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Magazine
MAIL BAG
Ensuring adequate care
The Article by Nirmala Srinivasan “Mental healthcare needs a revamp” and by R. Krithika (Caregivers’ dilemma, Magazine, October 11) about the inadequate medical care for persons affected by schizophrenia makes one sad. The people affected by such disease have become victims for no fault of theirs. It is the paramount duty of the government to provide adequate number of hospitals and healthcare units for such persons to make their life meaningful. The anguish of the parents of the said victims, worrying about what will happen to such children after their death is a question posed to the public.
Just as the government spends crores of rupees on prevention of AIDS, swine flu etc, the Government should also take interest in such children without any discrimination.
C. Lakshmi Narain
Email
The article on the dire need for care and attention for mentally ill patients made interesting reading. In fact the captioned photograph was very moving as it represented the present condition meted out to mentally ill patients. Unless the government uses its media widely for removing the myths associated with mental illness, the pathetic condition of such patients would continue .
R. Sekar
Visakhapatnam
This has reference to the articles by Nirmala Srinivasan and R. Krithika. It is shocking to note the gross negligence exhibited by the State in treating the mentally challenged, by providing just Rs.1,000 crores only in Eleventh Plan to cover 65 million mental disorder patients as against huge sums provided for other diseases like AIDS, TB and Cancer. Specialised State hospitals for mental health are very few in almost all the States and separate wings for mental care in Govt. General Hospitals are also absent. In this situation on the one hand more number of Institutes of Mental Health should be established by State Governments with Central aid and on the other hand both Central and State Governments may provide annual grants for meeting capital and running costs to the existing institutions run by NGOs. After all mental illness is curable for the majority of the 65 million and all of them have a right to lead a moderately decent life.
A.Varnika Harini
Bangalore
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Working democracy
Harsh Mander has emphatically rebutted some of the arguments of eminent writer Arundhati Roy in his article, “Where grasshoppers do not settle” (Magazine, October11). Arundhati Roy is without doubt a great writer and intellectual in her own right and her forceful voice on a wide range of issues confronting the country has indeed stirred the nation’s conscience. But, her depiction of India’s democracy as failing is wrong as this country has voted not once but twice in favour of secularism, inclusive growth and firm rejection of communalism. Arundhati Roy’s endorsement of violence as a means of achieving justice is fraught with danger. I would endorse the dream of Harsh Mander, the evolution of the country into a humane, secular, democratic and equitable society.
J. Anantha Padmanabhan
Srirangam
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Corrective action
The article “Trouble at the third pole” by Marianne de Nazareth (Magazine, October 11) on the threat to the Himalayan glaciers is an eye-opener. We have to alert our government to the disasters waiting in the wings due to hundreds of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF) that devastate the ecology, environment, life and culture in the major river basins of the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra. Since the rapid reduction in glaciers in the Himalayas is due to global warming and large scale devastation is likely for livelihoods of millions of people downstream, the Planning Commission has a basic duty to avert these man-made disasters by taking up cloud seeding operations on a massive scale to restore snowfall in the Himalayas. Snowfall is augmented by cloud seeding in several countries all over the world. The Indian government must work in cooperation with China on using cloud seeding as an effective weapon to fight the damaging impact of global warming and climate change.
Prof. T. Shivaji Rao
Director, Centre for Environmental Studies,Gitam University, Visakhapatnam
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