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The changes incorporated in the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 after a Parliamentary Committee made its recommendations that were mostly endorsed by the Union Cabinet on March 28 has still left many a serving doctor community sore and sullen. In a country of continental size and vastness such as ours, the importance of keeping the populace in the pink of health so that the productivity of the economy is kept up at least half of its potentials can seldom be gainsaid. Still, down the decades and despite the touted benefits of India’s relatively youthful population offering it an enviable demographic dividend, which the aging West can only be jealous of, the authorities’ apathy and unhelpful attitude to stem the rot in the medical system in general and serve the public health needs of the poor and deserving in a meaningful manner in particular continue to defy descriptions.

Weakening of sacred patient and doctor relationship based on mutual trust is a cause of serious concern. This is understandable to an extent because medical practice has undergone a transformation in the last few decades. Increasing corporatization and extraneous considerations have made it too much techno centric. Healthcare, which at one time was considered as a social responsibility, has seen a shift. Even the WHO has started putting more focus on individual responsibility. Agreements like Alma Ata declaration seem to have taken a back seat. For the vast majority, healthcare remains a serious issue around the globe, more so in the developing countries where public health spending is far from the desirable level. Primary healthcare is the biggest victim. Advanced tertiary healthcare has largely been left to the corporate sector making it inaccessible to vast majority of our population. In the pursuit of defensive medicine or under the pressure of other considerations, patients in many cases are being subjected to either under care or over care.

Year 2018 is bad for Salman Khan. He stands convicted and sentenced for five years in the fourth blackbuck case. Year 1998 was a bad year for the blackbucks killed in Jodhpur by a band of actors led by the superstar. Hunting is a centuries old pastime of people of eminence and deer of all sort are ‘game’ after big-game like Tiger and Lion and Leopard. Salman made a mistake, he shot dead a couple of blackbucks in a land where people worship blackbucks and animals in general. Besides, the blackbuck is also endangered unlike actors who are dime a dozen except that Salman Khan commands a price bigger than most prized actors.

National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRlM), launched in June 2011, was one of the flagship programmes to eradicate rural poverty in India. By the 7th year of its implementation it was to cover all the districts and blocks of the country. Only after two months the time will be over, but the government has failed to achieve the target. It succeeded only in renaming it Deendayal Antyoday Yojna (DAY) in November 2015. It shows the commitment of the ruling establishment to the sectarian view of nationalism and lack of commitment towards poverty alleviation. Out of 716 districts, DAY-NRlM is being implemented only in 586, and the total number of blocks covered is only 4,459 out of about 6,000. Nevertheless, a recent propaganda material released by the government boasts about the physical achievements of this flagship programme aiming at image building.

Donald Trump is not the first US President to hatch a trade war against its rival. In 1985, Ronald Reagan took an assault on Japan, skyrocketing the yen value to nail Japanese exports. The challenge was to uptick the yen value artificially in a coterie with five countries under the Plaza Accord. Reason! Intransient Japan refused to buckle down to reduce exports, which caused wide trade deficit with USA. Now, it is China’s turn, for defying US warning on trade deficit, causing damages to US industry and employment.

The Bengal chief minister Mamta Bannerji betrays her hidden ambitions for a higher slot in Indian politics with her every move to build a third front. She knows that coalitions around two national entities, one led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and other by the Congress would not allow her to lead them. She tried to consolidate forces in 2012 to oppose the Congress candidate Pranav Mukherjee for the election of the President but her move collapsed as no one wanted to be led by a person with obstinate but mercurial temperament.

Union Government’s order in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) amending the Central Press Accreditation Rules to curb the growing menace of fake news by holding accreditation card as a Sword of Damocles over the accredited journalists and those seeking fresh or renewal of their accreditation should they indulge in fake news reporting or those seeking accreditation depending upon clearance after scrutiny by the Press Council of India (PCI) in the case of print media journalists and National Broadcasters Association (NBA) in the case of electronic (broadcast) media journalists has since been cancelled.

Shahid Afridi is now ‘Shaheed Afridi’ and along with other Pakistanis out of favour in Dubai. His cricketing career over, the man with the heavy bat is batting for terrorism and terrorists. Maybe he wants to be a politician, walk in the footsteps of marriage-machine Imran Khan. This even as top Dubai Police official Lt. General Dhahi Khalfan wondered why Pakistanis are “smugglers” and “disrupters” while Indians are “disciplined?”

Arun Shourie was proof of ‘journalism of courage’, the ‘fearless’. One of those who when asked to ‘bend’ did not ‘crawl’. They did not make movies on him but he was the closest to a ‘hero’ to many a young journalist when 24/7 television journalism was yet to come and there were no gabbling celeb journalists. Then, sometime after 1995, he became a ‘politician’ – not ‘didheerna’, like they say of ‘suddenly’ in Tamil, but taking his own sweet time.

Five decades have passed since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. In that city this week, thousands gathered to commemorate the civil rights icon’s life. From symposia hosted by the National Civil Rights Museum to rallies under the auspices of the new Poor People’s Campaign, Memphis was filled with activities marking the King legacy.