Super-bug in MUMBAI

What is Super-bug?

Antibiotic resistance is a type of drug resistance where a microorganism is able to survive exposure to an antibiotic. Genes can be transferred between bacteria in a horizontal fashion by conjugation, transduction, or transformation. Thus, a gene for antibiotic resistance which had evolved via natural selection may be shared. Evolutionary stress such as exposure to antibiotics then selects for the antibiotic resistant trait. Many antibiotic resistance genes reside on plasmids, facilitating their transfer. If a bacterium carries several resistance genes, it is called multi-resistant or, informally, a superbug.
The primary cause of antibiotic resistance is antibiotic use both within medicine and veterinary medicine. The greater the duration of exposure, the greater is the risk of development of the resistance irrespective of the severity of need for antibiotics.

How to Protect Yourself from Superbug MRSA?

1
What to look out for
MRSA appears as a pimple or a spider bite
It quickly turns painful and warm to the touch
May look like a boil on the skin to an open wound
Cover with bandage or band-aid if not sure what sore or cut is
MRSA can enter the body through the smallest cuts or scrapes
You may feel dizzy, warm with fever and headache
Seek medical attention if you are unsure right away if infection is not going away
There are only a few antibiotics that will heal resistant MRSA
2
Where MRSA is spreading
In schools
gyms
locker rooms
health spas
tattoo parlors
day care centers
MRSA started out in hospitals and nursing homes and is spreading quickly through the communities and the world
3
How to prevent getting infections
keep hands clean at all times
do not go near anyone's open sores or cuts
do not share any personal items clothes, cosmetics, makeup, hats, shoes
If you have an open sore cover it as soon as possible, clean wound with peroxide till you get to the emergency room - band aids with silver work best as silver is a natural antibiotic
tell nurses on staff that you may suspect MRSA
if you suspect you have MRSA clean all things that you have touched
sheets, bed covers, clothing, towels
do not share towels with anyone

PLs Read:-

It really is ironic that the only city having a programme, like ‘Clean Up Mumbai’ – targeted for a whole city, is the one which is most polluted. The fault goes both ways – the government as well as the citizens. When a Govt. is taking certain steps for the upliftment of its people, it is also the responsibility of the people to see that these attempts are not futile. They must take initiatives and fulfill their duties as a citizen. Recently, I myself witnessed an outrageous incident in C.S.T bus depot. A person was caught spitting by volunteers of ‘Clean Up Mumbai.’ When he was politely requested to not repeat his action, and pay a fine of Rs. 300, he refused blatantly. This behavior enraged me to no extent. If the citizens do not respond to the campaigns made in their own interests, then there is nothing any government can do. For this purpose, I urge all the citizens of India to please stand up for the proposals that the government is bringing up for their goodwill.

Impact of Technology on Indian Society

In the globalized age where boundaries have been nullified, where technology has made the World a small space, the impact of science and technology needs to be analyzed to get a better understanding of the influence it can create throughout various kinds of people and places. Technology is practically everywhere today-it has changed the way we prepare food, we buy our clothes, and we build our homes. It has changed the way we send our posts, we take our exams, and we fill up our forms and the way we resort to comfort and entertainment. Computers, the most visible impact of technology have come a long way from being huge machines locked up in a room to tiny palmtops with more features added every day. It has all the functions of a calculator, a music player, a home theatre, a video camera and practically a better tool than a pen and a sheet of paper. With more features and functions, computers have led to loss of jobs for millions. In this context, we can look at the impact of technology, in the Indian context.

Computers arrived in India in the 1970s and with the formation of Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL) in 1976; India formally entered the computers club. Interestingly, HCL launched its operations in India a month ago before IBM came to the Indian market. By the 1980s, HCL introduced data operating and processing computers in Indian corporations. However, it was after 1986, when the then Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi took the initiative to lower duty on hardware and software, the Indian computer Industry began to grow. However, this growth was not smooth. In 1992, when Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL) organized a huge launch of their computers in a function at Calcutta displaying the need of every office in the state to use computers; there were huge demonstrations and protests. The reason- people were about to lose their jobs as the work previously done by them would now be done by the computers. This kind of outburst is not rare; every developing country where computers have now become an integral tool has experienced such protests which cannot be termed as baseless.

Now, how much computers have touched the people, barring the urbane remains to be asked. In 2002, in Vardhaman district of West Bengal, the ruling CPI(M) government boasted of modernization in villages and availability of computers in every rural school. That was not merely a claim; the schools were actually provided computers. But the irony is that, in the district, which was declared the most literate district, literacy remains at writing one’s own name without even knowing the alphabets. So computers remained government toys without any objective of being there.
On the other hand, in Kerala, officially the most literate state in India launched a similar programme. There, most of the school kids not only knew why they need to know computers, but their parents also knew the usefulness of learning computers. They have an objective to learn computers-to be more equipped so that they get good jobs.
Now, the difference is clear, technology can become useful tools, only if ones progresses knowing the need to learn that. Just by introducing computers without any objective can prove a loss, both of government money and human resource. The basic infrastructure needs to be developed to a large extent. Basic education must be ensured in each and every place in India, across diverse social groups, if India wants to feel the impact of computers and stay ahead in the race.
The dotcom boom happened in India during 1999-2000, when new media actually picked up pace and made some real impact. However, convergence was yet to follow. We can safely say that Indians were so overboard with the internet revolution, they didn’t quite pay attention to the development of infrastructure and to plan out the basic objectives of learning computers. True that with the rise of the cyber cafes (starting as a coffee shop called ‘Coffee Day Cyber Cafe’ in 1995,in Bangalore, India have come up a long way to popularize the internet movement. Yet, the reluctance of Indian Companies like HCL and Infosys to continue with hardware development still makes it a distant dream for the lower middle class and the lower class to afford computers. Although India now has a huge global share of technology uses, it mostly due to the over populated metros. The economic issue has surely improved, but the infrastructure is still to be looked at more carefully and steps must be taken up to negate the impact of diversity in a huge and multifaceted country like India ; where only three fifth of the people are literate, most of them only able to ‘draw’ their names!

Growth in technology has both positive and negative impacts on the society. IF we consider mobile phones as technology then positive impacts can be.

1. Phone in pocket, nothing can be better than this. Always connected to world.
2. it’s not only voice and SMS, now mobile phones have GPRS 3G etc which have brought internet in our pockets.

Negative aspects

1. Excessive use of mobiles can cause cancer and mental tensions. People using 2-3 mobile phones are reported to be suffering from lack of sleep, restlessness etc.
Again considering Nuclear energy as a technology. Nuclear energy is like cheapest and long lasting source of energy. But an accident can take away life of whole city.
When we discuss the impact of technology, these questions need to be analyzed as they show the weaker side of the revolution. Technological progress cannot be totally successful unless we increase awareness in the grass root level. It shows how far behind we have remained to catch up with the developed nations. We cannot swank about a global village or the world in fingertips unless we show all the people how technological innovations take place. Only then, the impact of technology will come a huge way forward and science and technology can touch lives, all over the country-not just in metros, but in the rural areas too.

Well people can take up any technology and write about its impact for hours. But the conclusion can be like; everything comes with positive and negative aspect to society. It's up to us individuals to make most out of the positive aspect and nullify the negative one of a particular technology.

Save Narmada save people.

As we all know, the Supreme Court of India has passed an adverse acting order regarding the Sardar Sarovar Project allowing for the Narmada dam to be raised. By claiming to curb itself to the issue of resettlement, the court is being obfuscator with regard to the rights of individuals in our society.
The interim order was passed, based partly on the basis of sworn affidavits from the government of Maharashtra which have recently been canceled by the officials who filed the affidavits. The unlucky follower under this official accompanied the people to the ostensible resettlement site & finally agreed that really there were no land available.
Article 21 is one of the most important articles of Indian constitution. It’s a “Right to life”, the right against arbiter arrest. It also gives Right to livelihood- It includes right to clean living conditions. The universal declaration of 3rd generation right was passed in 1986 that are the right to development & right to self-determination. It gives right to the state or the people to say in the discussion of developments on which they are affected.
In India during 1950 to 1988 more than 55milion people have been displaced by the development project & less than 25% had been rehabilitated.
Such details aside, the provisional order, is a significant challenge to what is possibly the most significant social movement in independent India.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) plans a massive mobilization of people. While political parties do this on a routine basis to establish sham popularity, eternally broke movements like the NBA. The recent Supreme Court order in the matter of Narmada, has stirred up a discussion among the concerned on the judiciary role in protecting the interests of the deprived & the marginalized in probing the ‘ Public Purpose’ of large projects, & in paving the way for sustainable equitable alternatives. The temporary order, confined the states to rise the height of the dam from 32 meters in 1991 to 61 meters in 1993 monsoon, will result in irreparable damages. A large part of the tribal villages in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat & Rajasthan will be affected in the coming monsoon. This is not a time when state have not done enough to rehabilitate those affected at present nor have any readiness for it in the coming months & years.
In the present time, one can say that this fire is bowed in smoke. Nowadays if you talk about this issue you will hardly find people even interested to know about their today’s conditions. Whereas, if you actually look in to this issue it was another bit of successful movement by the people. They have secured their land but have not yet been rehabilitated by the government.

Point of views - No matter

Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India

Somewhere have raised an issue of “Hinduism”, but when it comes to “Hinduism” point of views don’t matter?

India the so called Democratic country, where we have the lengthiest constitution which is followed by few numbers of people, including our political parties. Indian constitution ended with the comprehensible vision to “Restrain on power & assurance of rights”. Whereas according to article 19, which is to some extend connected with article 21, gives right to freedom of expression. [Right of freedom]. And in 1983, under the demand for secession; not protected under freedom of expression, where People’s idea, institution has seen above the constitution. Is it something that the Indian laws are only for Indian?

James Laine in his book has not openly talked about Shivaji but, stories about Shivaji are painted. Stories which are told and developed over centuries. In last fifty year the books on shivaji have much different political and cultural fiction, which are studied by James Laine who tries to explore Shivaji left out of traditional stories. Shivaji challenges the hegemony of Islamic emperor and founded Maharashtra. Shivajis stories have played decisive role in construction of “Islam” and “Hinduism” in Maharashtra.

Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. It has been inhibited from the Indian souk and barred in Maharashtra, while a scholar was beaten up and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune ransacked just because of mentions in Laine's acknowledgements. This cleared up the picture of collectivism in Indian political structure, where we have freedom of expression but only for Indians that’s also not for sure……

Price-Rise fired up democracy

Bandh on July 5^th 2010 was nothing but a fearful holiday across the country, with the loss of Rs 13,000cr.

Maharashtra estimated economic loss of 1000cr, whereas 78 trains and 60 mail trains were severely affected. 96 flights were cancelled across India, with at least 47 departures being cancelled in Mumbai alone

Over 62 lakh commercial vehicles remained off road, acc. to the trucker unions. BEST runs 60% of buses. Ten BEST employees, including conductors and bus drivers were injured in stone pelting, all over India. Students skip the colleges and schools remains closed. This is how the Monday turns out in a lazy Sunday.

With the successful bandh on Monday, the Sena and BJP claimed their political space, yet again. Even media plays an important role in bandh; they were nothing but just creating the fearful air in different parts of the city. While debating about it, bandh always emerges as another example of collective behavior. In the past years political parties calling a bandh had to pay Rs20 lakh each in fine. Similarly, even this time they had to pay for destroying public and private properties. Before calling a bandh even parties should think about the consequences of it on common people, people who work on daily wages. Not a single party has thought about the lower section of our society.

According to the American scholar Walter Lippmann, “The world outside & the picture in our mind” has a big difference when it come to realty. Thinking about the Bharat bandh we create a picture of apprehensive ambiance, which has to be a picture of fight from a party [public representative] to common masses that are truly affected by the cause. Bharat bandh has created ‘Paranoia’ among the people.

People have bent to the pseudo environment on July 5^th, which was boosted up by media also to some extent. Most of the Mumbai was at home, some of them way out of bandh. The attendance at Mantralaya was about 36% & BMC 43% even when government declares harsh actions against absentees. In Cidco’s Belapur office, attendance was 70% & spokesperson Mohan Ninave said people reached office before 9.30am. But corporates like Tata & Birla group companies, Reliance Industries, Standard Chartered Bank, among others, had very thin attendance. Several companies’ gave their employs a choice to work from home or from a closer branch to their home. Even though it was bandh people were working, so one must think to what extend the bandh was supported by the people.

Price rise of fuel have fired up the issue of Democracy in India. Democracy is about majority but it doesn’t permit us to hurt minority, Honor killing is not a democracy. According to Lippmann, Democracy is of no use in its present form. And even restricted press is futile for country. He says “Newspapers are getting complex day by day, they depend upon police, hospitals and other government sectors for news so the news which public is getting is a distorted form of news.” So even when the bandh was called by oppositions SOME WORK, SOME DON’T BUT INDIA RUNS ON TRACK THE VERY NEXT MORNING.

Block on 5th July'10 leads to any positive or favorable change for commoners?