JJ doctors remove tapeworm cysts from man’s chest. Dog may have infected him

MUMBAI: When 35-year-old tractor driver Pradip Naik walked into JJ Hospital on July 4, he was in a lot of pain—not only due to the growth that doctors in his native Buldhana found in his chest, but also because they told him that they couldn't help him.

"I thought I had a growth in my lungs that was untreatable," he said on Monday, free from the pain for the first time in four months.

Doctors in the state-run JJ's surgery department found that the "growth" in Naik's chest was five delicate cysts of a tapeworm called Echinococcus granulosus. These cysts—called hydatid cysts—could have burst any time, causing an emergency. On August 4, doctors removed them in a three-hour operation.

Tapeworm-related infections are quite common in India in comparison to the rest of the world. JJ doctors said the incidence of hydatid disease worldwide is 1 in 200 to 1 in a lakh.

"We get 10-odd cases of hydatid cysts every year, but most of them are attached to the patient's liver," said Dr Ajay Bhandarwar, professor from the general surgery department of JJ Hospital. "But in Naik's case, the cysts bypassed the first filter of liver and reached the lungs as well as the spleen."

This is a rare case because of the combination of cysts in the lungs and spleen, the doctors said. "This is the first time such a case has been handled with minimally invasive surgery in world medical literature."

The cyst attached to his spleen was the biggest, with a 10cm diameter. Two of the cysts not only touched the lungs, but also the outer covering of the heart. "Care has to be taken to ensure these cysts don't break while removing them laparoscopically," said Dr Amol Wagh, who, along with Dr Bhandarwar, performed the operation. "As the heart was beating, it was not easy to remove the cysts. It seemed like repairing something when its engine was on."

The doctors believe Naik got the cysts from his pet dog, which was possibly infected with tapeworms and shed tapeworm eggs through faeces. If ingested by humans, the eggs form an embryo that is protected in the form of a cyst.

Naik has undergone post-operative scans and has been put on a deworming course to prevent recurrence.

Repeat fire on judge posts - CJI rues Modi silence

New Delhi, Aug. 15: Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur today regretted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day address contained not a word on the piling judges' vacancies, bringing to a head months of simmering tensions between the judiciary and the government.

"You make roads, schools, colleges, hospitals and take up various other projects. But you must, please, also say something about justice delivery to people," India's top judge said.

"I heard the speech of our Prime Minister for an hour and just now a speech by the Union law minister. I assumed they would say something about the judiciary, justice delivery system and the pending appointments of judges.

"However, they did not. I request the government to pay attention to our judiciary, especially the appointment of judges."

Justice Thakur had on Friday castigated the Centre, saying more than half of high court judges' posts were vacant and any further delay in appointments could "shut down" the courts.

He had threatened to break the "logjam" through a never-before judicial order, exposing members of the government to possible contempt if they continued sitting on an apex court collegium's recommendations for judges' appointments and transfers.

Sources said the Centre had been stalling the collegium's recommendations since the top court quashed a legislation that would have given the government a say in judges' appointments and transfers, which it now virtually has to rubber-stamp.

On Friday, a bench headed by the Chief Justice had given attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi time till September 13 to respond on the government's behalf.

Justice Thakur's comments today came in his own I-Day address to the Supreme Court Bar Association, which he delivered after listening to the Prime Minister's speech.

Earlier, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was on the Supreme Court lawns for the event, had spoken in general terms about filling judges' posts instead of committing the government to a timetable.

"Although this occasion is not to talk about appointments, I would only reiterate that our government is led by senior ministers who fought against the Emergency. Our government feels that effective judicial delivery is integral to good governance and appointments are part of it."

Prasad had added: "Appointments of judges will go ahead irrespective of whether a memorandum of procedure is in place or not."

Justice Thakur said, speaking in Hindi: "Under British rule, it took 10 years to deliver a judgment. Today, even 100 years aren't enough because of a shortage of judges. People's aspirations are increasing and a large number of cases are being filed. But there are no judges."

He added: "We appreciate that the government is doing great work for the people. But it should also think about the judicial system. Please pay attention to this side too."

This was the third time in four months that the Chief Justice was publicly chiding the government for the mounting judges' vacancies at a time the courts were groaning under a backlog of 3 crore cases.

On April 24, Justice Thakur had fought back tears while telling the Prime Minister, who was in the audience, that the success of his Make-in-India campaign and economic policies hinged on the "efficacy" of the judicial system.

Addressing a conference of chief ministers and high court chief justices, he had accused the Centre and the states of fighting a "tug-of-war" in shifting responsibility when it came to upgrading judicial infrastructure.

He had said that three decades after the Centre had pledged to increase the judges' strength in the country to 40,357, their number today languished at 7,675.

On Friday, Justice Thakur had accused the government of withholding the appointments of 312 high court judges. Sources had said another 40 transfers had been stalled.

It's the judges-only collegium that recommends all appointments and transfers of high court and Supreme Court judges. The government is allowed one request for reconsideration per recommendation, which must be accepted if the collegium reaffirms it.

After the October verdict, the top court had as a concession asked the Centre to redraft the memorandum of procedure for judges' appointments, fixing eligibility criteria such as age and qualifications subject to the collegium's approval.

Since then, the Centre has been bombarding the collegium with queries such as whether it can reject a judge's appointment on grounds of "national security" and whether it can install a mechanism to hear complaints against judges.

"The government may be working on the draft memorandum of procedure but that did not give them the excuse to freeze appointments," the Chief Justice had said on Friday.

Justice Thakur also spoke on larger national issues today. He said that about 10 crore people lived below the poverty line before Independence but the figure had now reached 40 crore.

Real freedom, he said, would be achieved only when the battle against poverty was won.

Gujarat Dalits issue an ultimatum

Una, Aug. 15 (PTI): Gujarat's Dalits today threatened a rail blockade if the state government failed to meet within a month their demand for five acres of land for each family from the community. Thousands had gathered in Una, where vigilantes publicly flogged four Dalit youths for skinning a dead cow last month, in an Independence Day rally that capped a weeklong march from Ahmedabad. "You take the cow's tail, give us land," Jignesh Mewani, leader of the Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti, the march organiser, said in his speech. "If you don't accept our demand for five acres for each Dalit family in the next one month, we will launch a rail roko." He got the gathering to pledge to stop skinning cows for a living. The Tricolour was jointly unfurled by Radhika Vemula, mother of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula whom alleged discrimination had driven to suicide at Hyderabad University in January, and Balu Sarvaiya, father of one of the flogging victims. Also present was JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, the face of the recent spate of campus protests against the government. Mewani chided Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his initial silence on the flogging. "The sheer scale of protests forced him to (eventually) speak out. But Modi didn't speak a word when three (Dalit) youths were killed in police firing in Thangadh town in 2012." Muslims came in large numbers to express solidarity. While I support the Dalits in their fight against the injustice meted out to them, one should make a demand which can be fulfilled. Multiply 5 acres by the dalit population in India, which is 200 million, ie 20 crores. This works out to 100 crore acres. The total area of India is 3287260 Sq. Km i.e 8123148186 acres. Asking for 5 acres of land is just too much as if we divide the total area of India between the 20 crore dalits, each would get 8.12 acres. I suppose they are being reasonable in asking for only 5 acres per dalit. This means the rest of India, ie 100 crores population can share among thems selves the balance 3 12 acres.

Bluff-master bites - Book shredding Modi beats ban attempts

Basant Rawat

Ahmedabad, Aug. 14: A book is having such achchhe din in Gujarat that two attempts have been made to ban it, although unsuccessfully. The 54-page book is about Narendra Modi. Except that it's not about his crocodile-taming exploits as a child but about his alleged peddling of false promises to become Prime Minister. Fekuji Have Dilli Ma and its English version, Bluff-master Now in Delhi, are apparently selling like hot cakes in Gujarat and even outside, with translations in the four south Indian languages in the offing. Success for such a book would once have been unthinkable in a state that revered Modi, its chief minister for 13 years, even a couple of years ago. But the Patel quota agitation and the flogging of four Dalits by cow vigilantes seem to have triggered a change in mood. Within weeks of the Gujarati edition's release in late May, Narsinh Solanki, who describes himself as a BJP worker, sought a ban on the book saying it defamed Modi. After a lower court dismissed his petition in June ruling the petitioner was not personally affected by the book's sale, Solanki appealed before Gujarat High Court. On Thursday, the high court refused to admit the appeal on the same ground. The book's author, Jayesh Shah, 60, is a publisher and astrologer who has written over a dozen books, mostly on Jainism and astrology. His JR Enterprise has published Fekujiand Bluff-master. Shah told The Telegraph the two versions had already sold 25,000 to 30,000 copies in less than three months. He said 5,000 more copies were being printed. Prakash Shah, a well-known Gujarati writer, said any book that sold more than 5,000 copies in Gujarat was considered a bestseller. "Gujarati novels hardly sell 1,000 copies, and books of poems even fewer - less than 750 copies," he said. The book accuses Modi of shifting his stand on multiple issues after becoming Prime Minister - from black money to foreign direct investment and the minimum support price for farmers - and thus going back on several pre-poll promises. "The idea behind the book was to create awareness, to tell people how Modi had fooled them," Shah said. He said the Gujarati edition was released on May 26, the day the Modi government completed two years at the Centre. Shah added that only 12,000 copies were printed initially, of which 8,000 were to be distributed free among social activists and Congress members and officials. But when the remaining 4,000 copies vanished off the shelves in quick time, he realised the book's potential. The English translation came out last month and has sold 10,000 copies, he said. An online bookseller, Kartik, told this newspaper he had sold over 2,500 copies of the Gujarati edition. "I've been getting orders even from Mumbai and Pune, mostly from Gujarati readers." Fekuji and Bluff-master are available in book shops in Ahmedabad and Rajkot. It's selling even at the Gujarat Sahitya Parishad's bookstore. Anand Raj, proprietor of the Chennai-based Silambu Publications, said he would print 4,000 copies of the book's translated versions in each of the four south Indian languages. Solanki defended his attempt to seek a ban on the book but said he didn't plan to appeal the high court's refusal to admit his plea. "Nobody should be allowed to ridicule our Prime Minister. He should be given time to bring the achchhe din (good days) he had promised," he said. Nandita Thakur, an HR consultant who had helped Modi's cyber campaign as a volunteer between 2012 and 2014, said: "Books like these cannot dent the image of a Prime Minister who is still popular."

One Hundred Words: How Manipur’s Governor Insulted the Culture of the Manipuris

The Open Letter by Aribam Syam Sharma – arguably the most accomplished film-maker in Manipur and a leading light of Indian cinema –  was written in the aftermath of a public event in Imphal, described by the author, where Shanmuganathan asked an audience that consisted of Manipur’s top cultural personalities to write about the “meaning of culture” in 100 words in exchange for the promise of tea at the governor’s residence. Shanmuganathan was a senior RSS and BJP leader before being appointed governor by the Modi government in 2015, first of Meghalaya and then of Manipur too.

The award-winning Manipuri film-maker Aribam Syam Sharma. Credit: Facebook

Your Excellency,

The inauguration of the University of Culture and Manipur State Film and Television Institute on August, 12, 2016 is a realisation of a dream for many who have worked for the conservation, transformation and evolution of Manipuri culture. Your august presence in the inauguration is appreciated by those assembled lovers and proponents of Manipuri culture. In your address, your excellency, in an inimitable style of interactive deliverance, had asked those assembled to write in 100 words the meaning of culture with the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have tea with you. (This invitation was translated to Manipuri by the ADC on your excellency’s command.)

I shall not attempt an answer to your question here so I forfeit any claim to tea with your excellency. But I shall make an observation that I hope would be entertained by you.

Your excellency’s playful challenge to those who assembled, amongst which were gurus of the arts and culture of Manipur, is considered as thaksi khasi naidaba, leibak macha tadaba*  in our culture. I would not attempt to translate these phrases in English because what is significant here would be lost in translation.

Norms and propriety are part of any culture. There are norms of distinction and measure: what is proper and what is improper. What counts as proper and what counts as not may differ from one culture to another. Whether there are invariants in these norms, cutting across communities and civilisations, here again I admit my ignorance. But at least this much I can say that in the culture of those assembled on that occasion, asking such a question – fit for school children – to those who have dedicated their lifetime, who are living embodiment of culture, is considered as uncultured, in our culture.

Perhaps, this is a case of culture shock. At least, the shock was on our part. The culture, the milieu which has shaped your excellency’s tastes and sensibilities are markedly different from the culture of Manipur, it seems. My humble submission, therefore, is that this shock has happened because there are not only diverse but sometimes irreconcilable sensibilities. Because of this, an overarching definition of culture might not be available. Your excellency should not, for that reason, be surprised if not many hundred-worded definitions of culture reach Raj Bhavan.

Just like we breathe without the need for the definition of what it is breathing, the people of Manipur know what culture is. It is the prana of our making, that makes us live, that makes us who we are. It is the spirit that we create, in which we immerse and live, and make sense of that living.

After the inauguration of the University of Culture and the State Film and Television Institute, we expect a Sports University to come up in Manipur. We expect that your excellency would grace the inauguration. I would like your excellency to make the adventure of asking those assembled – which would include Olympians – the meaning of sports in 100 words. In a gathering of politicians, we would also like to see you invite a definition of what politics is, in hundred words. Or is it too much of an asking, your excellency?

Yours sincerely,

Aribam Syam Sharma
Manipuri film-maker
Imphal West, Manipur -794002

13 August 2016

Venus- Mercury in conjunction with Rahu in Leo: What can be the effects?

On 27th July, 2016, Mercury entered the Leo Sign and Venus entered the fiery Sign on 1st August, 2016 and they are currently in conjunction with the shadowy Rahu. You will have to be careful and alert, as unexpected troubles can get the better of you! Things at the career front may take drastic turns and you may be left reeling under the impact. Find out in this article why the path ahead may be a tricky one and what areas may get affected.

Mercury happens to be a very important planet in matters related to career, as it represents the crucial areas like technology, communication, commerce, finance and our decision-making abilities. Its conjunction with Rahu creates troubles, complications and errors in these areas, and you may be induced to take the wrong decisions.

Are you confused about your career preferences currently? Or, is the dissatisfaction at the workplace giving rise to thoughts of setting up your own business? Then, our personalised report – Job or Business will settle your doubts and bring more clarity.

Also, your finances will need to be handled carefully, and there will be chances of misappropriation or miscalculation in these matters. At the career front, there may be some errors in judgment.

Also, are you confused about the ideal field for your career or business? Are you not satisfied with the current work responsibilities and is there a change that you are looking for? Then, the customised report Suitable Career/ Business Field For You will provide the expert view about the ideal field for you. Order now and get flat 60% off!

You may tend to be restless and impatient and this may create hurdles in your path. There may be differences of opinion in important matters with colleagues. Also, you will feel that convincing others about your views is becoming exceedingly difficult. But, it may be possible that you are not being able to come up with the right ideas or words to put across your point. Errors in judgement may lead to major problems on the professional front. Also, you are advised to be very careful while entering into contracts or signing a deal.

Have you been facing problems in love? Then, the customised Love Ask 3 Questions report will provide the right solutions.

Venus signifies presentation skills, interpersonal skills and harmony, amongst various other areas. It denotes the creative potential within us and the ability to look at things with an innovative and artistic perspective. But, during its transit through the Leo Sign, as it is afflicted by Rahu, there may be hiccups and blocks in the above-mentioned areas.

Are you waiting for the right partner to enter your life? Know when the stars will smile bright as regards love and how to attract the right person in the hand-picked report – Attract Love.

Due to stress in married life or because of some misunderstandings in the personal sphere, your performance at the office may get affected. Even at work, there may be interpersonal issues and misunderstandings with colleagues. The path ahead may have a lot of mirages and you may get tricked by ideas or concepts, that are most unlikely to fetch the desired results.

With Ganesha’s Grace,
Aaditya Sain
The GaneshaSpeaks.com Team

Government may soon rate medical colleges to guide students

NEW DELHI: The central government plans to unveil a rating system for medical institutions to help students make an informed choice. The system will also serve as a warning for poorly rated institutes to improve standards.

It is also aimed at ending the `inspector raj' that flourished in the medical education sector under the Medical Council of India (MCI).

"The task of periodic rating would be assigned to the proposed National Medical Commission, which will replace the MCI," said an official. The existing inspection regime, the official added, was focused on inputs, with a greater emphasis on infrastructural issues than teaching quality and learning outcomes.

As part of the new system, medical institutions will also have to place all relevant information in the public domain via the electronic medium.

The plan is among a slew of reforms in the medical education sector suggested by a high-powered committee headed by Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya.

The panel has also suggested separate, common entrance examinations (all-India National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET) for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The exams must be given "statutory" backing to ensure a transparent admission process based on merit rather than the ability to pay capitation fee, said an official. After completing an undergraduate course, medical professionals will have to appear for a common licentiate examination. The Centre may also prescribe skill tests as part of the exam, which will have statutory backing.

Passing the common licentiate examination will be mandatory for licensees to practise and for registration with the Indian Medical Register.

The committee was not in favour of creating a statutory provision for a common licentiate examination for PG and super-speciality courses. The PG medical education board, which will replace National Board of Examination (NBE), could continue to conduct a voluntary exam with institutions and candidates who are willing to take part.

The fee regulation of private colleges was one of the contentious issues dealt with by the Panagariya panel. The panel tried to address concerns about the high cost of medical education.

The committee suggested that the NMC may be empowered to fix norms for regulating fees for a proportion of seats (not exceeding 40%) in private medical colleges, while for the rest, the management may be given full freedom to charge the fee they deem appropriate.However, medical institutes have to advertise the tuition and other fees upfront on their websites with no other fee permitted. "These provisions are part of the draft National Medical Commission Bill which will replace IMC Act 1956," said an official.