The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Reporter's Diary

Vishy's moving `move'

THE LAND that has produced the Czars of chess, Russia, saw the worst ever carnage in mankind's history when around 300 children were killed in an act of terrorism at Beslan. As the entire world prayed for the young souls, the city too contributed to the incessant flow of tributes to the children with world rapid chess champion, Vishwanathan Anand, in the vanguard.

At the inauguration of the NIIT Mind Game Academy in the city last week, he along with a large number of people stood in silence in memory of the children who lost their lives in the Beslan bloodshed. Indeed, a rich tribute from the land where chess was born to the land, which produced thousands of world class chess players.

* * *

CHANGES ARE inevitable, they say. And time is just one catalyst in the process. For the Gandhi Hospital and Gandhi Medical College, now celebrating 154 and 50 years of existence respectively, there could be few more apt adages. The institution started at one place, with one name. And since then, names and locations have kept changing.

D. Raja Reddy, a fourth batch alumni of GMC, points out that Gandhi Hospital had begun as an infirmary with just three wards in 1851 A.D. Known as Cantonment Hospital and later the Civil Hospital, the name became King Edward Memorial Hospital in 1913. In 1958, it became Gandhi Hospital. As for locations, it shifted from the Cantonment to near the Secunderabad railway station and now, Musheerabad.

GMC, meanwhile, had begun at Humayun Nagar under the name People's Medical College in 1954. Two years later, it became the Gandhi Medical College and was shifted to Basheerbagh. In 2003, the location changed to Musheerabad. The count of changes now stands at three each for both. Anymore in the offing?

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THE ADDITIONAL Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Tejdeep Kaur Menon, is coming out with new ways to woo people to follow traffic norms. Recently, she `rewarded' people at a programme on Tank Bund by handing over medical insurance up to Rs. one lakh to those who adhered to safety norms while driving.

Around 10 a.m., a battery of traffic personnel descended on the Tank Bund and started stopping motorists who wore helmets or had fastened seat belts. Within minutes, the entire `show' turned out to be one hell of a event, what with vehicles lining up one after the another resulting in a traffic jam.

Ignoring the rush-hour wherein the motorists were in a hurry to reach their offices or establishments, the traffic police continued with their programme for nearly one hour. Not only Tank Bund, similar traffic snarls were witnessed at a few other busy junctions in the city. The idea might have been to infuse traffic sense in the public, but the time and place she chose to send across the message appeared inappropriate.

By K.V.S. Madhav, Dennis Marcus Mathew and Vikram Sharma

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