ID cards for third gender in Bhopal, a first in India

ID cards for third gender in Bhopal, a first in India

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bhopal:13.01.2021

In a novel initiative, the Bhopal administration has started giving identity cards to persons from the third gender, so that they could also take benefits of the government’s welfare schemes.

After they get ID cards, persons from the third gender will be eligible for schemes run by the social justice department.

Joint director, social justice department, R P Singh, said that Bhopal is, perhaps, the first district in the country to be giving ID cards to persons from the third gender. It would not only give a distinct recognition to them, but also enable them take benefits of the government schemes and schemes especially meant for them could also be made at the government-level, he added.

All members of the transgender community living in Bhopal would get the identity cards.

All CA exams to be held online

All CA exams to be held online

Mulls Statutory Body ICAI Post Covid-19 Pandemic

Prashant.Rupera@timesgroup.com

Vadodara:13.01.2021

During the peak of Covid-19 induced pandemic, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the statutory body that manages the CA profession in the country, had gone ahead with exams in physical mode.

But in the long-run, world’s second largest professional body of CAs, has decided to conduct online exams only.

CA exams are conducted in May and November ever year. However, owing to the pandemic, the exams scheduled in May last year were postponed multiple times and later merged with the November exams.

In fact, ahead of the November 2020 exams, some students had even filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court raising safety concerns which was disposed of by the court.

“We are seriously considering all the possible options to make all the exams of all three levels – foundation, intermediate and final stages of CA – online. Our Delhi council is exploring the means. We will adopt the best model,” said Lalit Bajaj, chairman of Western India Regional Council (WIRC) of ICAI said on Tuesday.

Bajaj, who along with other office-bearers of WIRC took part in felicitation programme organised by Vadodara branch.

“The nature of CA exams is quite different. While the questions are asked in analytical format, the answers are not objective type but descriptive in nature. Currently, we have lot of MCQbased models for online examinations. We are exploring an alternative online model which assesses analytical skills keeping in mind all safety concerns,” said WIRC’s vice-chairman Vishal Doshi.

Unlike exams conducted by other institutes, the CA exams are held nation-wide and continue for days together. “There are other competitive exams which are held for a day or couple of days. But CA exams are held pan-India and they go on for 25 days covering all the three stages – making it a challenging task,” said Doshi.

Meanwhile, the CA examinations for the students who had opted-out from November 2020 examinations and opted for November 2020 cycle-II are scheduled from January 21 to February 7.

Across western region covering Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, the November exams had witnessed 70% turnout.

HC rejects plea for online test in GTU

HC rejects plea for online test in GTU

Ahmedabad:  13.01.2021

The Gujarat high court on Tuesday turned down the petition filed by students of the Gujarat Technological University (GTU) opposing the university’s decision to conduct pen-paper exams and not granting an option of online test for semester exams.

The students had approached the HC after GTU refused to grant an option of online exam for semester exam and insisted that the students would have to appear in person to take the tests.

The students claimed that GTU had conducted final year examinations online earlier due to Covid-19. There was no reason to put the students at risk amid the pandemic by asking them to go and sit in the exam at the exam centres, when the university can conduct it online. TNN

‘The imprisonment and high-tech torture of dying people in ICUs is a growing Indian disease’

Q&A

‘The imprisonment and high-tech torture of dying people in ICUs is a growing Indian disease’

13.01.2021

Palliative care is a branch of medical care that aims to mitigate the symptoms of serious ailments. It is sometimes offered concurrently with other treatments. WHO estimates 40 million people need palliative care every year. MR Rajagopal, a physician by training and founderdirector of a charitable trust Pallium India, explained its importance to Narayani Ganesh:

What is palliative care?

Palliative care is prevention and management of serious healthrelated suffering. It provides not only relief from pain and other symptoms, but also enables social, mental and spiritual well-being. It tries to understand every fibre of the suffering. The source of suffering could be any of the following: pain, breathlessness, an ulcer, anxiety, depression, issues of relationships, and abandonment by the family, hopelessness or even suicidal thoughts.

At the moment, palliative care is available only to a tiny minority of people in India. At least 98% people are deprived of even basic pain relief. In the context of the growing catastrophic health expenditure which pushes 5.5 crore of Indians into poverty every year, it becomes particularly important to bring in more humanity and compassion to care.

How would you describe ‘healthy ageing’?

When you hear the expression ‘healthy ageing’, what thoughts cross your mind? Preventing lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension, perhaps? You might also think about mobility and financial independence. They are all important. But let me share with you a lesson that a lot of ailing and dying people taught me: Love.

Investment in love and being connected become most important towards the end of one’s life. Remember, no one can be an island. We are social beings. A hand that says with a touch, “I care for you,” becomes all-important.

Is palliative care meant only for geriatric and end-of-life patients or can any gravely ill person, old or young, go for this option?

Palliative care is not only for any particular age group. It is not only for the dying and is not only for any particular disease. If there is suffering, palliative care has to step in, hand-in-hand with treatment of diseases. It is best done if every doctor and every nurse learns its principles and integrates it into their work. But, even then, for difficult issues, palliative care specialists will still be needed. And when the disease becomes incurable, palliative care continues to improve quality of life. Palliative care is also for the family and provides support even during bereavement process.

Most relatives try to prolong the life of a terminally ill patient at great financial cost in an ICU. Is palliative care a more affordable and humane option?

Death is the inevitable consequence of every life. The weeks or months preceding death can become a precious time, rebuilding connections, giving love and receiving love. The medical system needs to understand that it does not have a duty to prolong the dying process, when the disease is advanced and treatment is obviously futile.

Unfortunately, the imprisonment and high-tech torture of dying people in intensive care units is a growing Indian disease. This is clearly unethical. Relatives may want to “do everything” to keep the person alive; they need to be helped to come to a state of acceptance.

Where are we in palliative care and what promise does the future hold for us?

In 2014, the World Health Assembly had asked for integration of palliative care into all health care. In May 2020, it recommended inclusion of palliative care in Covid-19 strategy. Though neither of these has been achieved in India, there are several silver linings. The National Health Policy of 2017 does include palliative care. Several legal restrictions on the use of opioids for pain relief, have been overcome by a law enacted by Parliament in 2014. The MBBS curriculum includes most aspects of palliative care from 2019 onward.

All this lays the foundation for better care. But success will be limited if it is all left only for government action. Everyone in the community has a role to play, to offer a helping hand. Participation of the community is crucial to good palliative care. As the Astana Declaration said in 2018, healthcare ‘for all’ has to be healthcare ‘with all’.

What has been the impact of Covid-19 on palliative care?

Covid-19 has been an amplifier of suffering in every respect. As of now, approximately 1.5 lakh people have died of Covid-19 in India. They all die isolated from the family, most of them breathless and in physical, social and spiritual pain. At least 5 lakh people have been bereaved in the most brutal fashion – a loved one whisked away in an ambulance, never to be seen again with not even a proper farewell to the mortal remains – and they are at serious risk of mental illness.

Moreover, the suffering caused by lockdowns – particularly loss of income and lack of access to healthcare – has been horrendous.

India’s world No. 3 in nano research, but...

HEAR THE PROF

India’s world No. 3 in nano research, but...

Ashutosh.Desai@timesgroup.com

13.01.2021

“India is on the world nanotech map,” says Prof Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, head of the centre for nanotechnology and professor in the department of chemical engineering at IIT Guwahati. “We are doing well in terms of nanoscience and nanotechnology research. In manufacturing and product development, we are doing a cutting-edge job too.”

Nanotechnology is the specialised field of work that’s carried out at an atomic and molecular scale. It doesn’t find as much mention as Indian IT in news coverage. But it is an area where India has ranked third in the number of research articles since 2013, behind China and the US, according to nanotech publication StatNano. And its share has been gradually rising.

But, Bandyopadhyay says, India still has a lot of ground to cover. India’s 9% contribution to research papers in 2020 rests in the shadow of the 41% of contributions by China. And in the application of nanotech, India is even further behind. “We have the best scientists, but we have our traditional weaknesses in industry, in terms of developing new technologies and having a market where the technology can be implemented. Investors will only show interest when they perceive a market for it,” Bandhyopadhyay says.

He says the problem is India is not a big user of technology in products, unlike the US, Europe, China, Japan and South Korea. “One exception is the smartphone, which is a product of multiple nanotech processes, including in the body, screen, processors, built-in sensors. Indian society has shown technological dependence on these devices and that created a market for it,” Bandhyopadhyay says.

Other markets are beginning to emerge. Covid suddenly created a market in India that required investment into the R&D of antigen rapid test kits and vaccines – which requires expertise in nanotech. E-spin Nanotech, a company incubated by IIT Kanpur, manufactures masks made from ‘nanofibres’ through electrospinning.

The professor says there is much to be done in areas like healthcare, waste management, environmental remediation, and energy. The government launched the Nano Mission initiative in 2007. But Bandhyopadhyay says government should do more. Government, he says, should give companies incentives to take on certain projects – such as waste management – to manufacture products and thereby create a supply chain in the space.

He also feels education should be geared towards nurturing not just job seekers, but job creators. Big companies are too entrenched in the ways they function. Emerging technologies require entrepreneurs who think differently.

SC suspends implementation of agri laws, sets up panel

SC suspends implementation of agri laws, sets up panel

Protesting Farmers Boycott Hearing; Some Others Support Laws

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:13.01.2021

Undeterred by the boycott of proceedings by protesting farmers’ unions, the Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended implementation of three contentious farm laws and set up a fourmember expert committee to examine the laws threadbare for determining which all provisions passed muster on the count of farmers’ welfare and give a report to the court in two months.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said, “We are suspending the implementation of the three farm laws - Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.”

It announced setting up of a four-member expert committee to hear all stakeholders including the government and determine “which provisions of the three farm laws required deletion” in the interest of farmers.

The committee comprises agricultural economist Pramod Kumar Joshi (Director of South Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute), Anil Ghanwat (head of farmers’ outfit Shetkari Sangathan), another agricultural economist Ashok Gulati (who served as Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices) and Bhupinder Singh Mann, who heads Bhartiya Kisan Union and is chairman of an umbrella body, All India Kisan Coordination Committee (AIKCC).

The bench also ordered that “the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system in existence before the enactment of the farm laws shall be maintained until further orders. In addition, the farmers’ land holdings shall be protected, i.e., no farmer shall be dispossessed or deprived of his title as a result of any action taken under the farm laws”.

“This committee shall be provided a place as well as secretarial assistance at Delhi by the government. All expenses for the committee to hold sittings at Delhi or anywhere else shall be borne by the central government. The representatives of all the farmers’ bodies, whether they are holding a protest or not and whether they support or oppose the laws shall participate in the deliberations of the committee and put forth their view points. The committee shall, upon hearing the government as well as the representatives of the farmers’ bodies, and other stakeholders, submit a report before this court containing its recommendations. This shall be done within two months from the date of its first sitting,” the bench said.

The SC asked the committee to hold its first sitting before January 22 and expressed the hope that the agitating farmers would end their protests and go back to attend to their livelihood while awaiting the outcome of the committee report and the court’s decision.

“While we may not stifle a peaceful protest, we think that this extraordinary order of stay of implementation of the farm laws will be perceived as an achievement of the purpose of such protest at least for the present and will encourage the farmers’ bodies to convince their members to get back to their livelihood, both in order to protect their own lives and health and in order to protect the lives and properties of others,” the CJI-led bench said.

When some counsel said the composition of the committee should be acceptable to all, the CJI said, “We are not catering to everyone’s idea of what is a good committee. We will decide the composition of the committee to help us decide the issue.” “Before the committee, do not present arguments on legislative competence of Parliament to enact the laws. The committee will tell us about the ground reality and what the farmers want. We will decide the validity of the laws,” the bench said.

The protesting farmer unions counsel Dushyant Dave, Prashant Bhushan, Colin Gonsalves and H S Phoolka had on Monday welcomed the court’s proposal to stay implementation of the farm laws but sought time till Tuesday to report back to the court with their client’s instructions on two issues - their willingness to appear before the court-appointed committee and on their plan to hold a tractor rally on the Republic Day.

On Tuesday, however, all four did a vanishing act much to the chagrin of the SC. In their absence, it was chronic PIL litigant-cum-advocate M L Sharma who informed the bench that the farmers have refused to appear before the committee.

While appearing to be riled by the discourtesy shown by the senior advocates who did not think it fit even to convey the farmers’ decision to the court, the CJI-led bench said the absence of the quartet would not deter the court from setting up the panel it had proposed on Monday. “No power can stop us from forming the committee. All farmers who want to solve the problem arising from the farm laws would appear before the committee and express their grievances.” “When we suspend the implementation of a legislation, it cannot be an empty suspension,” the bench said.

No symptoms, no Covid test for college students: Guidelines

No symptoms, no Covid test for college students: Guidelines

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru:13.01.2021

With colleges preparing to throw open campuses for all students regardless of year or semester, the government has said Covid-19 tests are no longer compulsory for pupils or staff who show no symptoms. This is a shift from the previous protocol where tests were mandatory.

The relaxation was among the new standard operating procedures (SOPs) announced by the government on Tuesday.

“There should be no more than 50% of students in each class. Those attending offline classes must compulsorily wear masks, carry sanitisers and bring water and food from home. These directions apply even to teaching and non-teaching staff,” the guidelines state.

Those with symptoms must compulsorily get a test done. Institutions have been asked to tie up with primary health centres for tests. Students who wish to attend regular classes must get parental permission. While students have the choice of attending online or regular classes, attendance is compulsory. Social distancing norms must be followed in classrooms. Colleges can conduct teaching, practical and project classes in shifts.

Libraries and canteens have also been allowed to reopen on the condition that all safety guidelines are followed.