadah, Jamuna Devi and Puliya Musamaar be so discriminated against?
And if Asdev Sadah can work in the fields and loyally guard the house of his higher-caste employee, then why people should refuse to eat food cooked by them?
We have to challenge the system. I know the problem is gigantic. But efforts need to be made. Each one of us has to make a step forward.
Another aid agency working in this area assured me that they tried to treat displaced people equally.
The critical point is that while equality may be an accepted philosophy it can only happen once people also agree in practice to be equals.
Equality means that all people should get food and their rights and dignity are respected.
But flooding and discrimination seem to have taken those rights away

THE RICHEST & THE POOREST

Despite Indian’s surprising ongoing and very real economic growth and sustainability, there is a serious problem that cannot be overlooked. A SENSEX of 20.000, a growth of the stockholders by a factor of 5 in the last 3 years is hardly in line with the very growing real line of poverty.
Let us look at the latest figures:
Indian rank on the Global Hunger Index 2007 is 94’Th out of 118 countries listed. India is behind China ranking 47’Th and Pakistan ranked 88’Th
40% of the world underweight children live in India
Indian scores last from all countries as far as improvement of poverty is concerned if compared tom 1990.
Governmental figures reveal that 863 Mio people corresponding to 77 % of the population lives on 20 Rps per day that correspond 0.36 euro or 36 eurocent!!!
Millions of Indians go to bed hungry. !

The major reason is the lagging of economical growth in the agricultural sector, where other sectors are booming small farmers or farmers without land are so desperate that the amount of suicides is tremendous.

But also the religious incapability to reduce the amount of kids in the poor families, hardly able to nourish them, is a big part of the problem. I some parts of India the male family members eat first and the woman have to survive with the leftovers, resulting in children of undernourished and anemic mothers with high risk of being born underweighted. More woman die in India during childbirth than anywhere else in the world. Of the calculated value of 526,000 women who died during pregnancy or after childbirth in 2005 globally, Indian contributed with 117,000 followed by Nigeria with 59,000 and Congo with 32,000. The probability that that a girl will die from a complication during her pregnancy and childbirth is 1/70 in India.

Almost one in four woman who gave birth in the last 8 years

received no antenatal care. With Bihar (66 % with no care) has the worst case. Only 4% of the mothers was giving a deworming cure during pregnancy, something which might seems for western not necessary, but seeing the penible hygienic conditions of the water in India, ought to be a must in India.

INDIAN ROMANCE VIII

Slapping and Beating

According to the newest National Family Health Survey – III interviewing 125,000 women in 28 of the Indian States in the period of 2005-2006 find out that , 41 % of all the interviewed women justified wife- beating if it was because they showed disrespect towards their in-laws while 35 % agreed with being brutally assaulted by their husbands if they neglected the households or their children.
Almost in all states the victims don’t feel victimized, both in the case of dowry or spousal violence. They feel being beating up by the husband is all right.
Bihar was found the worst state with abuse rates as high as 59%. Bihar was followed by Rajasthan 46,3 %. Etc
Most of the women assaulted by their husbands were less than 2 years in the marriage. Slapping was the most common act of physical violence by husbands. More than 35 % in general said their husbands slapped them, while 15 % said their husbands pulled their hair or twisted their arm. And now very amazing at least for me: Buddhist woman reported the highest level of violence (41%). Followed by Muslim and Hindu woman with 34-35 %. Women of the Jain community reported the lowest rate of violence (13%)

The cartoon above is from Ann Telnaes, Ann Telnaes Womens eNews Cartoons, http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/bysubject/womensrights/byartist.php?id=70&p=3