Refer the below invite for details …..

Venue: P S Senior Secondary School, R K Mutt Road, Mylapore, Chennai.

Timings: 10 am to 7pm

ENTRY FREE

This is an awareness programme for better Mental Health.

One could
• Know their personality
• Test their IQ & memory
• Know about mental illness & alcohol related problems
• And watch Short Films in related topics

One could also call : 94450 40236 to know more about this.

Those interested do visit the event and be wiser.

Been to some Pubs and outdoor restaurants where people used to smoke previously, i don’t see it after the ban.

Honestly, it really feels good in a pub or a restaurant without the smoke hanging over the place. We are able to breath easy.

Is there a ban on smoking Hookah in Public places too?

Hope the next Gandhi Jayanthi changes the scene in picture below …

CHENNAI: The Corporation Council on Thursday approved rules setting down penalties for littering, spitting, bathing or urinating in public, besides fines for improper disposal of garbage or feeding animals in locations other than those set aside for such activity.

Heres a summarization of the news:

1. New rules and penalties in place for littering, spitting, bathing or urinating in public, besides fines for improper disposal of garbage or feeding animals in locations other than those set aside for such activity.
2. Those not segregating garbage can also be fined.
3. An intensive awareness campaign would be undertaken in February and March.
4. Once the system was running, the local body would take steps to reduce the number of public dustbins.
5. Effective from April 1.

We were discussing this over coffee today at my office and as usual like with any other discussion on anything on the topics of chennai, improvement, hope, government etc., the discussion soon evolved into hot debate!!! A few interesting points did come up and here they are….

• Some felt that the city’s infrastructure isn’t enough to take in these kind of laws.
• We need more public toilets/lavatories before enforcing the rule on public urination etc.
• We do not have enough dustbins on the streets to ensure that people do not throw garbage on the streets.
• We still do not have a really effective system to collect bio-degradable and non bio-degradable garbage from homes and offices.
• Either we should have more spittoons in the city or ban chewing tobacco.
• And more importantly I wonder how the authorities are going to impose this law on animals (specifically cattle and dogs) that have a free-roaming license in the city.

Should be interesting to watch the city authorities trying to impose these… Nevertheless, its a really good initiative. Atleast some people in the government are actually thinking of improving the city.

[ read original news post ]

EMR (Electronic Medical Records), eClinics etc have taken their own sweet time to enter the Indian market. I wonder why? We are one of best markets in the world to launch any new concept or product. But, still using technology for health seems to be only within multi-speciality hospitals. Few know that the innumerous medical transcription companies thriving in India are actually doing the back office operations of clinics and hospitals in other countries that have embraced technology as the way to go.

Anyway, lets cut the idealism and get to reality. So, here’s what we have in a nutshell. Ericsson has worked out a deal with the government to provide high-speed network access to some very remote villages linking them with Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. Now doctors from Apollo Hospitals can do a first level diagnosis of a patient in the village, from their office in Chennai. Note that it’s not mere video conferencing that we are talking here. The patient actually undergoes sophisticated tests without actually traveling all the way to Chennai. Neat. Eh?

And, health industry is not the only one that Ericsson is planning to work on. They seem to have similar plans for the educational system in villages. Looks like interesting times are coming up… I just hope the governments don’t screw-up this initiative!!!

[Yeah..Right! I just can't help being the pessimistic creep!!! ;)]

VILLAGE panchayat of the sleepy coastal town of Mahabalipuram is suddenly buzzing with activity. You can t miss the middle-aged villager, with a clutch of medical ropes all over his bare torso. No doctor is in sight, but a local boy-barely out of school-seems comfortable monitoring him as he keeps an eye on the computer screen next to the bed. A villager s vital data is being beamed to multispecialty Apollo Hospital in Chennai, about 60 km away. For a fee as low as Rs 30, he is able to consult a doctor who charges Rs 250 in the hospital. And it s not plain telemedicine.

Another room in the small pan chayat office houses a class, where a specialist teacher seated far way is explaining the intricacies of physics to students in the remote village. Locals can also get a ration card or apply for a newborn s birth certificate by logging in, filling applications online. Without stepping out of the village, they can receive it by post. You could call it a bridge between broadband and medicine, education and governance. But for locals, the excitement on an average day now probably surpasses a panchayat election. It s not only work. Villagers can gather at the office to catch up with the day s news or watch a popular soap on the TV stationed there with full power back up. A pilot high-speed wireless broadband project in the remote villages of Tamil Nadu launched by Swedish equipment majorEricsson-is promising to usher in a revolution. As many as 18 villages and 15 towns in and around Chennai demonstrate the applications and benefits of highspeed broadband to provide a range of services like telemedicine, online education, egovernance, online local information, voice and video call services and live TV and entertainment.

The network for the project, named Gramjyoti Rural Broadband, has been deployed on the HSPA (high-speed packet access) technology on the existing second generation (2G) networks of GSM operators like BSNL, Bharti Airtel and Aircel. However, the pilot proj ect does need a frequency on 2.1 GHz spectrum, a 3G band, allocated to the company by the government on a trial basis. All the villages could look like this, claims the company, once the government announces the 3G policy, which enables high speed wireless broadband internet with higher bandwidth, and allocates 3G spectrum to the mobile operators. “Once the government comes out with a 3G policy, wireless broadband technology could be used to rollout the services in all the 1,00,000 villages in the country, which are currently covered by the GSM operators. The service providers can spread the technology with Ericsson partnering them for it.

The initiative would integrate rural people into the mainstream,” says P Balaji, vicepresident, marketing and strategy, Ericsson India. The idea is to demonstrate that 3G applications are not merely urban-centric and restricted to the elites. According to K Ganapathy, president, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation, which has partnered Ericsson, “Gramjyoti enables transmission of critical patient data through the HSPA network to a doctor at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. Timely medical diagnosis and emergency help for those in rural areas will be key benefits”. Though Ericsson declines to share the economics of the project, insisting that cost is not of relevance at this point, doctors confirm that the concept is not based on charity. “The operating cost can be covered by a family of four contributing just Rs 2 every day,” says a doctor. According to NGOs working with Ericsson, the money for launching the project on a countrywide scale can be allocated from the universal social obligation fund (USOF) with contributions from companies like Ericsson and hospital chains like Apollo and once it takes off, it would be self sustaining. Can technology do what several of our rural programmes have failed to do so far?

The words of the veteran journalist, needless to say, caused more than a stir – for it highlighted the terrible fate of women and girl children in the country, particularly in the states of Haryana, Chandigarh and Gujarat. Such was the mortal fear the mother lived in, that her son was the only guarantee of her ever living a halfway normal life in her husband’s home. It served to throw light on the lives most women still led, despite these emancipated times – and directly connected to a disaster that still rocks the country: female foeticide.

On a warm evening at the Oxford Bookstore met a panel of eminent writers, novelists, journalists and activists to launch and discuss senior journalist Gita Aravamudan’s book, Disappearing Daughters. The book focuses on the tragedy of female foeticide in India. Gita Aravamudan has explored different aspects of female foeticide, its beginnings and its backlash, the ways it grows and how it can be stemmed. The panellists were stalwarts of the current literary and activist scene: Andal Damodaran, Vice President of the Indian Council for Child Welfare, Thilakavathi, additional DGP and acclaimed author, and Rasheeda Bhagat, senior journalist and author.

“I welcome the release of this book, but I can’t say it’s a joy to read it,” commented Andal Damodaran, as the book was released, and the panellists moved onto a subsequent discussion on the subject. “It’s a deeply disturbing work, and quite chilling. But one needs to know the realities of the situation, and take necessary steps to route out this practice altogether.”

Gita Aravamudan, the author, went to describe her own experiences as she researched information and wrote the book. Coming across the issue in the early 1990s when she went to Usilampatti, Tamil Nadu, for a feature in The Week, she said that she had had a shocking time, as she discovered the enormity of the catastrophe, when girl children were being killed in hordes within a maximum of 48 hours of birth. More research, however, unearthed a bitter truth. “You couldn’t really blame the mothers. The life of a woman was so worthless, so absolutely horrifying that death was a better choice. The women there say, Better go to heaven than live a life like this.” Small reason then, the sex ratio has fallen to disturbingly low levels as 927:1000, and is even lower in states such as Gujarat.

Andal Damodaran added to the discussion, disclosing the gruesome fact that mothers and relations tended to find newer and newer methods to snuff out the life of a girl child, rather than the traditionally used paddy husks and poison – as the police took these crimes seriously, and took action.

The speakers put forth that despite the popular misconception that it was the economically disadvantaged people who carried out this practice, the rich, empowered middleclass were the worst perpetrators. “A male child is always a blessing from the gods. Every mother-to-be receives a traditional blessing of, May you have many sons – over here, gender itself is a genetic malfunction.”

“I think this book has enough material to make us all angry,” commented Rasheeda Bhagat, to much agreement. “Our women need to have more girls, to drive the point that a girl isn’t a liability, but an invaluable asset.”

“In Tamil Nadu, thankfully, the practice is almost down and out,” added Andal. “The 2001 census show not a single case of female foeticide – but on the other hand, scanning had come in by then, so that changed the circumstances,” she admitted.

Talk veered to the consciousness of the practice, in the press and among the educated class. As always, it was the local press that brought the matter to light first. “Writers like Rajam Krishnan have already thrown light on this,” said Thilakavathi. “The government has taken many steps to abolish the practice by bringing in the Cradle Baby Scheme, and others, in Dharmapuri and Salem.” But the scheme, she said, suffered from several rather confounding aspects. “Parents in these areas often come up with question to defeat the Cradle Baby Scheme, like: what was the guarantee the girl would be adopted and reared by someone of the same caste?” She shook her head. “It was unbelievable.”

The medical community had played it own part in compounding the situation. Doctors needed to be much more aware of the facts, in areas where female foeticide was practiced at a great rate. “It’s easy to talk about bringing in social change – but remarkably difficult to make it happen.” However, the scene was slowly, but surely changing.

Gita Aravamudan’s book, they agreed, was one that threw light on the reality of female foeticide, possible solutions, and the means of achieving them. Despite the seriousness of the theme and the underlying sorrow, it was eminently well written, readable, and gave an instant understanding to its readers. Disappearing Daughters combined interviews, case studies, analysis of statistics ad history to present a comprehensive and very human face to this ‘holocaust.’ The book also busted myths and suggested ways forward that may save future generations of daughters; even if it was too late for the present.

“I hope things will change with respect to this issue, with the increase of knowledge and awareness; that one day, we will live in a world that is free from such prejudices,” hoped Gita – and the wish was echoed by everyone present.

When I first dropped in, I’d expected the discussion to follow traditional routes, and perhaps be yawn-inducing – but fortunately it did neither.

yogena chittasya padena vAchAM |
malaM sharIrasya cha vaidyakena ||
yoapAkarottaM pravaraM munInAM |
patanjaliM prAnjalirAnatoasmi ||

I bow to the sage Patanjali, who cured the imperfections of the mind through yoga,
the imperfections of speech through grammar and the imperfections of the body through medicine.

This is the prayer that is chanted at the beginning of Yoga classes the world over. It was composed by the famous Sanskrit poet Bhartruhari in praise of Sage Patanjali who codified Ashtanga Yoga (the eight-fold path of Yoga) and made it simple for common folks to practise and benefit therefrom. What has been practised for thousands of years as a physical exercise at the base level and as a life philosophy at the highest level, has not only spread its tentacles far and wide, but true to western orientation towards creating a market for anything under the sun, has also been made into a $3B commercial industry in the US for products and services, with patents and IP to boot.

So, what is Chennai’s connection to this $3B industry? On some flight among the numerous in a month coming into Madras, it is likely that there is at least one non-Indian, who may be making what he/she may characterize as a personal spiritual journey or an exploratory trip to get cured of some physical or mental condition thru Yoga and the place they are headed to in all probability is this. The man who was the source of inspiration for the institution started by his son and who lived to a full 100 years was the famous T. Krishnamacharya, who, while having never set foot outside India himself, yet made waves abroad indirectly thru his nephew B.K.S. Iyengar, whose Iyengar School of Yoga is well-known.

Krishnamacharya’s son, T.K.V. Desikachar, who is himself a popular proponent of Yoga, continues the tradition of his father in taking the holistic message of Yoga to the masses. Yoga and its principles as well as practices don’t belong to any one to claim as their own and hopefully the Indian government will prevail on this issue. Yoga is also universal and is neither restricted in its practice to any class of people nor makes it requisite to belong to a particular faith, while bestowing its benefits equally to anyone practising it diligently. However it needs a good teacher to begin with and is best practised under expert guidance initially. To think that such a Guru lived in this part of the world and left behind his legacy in the form of a world-famous institution devoted to Yoga, right in the heart of this wonderful city, is a source of great pride to every true Chennai-lover.

The Government has made it mandatory vide its order dated 22.02.2007 for the two wheeler riders and the pillion riders to wear helmets with effect from June 1, 2007 at Chennai and other 5 Municipal Corporations (Madurai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Salem, Tirunelveli);

Implementation of compulsory wearing of helmets in the remaining areas in the State of Tamil Nadu becomes effective from July 1, 2007. Non-wearing of helmets by two wheeler drivers and pillion riders for the first instance will attract a fine which may extend upto one hundred rupees, and for any second or subsequent offences with fine which may extend upto three hundred rupees.

In Kolkata where helmet wearing is mandatory , Motorists and their pillon riders wear helmets just to escape penalties imposed by the traffic police. Usage of wrong kind of helmet is as good as not wearing helmet at all.

IS 4151 is an Indian Standard Specification for motorcycle helmets. Helmets made for police, industrial and mining purposes have different specifications and are not suitable for protection in case of a motorcycle accident.

The ISI branded helmets bear the licence code, say IS: 4151, besides the seven digit licence number, name of the manufacturing company, shape, year of manufacture and the standard mark The cheaper helmets could shatter on the slightest impact and will not save anybody’s skull in case of a crash. A helmet should be replaced every two or three years. If a helmet has been involved in an impact, it must be changed without a second thought.

The quality helmets come for anything between Rs 500 and above while the cheaper ones are available at a lower price. Surveys conducted worldwide have confirmed that the helmet is the most effective counter measure against brain injury in the life of a two- wheeler user.

A mandatory helmet usage law was enacted on June 1, 1997 in Taiwan. Before the helmet law, it was reported that only 21% of motorcyclists used helmets, while 95.95% used helmets after the law was in place. Motorcycle-related head injuries decreased from 5,260 in the year before the law was passed to 3,535 in the year following the passage of the law. The number of hospitalized patients with motorcycle-related head injuries decreased from 211 to 141, and skull fractures were reduced by 34.3% from 839 to 551.

The two major government hospitals — the General Hospital attached to Madras Medical College and the Stanley Medical College Hospital in Royapuram — together receive 70 to 90 cases of head injury every day. Ninety per cent of them are due to road traffic accidents (RTAs). Stanley Medical College Hospital receives 15-20 head injury cases every day.

The Chennai traffic police recorded 1136 fatal accidents in 2006; of these nearly 50 per cent were two-wheeler accidents. According to the Police Department only two people have died with helmets.

Surveys cite many reasons for riders not wearing helmets, including discomfort, fear of hair-loss, headache, neck pain, and some other reasons.

With the law making the two wheeler riders and pillion riders making the wearing of helmets compulsory with effect from June 1, 2007 at Chennai, let us hope and wish that the two wheeler accidents does not result in loss of life.

Tail piece :

While researching in the net for this post I found that Concord Arai Private Ltd , a Chennai based company is the first to manufacture helmets in the Country & Chennai and Coimbatore already have a sizeable population of helmet wearers.

(References : Recent newspaper reports in the Net and The Effectiveness of Motorcycle Helmets and Mandatory Helmet Laws By Helmut Schneider ISDS Department at Louisiana State University dated December 9, 2006)

How do we react to the siren?

These photos are from the game Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas. The photos are taken intentionally. You must have even seen the Ambulance driver trying to seek a way, and driving the vehicle just like the one on this game.

I have heard the siren sound so often, and that too during the peak traffic (6:00- 8:00 PM). Near the Guindy race course road or near the Kathipara Junction. I could some times hear my own heart beat, trying to provide way for the ambulance and all of co drivers trying their level best, but all in vain as there is no place to move around.

I have seen on the NEWS paper, television about the VIP traveling on the same roads and the whole traffic would come to a complete stop and people had to wait for a long time in the traffic, where people agitated about the who thing. And things changed, didn’t it.

Just try to imagine, if you were in the Ambulance, and trying to reach your close friend or a relative to the hospital. How would you react?
Well I just did, so is the post.

Why are we not making an effort to save a life?
I don’t want to compare with developed countries, where a pilot vehicle would escort to the hospital or take the patient in a chopper. Let me talk about, what is possible?

Can we have a separate emergency lane (left or right side, just for a van to pass through). When ever we hear the siren we all leave the lane empty. So the ambulance driver knows this is where he can get the way. Rest of the time it is open to public.
I was even thinking how do we communicate these kind of messages to Chennai traffic police.

Chennai Traffic police once did a campaign on diverting the traffic near the Concorde Signal (velachery). I am sure they would love to do this campaign, because this one would save many lives.
Don’t tell me that this cannot be implemented. I have even highlighted about the VIP stuff. Don’t you think, We can save more lives