State airs grievances over share of Narmada Water
Madhya Pradesh has registered its opposition with Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal for neglecting interest of the State in benefits from Narmada river water share among partner States. Madhya Pradesh
Pioneer (New Delhi)
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An unhealthy health scheme
The healthcare and medical facilities provided under the Central Government Health Scheme suffer from several anomalies. While the right to healthcare and medical facilities should be seen as an integral part of the right to life, bureaucrats have ensured that hassle-free and quality healthcare at good private nursing homes and hospitals at Government's expense is available only to MPs, senior Government employees, pensioners and their families. The nursing home facilities in Government hospitals, too, are mostly cornered by the high and mighty. Medical specialists attached to CGHS dispensaries are unavailable on the weekdays that are slotted for their visit as they are away on 'VIP duties' for months. There exists a complex classification of CGHS beneficiaries. The parameters depend on the stage and scale of pay or pension, the position one holds or held in the Government, whether one is an employee or pensioner of some 'purely governmental department' or Central autonomous body. It is astounding that the pensioners among the beneficiaries of autonomous bodies are not treated at par with their counterparts who retired from the 'purely Government service' -- particularly in matters of grant of credit facilities. Even while the babus perpetuate and practice such blatant discrimination, or create provisions for it in the rulebooks, they are not held accountable for the miseries caused to the beneficiaries of the scheme who are some autonomous body's pensioner. In the evening of their lives, suffering from age-induced infirmities and debilitating diseases, they have to run around complying with absurd formalities, placating highly inflated egos of the babus concerned. They also have to get their department's permission before and after the treatment, incur all expenses on the spot in the first instance irrespective of the enormity of the amount of expenditure, make repeated trips to the hospital for getting the bills verified by the CGHS medical authorities then to the department from which they have retired. They are subjected to this unreasonable discrimination only for the sin of their having retired from an autonomous body. Is the life of a Class IV employee in any way less valuable than that of a senior class I officer? As the senior citizens of this country, all pensioners should be treated at par, particularly in the matter of healthcare and medical facilities.
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Lack of jobs forces even post-graduates to beg: Survey
While the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government may boast of having successfully implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme across the country, the real story in the national Capital is that graduates and post-graduates have taken to begging due to lack of employment opportunities. They may be indulging in an opprobrium-filled career, but there are the rich and middle-class among them that can put to shame many well-educated people in the country. This news about beggars in Delhi may make the salaried class feel small. A survey conducted by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) of the Delhi University shows that six graduates and four post-graduates are beggars and they earn anything between Rs 200 and Rs 500 daily, depending on where they pick conduct their business. The best areas are religious sites, major red light intersections and markets. That adds up to Rs 15,000 per month, a salary level that is attained by a post-graduate after slogging for a few years in the normal course of events. According to the survey, eight beggars earn between Rs 200 and Rs 500 per day in the Capital. The DSW interviewed 5,003 beggars to take stock of the begging menace in the city following the direction of the Delhi High Court last year. As per the survey, out of the 506 beggar respondents who were literate, 321 (9-10 per cent) were educated up to the primary level followed by 175 (4.56 per cent) beggars who were educated up to the secondary level. The survey reports that beggars earn anywhere between Rs 50 to Rs 500 per day. There are approximately 58,570 beggars in the State, and the majority are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Delhi also making a fair contribution. Interestingly, most of the beggars who were interviewed were aware of the fact that beggary had been made illegal by the Government. Around 54.13 per cent beggars responded that they were aware that begging was illegal while the rest of the others said they did not know It also shows that either the beggars are unafraid of the law or that it is not being implemented properly. For many, asking for alms was a family profession,only a few said they were forced into it by someone else or were part of a gang. A large majority live on pavements (1,082), near temples (644) and under bridges (406). Although the department is still in the process of finding out about those who have a physical deformity, whether someone actually caused it or if it was genetic or due to a disease. That they were opting for begging as the best career option can also be gauged from the fact that their age category was between 13 and 19 years. Surely, they could have done some other work, but chose this particular mode of earning a living as it generated greater cash on a regular basis plus and did not entail much physical exercise.
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Over one lakh families hit by famine in Mizoram
Over one lakh families in Mizoram have been affected by the ongoing shortage of food due to the gregarious bamboo flowering which has triggered a famine like situation in the State. According to official records submitted by Deputy Commissioners of all the eight districts, rural people depending on cultivation have been facing immense hardship due to Mautam while those in urban areas were not spared either, though their sufferings are nominal. Armies of rodents ravaged annual crops like paddy, maize, chili worth Rs 41,138.57 lakh, the report said, adding perennial crops
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Junta allows gold mining, hits tiger park in Myanmar
The military junta is allowing gold mines to pollute the world's largest wild tiger reserve in northwest Myanmar, and has promoted development that is destroying ethnic Kachin communities, a report
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Andhra Opp demands debate on plan to divert Krishna water
The plans of the YS Rajasekhara Reddy Government to divert the water from Krishna river to Kadapa district through Pothireddypadu head regulator at Srisailam has developed in to a major political
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Experts come out with startling revelations on 'real' fever in Kerala
The killer fever that claimed more than 150 lives in Cherthala and Alappuzha was not chickungunya but a mutation born out of Japanese Encephalitis and West Nile, says a yet to be released report from
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2,000 turtles seized from UP poachers
As many as 2,000 turtles were recovered from a gang of poachers operating from Etawah district and have been released into the waters of the Chambal river. The turtles were seized from a house in
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Sadhus want cleaner Ganga
Thousands of sadhus on Monday threatened to boycott ceremonies at a weeks-long pilgrimage to wash away their sins in the river Ganga, saying the divine river was too polluted. The saffron-clad,
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Avoidable spat : But executive must be accountable
The ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court over the setting up of a Forest Advisory Committee by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has taken an undesirable turn. Striking an astonishingly
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North India reels under cold wave, two dead
Northern India on Sunday reeled under an intense cold wave that sent temperatures plummeting below zero degree Celsius in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan and claimed two lives across the region. One