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BHOPAL: Whatever steps Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister takes to win over voters prove counterproductive. He decided to raise the retirement age of government servants from 60 to 62 years. He expected that this decision will add the votes of state government employees and their families to his vote bank. But this decision did not please a substantial number of government servants themselves. Besides, the government had to face the wrath of unemployed youth, whose number runs into several lakhs. The raising of the retirement age has jeopardised chances of employment for the unemployed. Besides, it also affected the prospects of temporary employees who thought that retirement at the age of sixty will cause vacancies which can be filled by them.

Madhya Pradesh is one of the states in the country where infant mortality, child mortality and malnutrition are very high. Reducing infant mortality and child mortality has been a challenge for the government. Still expected success has not been achieved, although IMR (Infant Mortality Rate) and CMR (Child Mortality Rate) have come down in the last few years. For this, the role of immunization is important in preventing disease-related illnesses. Regular vaccination program at the government level is constantly adding new vaccines, so that children can be saved from various diseases. In the last few years, pentavalent, IPV and rota virus were added to the public immunization program. Now in this series PCV vaccine at national level is being added to the regular vaccination program. PCV i.e. (pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) can be prevented from pneumonia and brain fever.

With politicians calling each other names and behaving like alley cats, power shifted to Jodhpur Central Jail where “Mr. Compassionate” Salman Khan, restless and privileged, was counting bars. Overnight in a midnight drama over 200 judicial officers were transferred and the new magistrate in Jodhpur Rural District Court moved quickly to hear Salman’s bail plea.

One day of the gods is supposed to run into thousands of years of that of human beings, according to the Hindu scriptures. Salman Khan is no god, although for his fans he is nearly so. On the basis of the number of days he spent in jail compared to the years of his conviction, a day for Salman would mean roughly two years. This is of course no comparison to the length of the gods’ day, but compared to ordinary mortals, it is quite a long day indeed.

Smriti Irani has been media unfriendly since she took over the charge of the sensitive Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Her order a couple of months back was to cancel forthwith the allotment of a small room occupied by the Press Association, oldest organization of accredited journalists to the government of India, in the National Media Centre. The room to the Press Association was allotted years back when Press Information Bureau was in Shastri Bhavan. The successive I & B ministers never thought of throwing out the office bearers of the Association who functioned from the room.

Tamil Nadu has been in a state of political ferment since the demise of its most formidable AIADMK Chief Minister, Ms. J. Jayalalithaa in December 2016. First two rival factions, each claiming Amma's legacy, patched up for power and are tenuously holding office without an established majority. It is now under growing challenge from both a seemingly strong section of AIADMK dissidents as well as the major Dravidian rival DMK, lately gaining state-wide resurgence, under the party's vigorous leadership of Mr M K Stalin.

Salman Khan will have to stay at least one more night in the waiting room of Jodhpur Central… Jail! Bail decision reserved for Saturday, Bollywood is probably cursing the magistrate and that’s for sure. Salman fans and the film fraternity spent a sleepless night while “sources” said Qaidi No.106 dined on 5-Star fare in Barrack No.2 of the Jail, reluctant to shuck the jeans and shirt he wore to court that morning. The same sources said he was “restless” and could get a shuteye only around 1 am but was woken up by the siren at 6 am sharp. Breakfast was ‘sweet daliya’ and then with hope in heart the wait for bail. Alas!

Brazil’s Supreme Court decision to send former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to jail is a nakedly political act. The most popular president in Brazil’s history is also the front-runner in polls for elections due in October. His Workers’ Party government oversaw massive poverty reduction and redistribution of wealth that saw per capita household income rise 27 per cent in eight years.

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.