Relishing the delights of village life in India

“If you want to see the real India, you must travel through its villages.” Many travellers who have visited India have said this earlier. Here in Kerala, a 28-year-old man, Shareef Chungathara, from Chungathara, Nilambur, is of this opinion as his main objective in life is to travel through the unsung routes. And that too to the remote villages in India. The travel freak, who began his expeditions around 2010 soon after he became financially independent following employment, has roamed throughout the country more than four times.

“I would like to be known as a traveller. To travel has always been there in my instincts. So when I got employed in Kochi in 2010, all I dreamt was to accumulate some money to travel round the country,” he said. Shareef’s initial journeys were in trains and buses. All his travels are less expensive as he stays in make-shift tents and chooses the cheapest mode of travel. “If I travel in train, I choose to sleep at the railway station. I don’t bother. Sometimes I travel in the attire of a monk. In such appearance you get great acceptance in the northern states. I have experienced it,” he chuckles.

Culture, Featured, Life, People, Travel

January 13, 2017

In Conversation with James Wilson on His Findings About Demonetisation

James Wilson, a civil engineer, is a member of the Mullaperiyar Special Cell for the Government of Kerala. His profession demands him to decipher figures and statistics of various happenings in a manner that is easily understood by anyone reading a report he has prepared. This could probably be the reason why Mr. Wilson started researching and digging deep into the current major issue in our country – the demonetisation of currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. According to him, he did not find any article or news report convincing enough that would provide him complete and transparent details about demonetisation and its impacts on society. And so he decided to find it out for himself.

He is now posting his findings on his blog ‘Decipher the Demonetisation’ and conveying his thoughts through his Twitter handle @jamewils, which is in turn becoming popular.

In a conversation with The Kochi Post, Mr. Wilson shared his views on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision of demonetisation, its impact, and its pros and cons.

Politics

December 22, 2016

How We Can Work Towards Better Healthcare for All

This is the third under a series of articles The Kochi Post is running on access to healthcare and the second part of Dr. Jimmy’s column on universal healthcare.

From the experience across the world, it is clear that providing universal healthcare as per demand is not working. The richest countries find it a big task. This is what I have tried to highlight in my last article.

Why is that? The reason is the enormous incremental advances in the standard of medical care over the past few decades. Technology brings more benefits, professionals are better skilled, and medicines are more effective. Costs rise exponentially. But the relation between cost and benefit is not linear. That means, a hundred per cent increase in cost doesn’t lead to a hundred per cent increase in benefits. This may happen very rarely. But most of the time, what happens is that a particular improvement in treatment may double the cost. But the benefit may rise only by five per cent or so. But in healthcare, the older treatment is outdated.

Health

December 18, 2016

OPINION: On Dissent, Patriotism and the Nation State

News shows these days are theaters of the absurd and sensible viewers must constantly remind themselves that what they are watching is not a clever parody but the real thing, the happening world. Consider this for instance – a group of people calling themselves gau-rakshaks (cow protectors) use such modern technologies like smartphones and the internet to trace and find people they suspect of trafficking beef because they believe the cow to be their mother. They are aided in their efforts by the state police. Meanwhile, trafficking of children and women goes on unabated with nary a nari-rakshak anywhere in sight.

The latest to join this burlesque is the national anthem debate. The Supreme Court has decided to cultivate patriotism in the land by singing the anthem in movie theatres before each show. Citizens are advised to stand during the recital. People who choose to sit are spotted by anthem-rakshaks and arrested by police. The court order has divided movie-goers into four groups- the Joyful Standers (JFS), the Joyless Standers (JLS), the Grim Sitters (GS) and the Cool Shitters (CS). The last are the ones who said, “Oh, shit”, and stopped going to movie halls. The JLS is the most common, followed by the JFS, the CS and the GS in that order.

The Cool Shitters are quiet dissenters. The Grim Sitters are more vocal and wish the world to take note of their dissent. These may also include the occasional alcoholic who cannot be bothered to stand up. The Joyless Standers are those who have no particular opinion one way or the other about the whole rigmarole but feel that they might as well do what is required so that they can watch their movie in peace. The recently concluded IFFK saw such people stand in large numbers before the movies which, ironically, highlighted State intrusion into civilian life. Joyless Standers may disagree with the exercise but do not feel it necessary to press the question. The Joyful Standers are a small group who feel that the court order is right and proper. Within their number is a sub-group, the anthem-rakshaks, who are not content to merely stand. They must make sure that everyone else also stands, and will spare no pain to punish sitters with whatever means at hand – vigilante justice or the more conventional form. The anthem-rakshak interprets dissent as disrespect to the national anthem and seeks to criminalize it.

Opinion

December 6, 2016

The Cost of Healthcare in Kerala

This is the first under a series of articles The Kochi Post is running on access to healthcare.

The tertiary care health sector in Kerala comprises private and government hospitals. At the top tier of government hospitals are medical colleges, premier institutions which function as referral centres. Government hospitals are by themselves ill-equipped to meet public health demands.There are exceptions to this sweeping statement. Emergency care in government hospitals is usually good and there is an efficient system of referral to the tiers above, from the primary health centre to the teaching hospital, which is able to take care of most demands. Emergency care is free of cost in government hospitals, although this depends on the availability of medicines, implants and other consumables.

However, when it comes to elective cases, like an open heart surgery or a kidney transplant or a knee replacement surgery, this system often involves prolonged waiting periods. Some specialised procedures need highly skilled personnel or costly equipment. These may be available only at a few centres. Highly skilled professionals are scarce. It is difficult for government hospitals to retain their services over time as the salary paid by the government is meagre as compared to that in a private hospital. An exception to this is the highly skilled academician who likes to teach or do research, but this is a rare animal indeed.

Opinion

September 26, 2016

War with Pakistan: Lessons from Past Conflicts

Forty-five years have passed since India and Pakistan fought a regular war, not counting the bitter and bloody conflict on the icy heights of Kargil which stands on a separate footing by virtue of its geographical setting. Most of those who are crying for war in the wake of the attack on the Uri army base are people who are too young to know about the situation at that time. They will presumably be happy to hear that similar slogans were heard then too. Mercifully, the war cries of those days were not too shrill or too loud as news channels and Goswamis and social media and cyber sepoys were not around.

The chain of developments that culminated in the war of December 1971 began at the beginning of that year with the elections held by Pakistan President Gen. Yahya Khan to transfer power to a civilian government yielding an unexpected verdict. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League secured a clear majority in the National Assembly by making a near-total sweep of the East wing seats. Pakistan People’s Party’s Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was unwilling to concede the Prime Ministership to him and Yahya Khan lacked the courage to put national interests above the West wing’s.

Kashmiri dissidents dragged India into the developing imbroglio by hijacking an Indian Airlines plane on a Srinagar-Jammu flight to Lahore. The hijackers freed all aboard the plane unharmed. Later they blew it up. In retaliation, India denied Pakistani aircraft permission to overfly. As a result, Pakistani planes flying from one wing to the other had to go via Colombo. This severely limited Pakistan’s ability to send reinforcements to the East wing when the army crackdown of March 25 provoked a guerrilla campaign.

Opinion, Politics

September 19, 2016

How Rahul Sasi Dropped out of College and Went on to Become One of the Top Ethical Hackers in India

When Rahul Sasi re-enters the portals of Anna University to give a talk organised by the government this week, it will be a proud moment for him. It was from this very university that he dropped out years ago. Today, Rahul is considered to be one of the best ethical hackers in the country. For Rahul, who has his roots in Kerala, this has been a dream run.

Rahul believes he learned more things from outside college. He started with working as a security consultant for a small company. Later, he got a job as a researcher in an international company. He then worked with Citrix before starting his own firm CloudSek, which focuses on Artificial Intelligence and Security. Rahul has given talks on hacking in almost 20 countries.

It all started in college for Rahul. The first hack done by him was into the bio-metric system.

Technology

September 6, 2016

These Law Students Started ‘CodeRed’. A Campaign That Gives Underprivileged Girls Access to Sanitary Napkins.

At a time when people complain that too much online socialising among teenagers will create a generation that can’t communicate face to face, three friends – Prithishree Dash, Ayushi Dangre and Sara Fathima from National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi, – are using social media for doing good. They are using it as a platform to start various campaigns in order to help people who are in need of basic amenities.

The latest campaign Prithishree and her friends have started is ‘CodeRed’. Through this campaign, they aim to raise funds to provide sanitary napkins for girls of an orphanage named ‘Santhwanam’.

Culture

September 5, 2016

How Schools in Kerala Are Still Teaching the Ancient Language of Syriac

Sanskrit, despite being considered the primary sacred language of Hinduism and the language in which the Vedas have been written, has lost its sheen in India. It has now been reduced to a language that the academicians use. If this is the plight of Sanskrit in a country where there are a significant number of Hindus, there is no hope for other languages to flourish.

This is what has happened to Syriac – one of the most ancient languages in the world – as well. A dialect of Aramaic, which Jesus Christ is said to have spoken about 2,000 years ago, Syriac, was also the official language of the Persians.

From Syriac evolved the two geographic scripts of West Syriac and East Syriac. Both of these have the same grammar, but the pronunciation and the script differ. The Syriac writing system lent its vocalisation system to Hebrew and Arabic in the 7th Century, before which Semitic languages were written using consonants only. The Arabic invasion in Persia and the downfall of the Sasanian Empire led to the decline of Syriac. In a sense, Arabic had overpowered Syriac.

Culture

July 20, 2016

Uniform Civil Code – a Lofty Goal, but a Difficult Path to Tread!

By Ajay Justin Odathekal

“The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India” reads Article 44 of the Constitution of India, which forms part of the Directive Principles of State Policy. Why is this Article part of the Directive Principles, one may wonder, especially considering that Directive Principles are non-justiciable, i.e. not enforceable in court. To answer that question, one has to go back in time and look at the lofty principles that were at work when Directive Principles were formulated. At about the time when the Constitution was being formalised, India was in a nascent phase of its democracy – ‘roti, kapda and makaan’ (food, clothing and shelter) were the prime concerns – a Welfare State was still a distant dream, with a very grim present standing in the way. The need of the hour was to ensure basic human rights – but the framers of the constitution could not leave their work at it, no, they had a dream for India, and that dream saw India become a Welfare State.

In order to pave the way for that dream to be realised, the framers of our Constitution developed the Directive Principles, borrowing the idea from Directive Principles of Social Policy as laid down in Article 45 of the Constitution of Ireland. The idea was to implement these Directive Principles once the country had matured to such a level that it could strive to become a Welfare State. So, the recent debate on Uniform Civil Code should essentially be premised on the question – Are we mature enough to implement this Directive Principle?

Opinion