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AIDS wipes out entire family in Bihar
Manoj ChaurasiaPATNA, April 4: A multi-billion dollar global campaign against AIDS has suffered a serious setback in Bihar where this deadly disease wiped out an entire family. The incident, which has sent shock waves across the region, is a sad commentary on the much-trumpeted awareness campaign against AIDS in the state in which hundreds of NGOs are involved and allegedly making a fast rupee. Authorities said the deadly HIV virus eliminated a migrant labourer, his wife and their little child whereas his parents died of shock in the last three months. The deaths in the family hailing from Jihuli village under Patahi police station of East Champaran district began this January and on Monday, it came full circle when the last surviving woman member of the family, Parvati Devi, met her torturous end amid heart-rending cries by the local villagers. Reports said Jahindra Sah, who was the head of the family, became HIV positive during his stay in New Delhi where he had migrated sometime back to eke out a living. Villagers said the victim had been unable to pay back a huge loan he had taken from the local money lender on a heavy interest rate. This had forced him to shift to New Delhi to earn money for his family's survival but he ended up contracting HIV. Reports said the victim did not inform his family about his disease nor did he visit the local doctors for treatment out of fear of society. He paid dearly for this as his entire family became gripped by AIDS. According to reports, the first casualty in the family was reported on 2 January this year when Jahindra’s three-year-old son Pappu Kumar died of this disease. Some 10 days later, Jahindra himself died. The turmoil in the family caused such a great deal of mental trauma that a few days later, the victim's parents died of shock. And finally on Monday, the victim’s wife Parvati also expired. The incident has sent shock waves in the areas as the villagers had no other option other than to helplessly watch the swift destruction of a whole family. The civil surgeon, East Champaran Dr BN Singh said he was trying to find out details of the family but said the health department had geared up to keep a check on the increasing cases of HIV in the bordering region. Health officials said the bordering districts of Bihar had reported a high number of HIV cases, thanks to a large number of labourers who migrate to other parts of the country or to neighbouring Nepal every year in search of livelihood. Health authorities said East Champaran figures among five districts ~ the rest being Araria, Katihar, Sitamarhi and Lakhisarai ~ are identified as “high prevalence zone”. “Migrant labourers are a big headache for us,” said another health official Dr Mithilesh Kumar posted at Sadar Hospital, Motihari, the district headquarters of East Champaran. Keeping in view the seriousness of the situation, the Bihar state AIDS Control Society has chalked out a mainstreaming project under which government officials, panchayat members and the NGOs have to work in tandem to effectively control the HIV cases. According to a National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) estimate, Bihar has a total of 70,000 HIV positive cases. However, a Bihar state AIDS Control Society report confirms only 16,054 persons, including 6,035 women and 789 children, have tested HIV positive till date since the campaign was launched in the state in 1992. In the last eight months itself, 1,468 fresh cases have been detected in Bihar, registering an increase of about 34 per cent from those reported last year, revealing how the AIDS bomb is ticking fast in the state. The first AIDS case in Bihar, according to officials, was reported from Nawada district in 1992 and in the last 15 years this disease has now taken over the entire state, stunning the authorities while the NGOs continue to profit from campaign money.
UFTOE-D/TAPCHIDUP-TICAPS
//////////////////Inflation at 7%
Statesman News Service NEW DELHI, April 4: Inflation has now skyrocketed to a 39-month high of seven per cent as prices of food items, including cereals, vegetables, edible oil and sugar, metal and various manufactured goods continued to surge, throwing household budget of common people haywire and triggering adverse reaction from bourses. The inflation rate, based on the wholesale price index, shot up by 0.32 per cent in the week ended 22 March from 6.68 per cent in the previous week. It had last touched 7 per cent ~ a psychologically staggering figure on the politically hyper-sensitive issue ~ over three years ago (7.02 per cent for the week ended 4 December, 2004). Retail prices of gram, sugar, mustard oil, vanaspati and onion have increased by up to 11 per cent in the National Capital in the past one month. According to the data released by the department of consumer affairs, prices of gram (chana) rose by 2.7 per cent to Rs 38 per kg on 1 April as against Rs 37 a month earlier. Sugar cost nearly 6 per cent more at Rs 18 per kg, mustard oil by 2.6 per cent to Rs 77 per kg, vanaspati by 10.14 per cent at Rs 76 per kg and onion by 11.11 per cent at Rs 10 per kg in the comparable period here. Grappling with the price rise of essential commodities, the Manmohan Singh government on Monday announced scrapping of customs duties on all crude edible oils, cut in duties on refined edible oils, ban on exports of non-Basmati rice in order to rein in inflation. The impact of these measures on curbing price rise would be seen only by the month end, believes the Asian Development Bank while a section of traders say they would influence prices only in the next 7-10 days at the retail level. The spiralling inflation could also prompt the RBI to further tighten monetary measures, like raising short-term lending and borrowing rates and squeezing money supply in its annual credit policy scheduled for 29 April. The RBI might increase Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), statutory deposits banks have to keep with the central bank, to absorb excess liquidity in the market. The banks might also be forced to raise their interest rates on their various loans to customers, which might hit the middle-class ~ another major worry for the ruling Congress alliance.
////////////////////Condensed into a single phrase, the injunction of Lao Tzu to mankind is, 'Follow Nature.' This is a good practical equivalent for the Chinese expression, 'Get hold of Tao', although 'Tao' does not exactly correspond to the word Nature, as ordinarily used by us to denote the sum of phenomena in this ever-changing universe. It seems to me, however, that the conception of Tao must have been reached, originally, through this channel. Lao Tzu, interpreting the plain facts of Nature before his eyes, concludes that behind her manifold workings there exists an ultimate Reality which in its essence is unfathomable and unknowable, yet manifests itself in laws of unfailing regularity. (From Lionel Giles: Book of Lieh-tzu, 1912).
FOLLOW PANGON
////////////////////Taoism, in its broadest sense, is the search for truth and reality. In a narrower sense, it is the original knowledge tradition of China... (From Awakening to the Tao by Liu I-ming, translated by Thomas Cleary).
///////////////////And Tao means "the way" as in an abbreviation for "The Way Things Are". A better translation for Daodejing than "The Way of Virtue", I think, would be "The Way Things Are, and Its Consequences. (Michael Banu)
The Way Things Are, and Its Consequences.TWTAIC=ATO=BCFTOD
///////////////////When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao. (From Master Lu Teachings.)
***
//////////////////////VIP RD AXDNT=
Bus sinks- Race and slush kill 20 passengers on VIP Road
A STAFF REPORTER
Calcutta, April 4: Twenty people who had little option but to use Calcutta’s lawless public transport system drowned today when their bus chose to overtake an autorickshaw from the left on a VIP Road made slippery by rain.
As the 217B skirted the banks of the Lower Bagjola Canal at high speed, eyewitnesses said, it skidded on a pile of dredged mud that overnight rain had turned into slush and plunged into the water with 45-50 passengers.
The victims of Calcutta’s worst accident in recent memory included a nine-month-old baby and an 80-year-old, two schoolgirls, two other children below 10, and people returning home from work.
Police sources said the speed limit on the stretch, connecting the city to the airport, is 40km an hour but buses regularly do 55-60km.
“It was between 2.20pm and 2.25 pm. I saw two buses, a 217B and a 211, racing each other. Suddenly, the 217B swerved left to overtake an autorickshaw,” said Rumki Chatterjee, who was standing at the Kestopur crossing. “Then there was a huge splash.”
The bus teetered on the canal’s bank for a few seconds. By the time it hit the water, it had turned turtle, trapping the passengers.
“I was standing near the front door, waiting to get down at the Kestopur crossing. As soon as I realised the bus was hurtling towards the canal, I jumped off,” said Gora Roy, 42, one of the many injured, from his bed at Apex Nursing Home off VIP Road. “I’m lucky to have escaped with just a fracture.”
Rahim Mondol had boarded the bus from Babughat around 1.15pm with wife Asma, 45, daughter-in-law Marjina Bibi and grandchildren Neha, 8, Zahir, 2, and nine-month-old Hena. They were returning home after seeing a doctor. By 3pm, Asma, Neha and Hena were dead.
“I can’t believe what has happened — I have lost three members of my family,” Marjina’s father Manik Naskar sobbed outside the nursing home.
In the evening, North 24-Parganas police chief Supratim Sarkar said the death toll had reached 20. “Divers from the BSF’s disaster management group are checking whether more bodies are stuck in the mud,” Sarkar said.
The police, unsure what has happened to the driver, have sought the motor vehicles department’s help to identify the owner of the bus, which plied between Babughat in Calcutta and Narainpur in Rajarhat.
“A case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder will be registered against the driver,” said Soumen Mitra, deputy inspector-general (presidency range), amid allegations of inadequate policing against speeding on VIP Road.
Reckless bus drivers cause scores of deaths on Calcutta’s streets every year but almost always get away thanks to legal loopholes.
The government keeps promising to ban the owners from paying the drivers and conductors through the commission system — the main reason why buses race each other in a competition to pick up passengers. But it is unwilling to take on the unions and the transport lobby that enjoy politicians’ patronage.
The cause of the accident hasn’t officially been established yet but till tonight, no one was making the standard excuse of mechanical failure.
Today’s accident highlights how unprepared the administration is to tackle emergencies, eyewitnesses and survivors said. The first group of policemen arrived around 3pm, by when several bystanders had jumped into the water with shovels borrowed from neighbourhood homes to try and break open the bus’s windows.
The city police’s disaster management team arrived at 5.10pm, almost three hours after the accident.
More lives could have been saved had the police been quicker, said Gautam Das, a resident of Kaikhali who was sitting in a nearby tea stall. “I and a few others jumped in; we were able rescue a few,” the 22-year-old said.
The rescuers, mostly residents of the neighbourhood, swam to the bus and began smashing the windowpanes and slicing the aluminium sheets lining the windows to make an escape route for survivors.
“I somehow managed to stick my head out of the window and the rescuers pulled me out,” said Chandan Sinha Roy, who was returning home to Baguiati from Chandni Chowk.
“I am alive only because of the local people. But many of my co-passengers were not so lucky,” the middle-aged businessman said.
The bus had sunk almost completely within 10 minutes. It took the authorities more than an hour and a half to pull it out.
The first crane sent to the spot was defunct and the second took over an hour to arrive. In between, for some inexplicable reason, the administration sent fire tenders to the spot.
“We can never have prior information about an accident. So it takes time to arrange things and reach the spot. The police tried their best to rescue the passengers,” home secretary Ashoke Mohan Chakraborty said.
TRAGEDY OF THE SAVIOUR...
Marjina Bibi
Marjina Bibi: I was on the ladies’ seat with my elder daughter Neha, 8. The bus was speeding down VIP Road when it suddenly swerved and before we could realise what was happening, it overturned and plunged into the water. I clutched on to my daughter’s hand and tried to head for the driver’s cabin that was still above the water. I lost my grip on Neha’s wrist for a second, but regained it. I remember reaching the window before being hit on the head by an iron rod that was being used by rescuers to smash their way in. Before I lost consciousness I felt someone pulling me out of the bus and I thought I had managed to save my daughter. But at the nursing home, I was told that my daughter was dead. The hand I had been holding on to thinking it was my daughter’s, was actually that of some other girl, who is now safe.
...AND THE SAVED
Sunita Mirdha
Sunita Mirdha, 5: I was with my mother (Sandhya) on the bus. I had a fight with my mother before getting on to the bus because I wanted a candy. She made me stand next to the window while she stood some distance away to teach me a lesson.When the bus fell into the water, I tried to call out to my mother, but I choked. Just then someone (Marjina Bibi) grabbed my hand and started pulling me towards the driver's cabin. I could finally breathe. I was pulled out of the bus, but I could not find my mother. (Till late on Friday,Sandhya Mirdha could not be traced.)
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Delay conspires with disaster- Hours lost as cops, crane play truant
A STAFF REPORTER
Two hours and 45 minutes is the time the police disaster management team took to reach Kestopur as people died, trapped in the bus that fell into Lower Bagjola Canal on Friday afternoon.
All the trapped passengers would have been killed if bystanders had not mounted a rescue operation by themselves, said residents.
The first police team — four officers in a jeep — reached the spot around 2.50pm, about half an hour after the mishap. Witnesses said not one policeman got off the jeep, which turned around and left.
This prompted the residents to call up Baguiati police station. Two fire tenders arrived after 20 minutes. “Such was the indifference of the police that they did not even think that firemen cannot do much when a bus has fallen into a canal,” said Rajib Biswas, one of the rescuers.
Around 3.15pm, the first police crane arrived. It turned out to be faulty. The second came 20 minutes later and it finally lifted the bus from the canal at 4.10pm.
The local rescuers had by then extricated the trapped passengers and sent them to nearby nursing homes. The services of the third crane, which arrived at 4.20pm, were not required.
“If the policemen had brought cranes to the spot instead of passing the buck to the fire brigade, several lives could have been saved,” said Rajat Singh, a resident who, along with his friends, had joined the rescue.
“We had to requisition the disaster management team from Calcutta police, as we do not have a team of our own. This took a lot of time,” said deputy inspector-general (Presidency range) Soumen Mitra.
At Writers’ Buildings, home secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti refused to accept that the cranes had reached late. “We cannot predict accidents. It takes time to arrange things and reach the spot. The police did their best to rescue the passengers,” he said.
He, however, added that tracking down the driver of one of the cranes took time.
Another disaster management group, made of representatives of the army, fire department, PWD, CESC and other bodies, held mock operations at two markets in the city a couple of days back. The group was absent from the rescue on Friday.
“The team has members from several departments, so there’s hardly any coordination,” said fire services minister Pratim Chatterjee.
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A peril path called VIP Road
OUR BUREAU
This is one stretch of asphalt where accidents have become a way of life — and death. Hardly a month passes by without blood spilling on VIP Road (see chart).
Around 4,000 vehicles ply on this road during peak hours and yet, there are no overbridges at the accident-prone points like Baguiati and Kestopur. Police say they have sent the government two specific proposals in this regard but problems of land acquisition have blocked their implementation. So, vehicular traffic has to be halted every other minute to allow pedestrians to cross.
Besides, VIP Road suddenly narrows into a three-lane carriageway at the chaotic four-point intersection at Kestopur, often prompting buses to veer to the left and jostle for space to be first off the blocks the moment the signal turns green.
There is also an acute shortage of manpower in both Baguaiti and Lake Town Traffic Guard — at least by 16. Hence, VIP Road is manned only between 9am and 10pm. The personnel are not trained in traffic management. Highway patrol jeeps are few and far between.
The core issue on VIP Road, however, remains reckless overtaking by buses.
Yet, Friday’s tragedy might have been avoided had the irrigation department and the Rajarhat municipal authorities cleared the slush left on the Bagjola canal bank after dredging it about a year ago.
Because of the dredging, the depth of water at the site of the mishap increased from 2.5 ft to 6 ft, which led to the bus getting submerged.
“We asked the authorities to do something about the slush, but no steps were taken,” said Paresh Nag, 50, a resident of Baguiati. Mud lies heaped on the canal’s bank over a stretch of 2.5 km along the bank, spilling on the road.
“The irrigation department had cleared the slush and dumped it at New Town Rajarhat. But the residue is still there. Today’s shower has aggravated the situation,” said Subhajit Dasgupta, a local CPM leader.
However, residents of the area allege that the accumulated mud was more than mere residue. It resembled a giant garbage dump for a couple of months, and as the sun baked the mud dry, it became a dust bowl, adding to the foul fumes. Thursday night’s sharp showers and Friday morning’s downpour added to the slush, making surface conditions treacherous.
The irrigation department had taken up desilting of 4.5 km of the canal last August and work was completed before the Puja. It is part of the Bagjola desiltation project, covering 7.5 km for Rs 2.5 crore, department sources said.
The canal connects the Hooghly with the Vidyadhari, covering 16 km. “There was a demand for dredging the canal to start ferry services and improve drainage,” said Subhas Naskar, the state irrigation minister. He, however, denied that slush had accumulated.
Another proposal, if acted upon, could also have saved the day — that of guard walls erected along the canal.
/////////////////////Rise in women doctors 'worrying'The rising number of female doctors is "bad for medicine", and universities should recruit more men, a GP warns.
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