Another kind of "universal coverage".
That's the more conventional approach. Now read this.
And more recently this is the strategy being employed.
All of them raise a lot of questions about concepts of disease, prevention and cure. Personally I am diffident about any strategy that involves a large scale modification of the genetic content of an organism. India has seen a huge controversy over GM food with the Supreme Court banning new field trials. But the process has already seemed to have acquired an inevitable flow (as this article would indicate). Any plan of introducing GM organisms to ensure eradication of disease seems fraught with danger.
A more significant issue, worth raising in this context is how these steps are also symptomatic of a larger flaw in our visualisation of society and its problems. GM mosquitoes may be useful or harmful but one cannot deny that their introduction is nothing but a stopgap response to mistakes that were committed much earlier---failures in planning and managing cities, failures in taking health care to rural areas and to the urban poor, failures in managing population..and so on. This is common to a lot of policies, seemingly off-the cuff,painful attempts at correcting systemic errors(the recent loan waiver being another prominent example). These attempts reflect nothing but a complete inability to think ahead and a total unwillingness to look back while making policy. Those who celebrate the vision and foresight of policy makers when they come up with such grand solutions would do well to look back and examine how many of the problems originated in the first place.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
On May Day
Today is the 1st of May. It's a holiday in most parts of the world. This post is indicative of the fact that that is not the case for yours truly. Ruminating over this I reach the following conclusions.
The site I work on/in/at (an online collaboration platform) for my rozi-roti has a server based in Seattle. Simply put, it implies that Seattle time is our time. So technically today is still the 30th of April. In a couple of hours the 30th will give way to the 1st. But it will still be the wee hours of the day and of course, no one in Seattle works such outrageous hours. By the time the working day (8:30/9/9:30 am) begins in Seattle, my labour for the day will have been expended. So here I am, on the 1st of May, caught between two time zones feeling as though it's actually the 1st of April.
Later I find that Seattle(and the rest of the US) does not celebrate May Day. Apparently all such thoughts were put on the back burner when the USSR started celebrating May Day big time. May 1 was declared Loyalty Day(of all things) in the US. Wikipedia says:
"Loyalty Day is a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom."
Acknowledgment/Dedication: A friend who has been filling my head with fascinating ideas of/on labour for the past couple of weeks.
The site I work on/in/at (an online collaboration platform) for my rozi-roti has a server based in Seattle. Simply put, it implies that Seattle time is our time. So technically today is still the 30th of April. In a couple of hours the 30th will give way to the 1st. But it will still be the wee hours of the day and of course, no one in Seattle works such outrageous hours. By the time the working day (8:30/9/9:30 am) begins in Seattle, my labour for the day will have been expended. So here I am, on the 1st of May, caught between two time zones feeling as though it's actually the 1st of April.
Later I find that Seattle(and the rest of the US) does not celebrate May Day. Apparently all such thoughts were put on the back burner when the USSR started celebrating May Day big time. May 1 was declared Loyalty Day(of all things) in the US. Wikipedia says:
"Loyalty Day is a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom."
An interesting response to the threats from behind the mythical/mystical Iron Curtain.
In case any of you readers harbour any misconceptions, I would like to emphatically state that my employer is not a "beehive-monolith" corporate but a small and extremely amiable firm which offers me immense flexibility with respect to my work.
In case any of you readers harbour any misconceptions, I would like to emphatically state that my employer is not a "beehive-monolith" corporate but a small and extremely amiable firm which offers me immense flexibility with respect to my work.
Acknowledgment/Dedication: A friend who has been filling my head with fascinating ideas of/on labour for the past couple of weeks.
The most innovative Potter adaptation of 'em all.
An article from the TIME magazine. I am still a bit unsure about the tone :)
"That's right. Almost anything you need to know about Jews, you can learn from Harry Potter"
The Chosen people and the Chosen One! It was to be expected I guess.
The Chosen people and the Chosen One! It was to be expected I guess.
Picturing Celebrity
"Shooting Britney Spears"
The endless loop of celebrity goes on. Now the 'captors' of celebrity are celebrity-ised.
The endless loop of celebrity goes on. Now the 'captors' of celebrity are celebrity-ised.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Katrina Awards
Readers(haha!) should know by now that Andrew Sullivan,despite belonging to a completely different political persuasion, has been quite a prominent influence on my blog ,specifically in terms of style. So no surprises as he and the Razzies inspire my latest innovation.
THE KATRINA AWARD
The citation:
THE KATRINA AWARD
The citation:
Sheer cluelessness in the face of given circumstances and a complete inability to respond to the same. Special mention for those whose (in)action causes irreparable harm to institutions or individuals.
In case people misunderstand, the reference is not to the famed hurricane and the US Govt's complete and utter incapacity but to our very own Katrina Kaif and her "acting"
We are proud to present the first winner of the Katrina Award:
We are proud to present the first winner of the Katrina Award:
He is out of the picture but the havoc he and his IHF wreaked will haunt Indian and world hockey for some time. The jury is still out on whether he was just incompetent and stubborn or malicious as well but either way he deserves the award.
"She is 22,going on 23..
Aniket Alam on female foeticide and the "missing women"(although i am not very sure about the "cultural" assumption he makes).
Dangling as I am on the precipice of 24 years on this planet and having attempted to keep as many options as possible open for the future, it causes me immense chagrin to see girls of my age and less losing a lot of options for no fault except for the fact that they were born women. This fact struck me with immense force about a year and a half ago as I suddenly realised that girls of my age were getting 'married off' in droves. Now many belong to socially and economically "settled" families and this makes the situation(for me at least) even worse. A lifetime of seeing dreams shattered,creativity drying up and social and political attitudes ossifying around me has at least made one thing clear.Marriage closes more doors than it opens.
Discussions back home always led to frustrating stalemates ."Of course she should study.Who said we are against it? Its just that when a suitable match is found its always safer to get her married off..Who knows what will happen if we wait" was/is the most standard response. The other one was "She can always study after marriage". It's just that as time passes, children are born, houses are built and life goes on, a lot of things just die out slowly and steadily.Talents are drowned, bitterness grows and open mindedness is often replaced by a stubborn unwillingness to consider the other point of view.Of course these features are in no way restricted to women.Men develop most of these 'system features' despite there being so many more opportunities available to them. However one cannot but feel a sense of loss, a complete lack of comprehension as generations collaborate(willingly or unwillingly) to bury the dreams and possibilities of youth
Of course "marrying off" a girl is not an isolated process. It begins at a tender age and reinforced through a series of gestures over the years ranging from subtle insertions into a conversation about how the girl is to go to another house to an early introduction to housework and cooking. These concepts influence how a girl is educated, what subjects she chooses and what career options she selects.It even influences her personality,the amount of noise she makes and the tone and tenor of her voice. It ensures that her thoughts are often tuned to keeping the family and her parents happy.And in the end this indoctrination prompts her to choose the better over the best, prevents her from holding out until she can decide a proper future for herself. Universities in the West generally encourage students to work a while after their masters and evaluate their interests before they apply for a PhD.We decide our girls' future much earlier.
I realize that I am painting a "good and evil" picture here. I completely accept the possibility that this is a unidimensional point of view. There are many who do a great job multitasking their families,careers and interests. I also know that there are many who swim against the tide(occasionally with their families' consent)and have the courage and determination to ensure that marriage will not close doors on them .The indoctrination mentioned here is also not a norm.On the other hand there are girls who face graver circumstances and in certain contexts,these musings will be labeled as the self-obsessed ravings of a slightly jobless,upper- middle class man condescending to speak for the subaltern.But Anyway.
Here's to those who fought till the very end and to those are still fighting..
Cheers!
Dangling as I am on the precipice of 24 years on this planet and having attempted to keep as many options as possible open for the future, it causes me immense chagrin to see girls of my age and less losing a lot of options for no fault except for the fact that they were born women. This fact struck me with immense force about a year and a half ago as I suddenly realised that girls of my age were getting 'married off' in droves. Now many belong to socially and economically "settled" families and this makes the situation(for me at least) even worse. A lifetime of seeing dreams shattered,creativity drying up and social and political attitudes ossifying around me has at least made one thing clear.Marriage closes more doors than it opens.
Discussions back home always led to frustrating stalemates ."Of course she should study.Who said we are against it? Its just that when a suitable match is found its always safer to get her married off..Who knows what will happen if we wait" was/is the most standard response. The other one was "She can always study after marriage". It's just that as time passes, children are born, houses are built and life goes on, a lot of things just die out slowly and steadily.Talents are drowned, bitterness grows and open mindedness is often replaced by a stubborn unwillingness to consider the other point of view.Of course these features are in no way restricted to women.Men develop most of these 'system features' despite there being so many more opportunities available to them. However one cannot but feel a sense of loss, a complete lack of comprehension as generations collaborate(willingly or unwillingly) to bury the dreams and possibilities of youth
Of course "marrying off" a girl is not an isolated process. It begins at a tender age and reinforced through a series of gestures over the years ranging from subtle insertions into a conversation about how the girl is to go to another house to an early introduction to housework and cooking. These concepts influence how a girl is educated, what subjects she chooses and what career options she selects.It even influences her personality,the amount of noise she makes and the tone and tenor of her voice. It ensures that her thoughts are often tuned to keeping the family and her parents happy.And in the end this indoctrination prompts her to choose the better over the best, prevents her from holding out until she can decide a proper future for herself. Universities in the West generally encourage students to work a while after their masters and evaluate their interests before they apply for a PhD.We decide our girls' future much earlier.
I realize that I am painting a "good and evil" picture here. I completely accept the possibility that this is a unidimensional point of view. There are many who do a great job multitasking their families,careers and interests. I also know that there are many who swim against the tide(occasionally with their families' consent)and have the courage and determination to ensure that marriage will not close doors on them .The indoctrination mentioned here is also not a norm.On the other hand there are girls who face graver circumstances and in certain contexts,these musings will be labeled as the self-obsessed ravings of a slightly jobless,upper- middle class man condescending to speak for the subaltern.But Anyway.
Here's to those who fought till the very end and to those are still fighting..
Cheers!
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