Mumbai

I was at my cousin's place in Hyderabad when the Mumbai attack happened. Which is why I was able to watch the unfolding on the television. Though I must say that after watching it for a day, I was mighty glad that I do not have television to watch the inane reporting.

But that is digressing from the point. The point is that every time a terror attack happens, irrespective of who the attackers are, the media claims it is India's 9/11. The politicians trot out and appeal for people to keep calm and the ruling party says that the government will talk tough and the opposition blames the ruling party yadda yadda yadda. We have, if nothing else, perfected the response to these attacks which invariably killing innocent citizens. Human life is expendable especially if it is that of the common man. Who cares?

So we now have new India's 9/11. Elections are round the corner and everyone is trying to capitalize on this event. We have mourned the death of Hemant Karkare and others. The politicians have made the right noise. Good. Now life can move on and we can forget about the attack till the next time when we can claim it as the new India's 9/11.

I just wish this endless cycle of terror attacks would cease. Sometimes I feel that I am living through perpetual siege. During the 80s, when I was growing up in Delhi, it was the Khalistan issue. I still remember the sand bags that would spring up on the road heralding yet another terrorist strike. Now it is the fundamentalists.

Don't these people have anything else to do other than to kill themselves and others? As the Butterfly put it beautifully, Live and let live or rather die. What I mean is if you want to die it is okay with me but I do not want to die. Can you please get that into your nut?

How healthy are we really?

Few months back when I was in Benaras, Anjani bhai told me that there is an initiative to check the hemoglobin levels of the villagers to determine how many are anemic. He concluded by saying that it was so surprising that many of the volunteers in this initiative themselves were anemic.

I was reminded of this conversation when I was talking with Mr. Dharampal in Virat Nagar. Dharampal is the local coordinator of all the activities of Humana in the Virat Nagar block. He was telling me about the public health initiative with WHO. The aim is to overall improve the health of the villagers with particular emphasis on maternal health. One of the major problem is the maternal mortality rate. The maternal death can be attributed to lack of hospital but also to the fact that many of the women are anemic.

It was very telling therefore to look at the record of the health check-up done recently in this area. In this block Humana runs 14 bridge school for girls who have never been to school. The objective is to teach the girls the basics and then enroll them into formal schools. In addition, the organization does a health camp every year. This year they were able to rope in the government doctor as well as medical store supplier so that medicines could be distributed. I looked at the health record. 90% the girls (~25 girls per center = ~350 girls) were anemic. So we can see how it later translates into high maternal death.

We need to start now to reduce the maternal mortality rate.

Lighting the villages the solar way

In the Virat Nagar block there are 125 villages. Electricity has been provided but it is used only for agriculture purposes. Most of the houses are without electricity because the government does not provide free electricity for lighting up houses. The villagers are reluctant to shell out money for lighting up their houses- it is a hefty payment and they do not earn that much and even if they did they are not willing to shell that much money for something trivial as lighting up a house. The few who have electricity in their houses have done so illegally. Most of the houses therefore depend on kerosene lanterns.
TERI has come up with an idea. One house in the village has dedicated solar panels. Here solar lanterns are charged in the morning. In the evening the villagers come and collect these lanterns. They have to pay Rs 2/- per lantern per day but apparently this is about the same cost as kerosene lantern so they pay without murmur. The lanterns can be used for 4 hours at most but that is enough. In the morning, they drop the lanterns back at the house for charging. It has been implemented at present in two villages in Virat Nagar block and is now going to be extended to 10 more villages.
It is a neat scheme as it is also less polluting than the kerosene lamp. I wanted to very much see the solar panels and how they done it but time was short and I could not check it out. In the next visit maybe...

Horan Pealish

In his book 'Riding the iron rooster', Paul Theroux describes the trip he takes to Tibet in a taxi. The taxi driver's girl friend is addicted to Bollywood music, especially Bhappi Lahiri's brand of music. She insists on putting the tape Disco Dancer ad nauseum. Needless to say Paul Theroux is not amused.
Yesterday I went to Viratnagar for a site visit. The taxi driver, Manpreet, had only one cassette-Punjabi pop music. As far as I could make out, all the songs were set to same beat and same tune. He played it again and again and again. Considering it was 4 hours to go and 4 hours to come back with 4 hours in between, I leave it to you to imagine how many times I would have heard the cassette. I did not have the heart to tell him to shut up not when he treated me to the best kulfi I have ever had, and especially not when he said that the previous day he had made a long trip and got back home late in the night, and the next day he was scheduled to take someone to Agra (another long trip). I guess he needed something to keep him awake though whether this music was the best for that purpose is somewhat debatable.
The title of the blog is from a truck I saw on the road.

An assignment on ethics

This semester I gave my Human Genetics class an assignment on ethics in Human Genetics. The assignment was given at the beginning of the semester with the understanding that they would submit at the end of the semester. There was also an usual spiel on how they should not copy from website.

So the class, very punctual, turned in their assignment. There are 14 students in the class. Baring 3-4 students every single student had copied from articles or websites. Not even a word was changed.

For a second I was furious then then ridiculousness of the issue hit me. Here they were writing an essay on ethics in Human Genetics using an unethical method! Did they honestly not get it?

I called them together into my room:

"Suppose you were to do a piece of research and write a paper. And somebody comes along and copies it. How would you feel?"

Blank looks. Then one said hesitantly:

"Bad."

"So why do you think you can blithely copy articles and pass it off as your own attempt?"

I am still puzzled: Don't they think? Isn't it all connected at some level?

As for them: they have time till 6th December (the exams finish on 2nd December) to submit an essay for evaluation. I told them that as each one knows what he/she has done, they can assess and submit a fresh assay as per their assessment of whether they have cheated or not. I am waiting to see how many assess themselves and turn in a fresh essay.

The Diary Of a Social Butterfly

This is a fortnightly column written by Moni Mohsin for The Friday Times.

Long time back the newspaper was freely accessible and my brother introduced me to it. There were two columns that were hilarious: The Diary of a Social Butterfly and Ittefaq Nama.
The Diary of a Social Butterfly features a Punjabi Convent Educated woman who believes life is meant for party-shartying, hello-hiing. She is in her own words "sophisty, smart, and socialist." She has penchant for malapropism and is saddled with Jannoo. Her husband, bhai, who is very boring and likes to read-shead. She has a 13 year old son Kulchoo, and The Old Bag for a mother-in-law. She has two sisters-in-law, The Twosome Gruesomes. But to offset The Old Bag and the Twosome Gruesome, she has her Mummy and Aunt Pussy. Not to forget her friends: Mulloo, Furry, Flopsy and host of other delightful characters. Oh, and then there is Jonkers, her cousin, who has been twice-divorced and now is looking for a third wife with the help of the Social Butterfly.
The portrayal of was just too apt!
I must confess I preferred Iteffaq Nama. This featured a half-witted Nawaz Sharif, airing his opinions in his Punjabi English. It also featured his brother, Shabaz Sharif, and our bhabhi/Lal ki Ma aka Mrs. Nawaz Sharif. Oh, I think there was also ammijaan, or Nawaz Sharif's mother. You can read one of these columns here.
Alas, one needs to subscribe to The Friday Times now to access the Internet version.
So, when I read yesterday, in Outlook, that The Diary of a Social Butterfly has been published, I went to Vasant Vihar to purchase the book. Fortunately one of the two bookshops had it!

Taufiq

He is about 7-8 years old. His family told us that he is mad.
"He gets fits. He falls down on the ground, and foam starts coming from him mouth."
Classic epileptic fits symptom.
"But there are medicines."
"Yes the doctor gave us medicines. He said that Taufiq will have to take it for five years. However, even with medication he gets fits. And he is not normal. He is mad."
Mad is the common term for any child with developmental disability. Many children suffer either from physical or developmental disability. Sometimes, there is both. The parents, in the rural areas, have no clue what to do. If the siblings are normal then they will be sent to school. But a child with disability is left alone. The parents have no support system and many times are unaware of the nature of the disability.
"His brother also has the same problem. He too cannot walk. The sister is okay."
When the parent told us this, I knew it was an X-linked disorder. Myotonic dystrophy is an X-linked disorder that I often teach my class.
Then there was this child, who loved to take bath. He came shambling up towards us as we sat on the cot. The moment I saw the child I knew he had Down's syndrome. The mother told us:
"We have six children. Three daughters were born and we wanted a son. Then he was born."
The father took up the tale:
"He walked late, he spoke late."
"He was almost four years before he said a word."
"Did you take him to a doctor?"
"We showed him to many doctors."
"What did they say?"
A shrug.
No one has bothered to refer the child to a bigger hospital where tests, especially karyotyping, could be conducted. Down's Syndrome is easily recognizable by karyotyping- chromosome 21 is present in three copies. In addition, so much research has been done on this particular syndrome that it is today possible to educate the child to lead an almost independent life.
There is an urgent need not only for Primary Health Care centers but also for counseling and referral services in our villages.

Primary Health Care in villages

I was once more in Ramdaspur, a small nondescript village in Ghazipur.
Last time I was there, in July, I met a child who had fallen down and scraped his foot. It started out as a small wound but by the time I saw it it covered two thirds of his left foot. The wound was left open, and flies were swarming over it. He would flick at them and they would fly off, only to come back and settle down on the wound.

This time in the same village, couple of children had mumps and the same boy (his wound had eventually healed) had now another wound in his foot. This one had developed pus and was obviously painful. He walked carefully, his foot to one side to ease the pain.

I did not ask the obvious question: Has he seen a doctor?
For I knew that there is no doctor in the village. There is no primary health care center in this village. And where ever there are primary health care center, the doctors do not come to the center. So the villagers just get along the best they can with home remedies.

While coming back from Ramdaspur, Visvesh showed me a new building that is coming up. It is going to serve as primary health care center for a group of villages.

"But do doctors come?"
"No."
"Why don't you file an RTI?"

I am in fact pressing Vishvesh to file RTI against errant doctors in the hope something can be done. Maybe the doctors will start attending out of fear?

Hair follicle-gene therapy

This one is for appa.

I have been teaching gene therapy (as part of human genetics) to M.Sc. 3rd semester students. I was searching on the latest advances in using cationic lipids for gene therapy. And the first article that came up was on the feasibility of targeted selective gene therapy of the hair follicle.

But sorry appa! We do not work on this aspect in the lab. Though I guess you can try asking my student for the gene instead of the protein.