UNDERLYING MEDCL PRBLM-UMP

//////////////////urprisingly, while our world may be increasingly urban, the world of the poor and hungry remains overwhelmingly rural. Of the 1.2 billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day, the majority, almost 700 million, are small farmers, farm laborers and their families in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia who are unable to sustain themselves, not to mention rapidly growing urban populations, due to decades of lagging farm productivity.



/////////////////////Why do we face such a crisis when it seemed so recently that the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s had ushered in an era of food plenty? Beginning in the 1980s the world turned its back on agricultural development. The Green Revolution technologies of new seeds, fertilizer and farm practices resulted in dramatic yield increases for irrigated crops, especially wheat and rice, in settings with adequate infrastructure such as market roads, largely in Asia. These breakthroughs created the false impression that the world’s food and farming problems had mostly been solved, when in fact the Green Revolution had bypassed much of Africa and the dry-lands of South Asia.



//////////////////////Severe RSV Infection and Asthma Free!
June 24, 2009 | Neil M. Ampel, MD | Infectious Diseases
Results from a twin study suggest that severe RSV infection does not cause asthma, but rather indicates a genetic predisposition to asthma.



////////////////////////To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven.
Edwin Arlington Robinson



//////////////////sasialit=Does anyone know if lighter skin color was privileged in pre-colonial India?
> I understand such preference originated with the equation between the white
> skin of the British and the power they wielded. The same issue concerns
> Black identity in USA (MJ's case may be a classic instance, although not
> everyone will agree).
Actually, interacting with lighter-skinned people of foreign origins in positions of power started earlier - with the advent of invaders from various parts of the middle East. Even today, trash talk between Indians and Pakistanis often dwells on the supposedly lighter skin of folks from Pakistan, apparently the result of mingling with Persians, Afghans, Turks etc. Also, as previously pointed out, within India itself there is a narrative (contrafactual in my observation) of darkskinned South Indians and fair North Indians which is, I imagine, a leftover from this medieval period.

To be fair though, it is unclear what were the social attitudes towards skin colour at this time - i.e. whether skin colour was the single marker of social privilege. During the same period of Indian history people of dark skin colour from Africa (specifically from Abyssinia - the word Abyssinian being pronounced Habshi in Farsi) - also wielded positions of power and privilege. Bengal was ruled by an Abyssinian for some time. The Marathas were tormented by an African pirate chief for some considerable time and over time African mercenaries were much prized by the Mughals, Marathas and other feudal kingdoms.

a


.//////////////////The Abyssinian Episode

The brief reign of the Habshi dynasty of Bengal consisted of four rulers over a six-year period:

Ghiyath al-Din Barbak Shah 1487-1488 CE
Saif al-Din Firuz Shah 1488-1490 CE
Qutb al-Din Mahmud Shah 1490 CE
Shams al-Din Muzaffar Shah 1490-1493 CE



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