Outsourcing medical care to India

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Newsweek details the growing trend of going abroad for medical care, in this case to high-tech hospitals in India:

The trend is driven in part by long waiting lists and high costs in countries like Britain and Canada. Like software outsourcing firms, Indian hospitals offer quality at Third World prices. The number of foreign patients seeking treatment in India—now 100,000—is growing by 12 percent to 15 percent a year, says the Indian Healthcare Federation.

I have heard of people increasingly combining their vacations with some type of medical procedure as well (often times cosmetic).

The private sector already sees medical tourism as an industry with tremendous potential for growth.

Travel agents, tour operators and hotels are vying to make their presence felt.

And by next year, the Indian medical industry will be ready to move into outsourcing to relieve overburdened medical institutions in Western countries, which are facing severe staff shortages.

Indian parrots make illegal incursions across Israeli borders

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Parrots from India are wreaking havoc on Israeli crops. It is so bad that authorities are calling them “the number one enemy of the fruit growers in the country.” The green Indian parrot, commonly called “Dhara,” slipped into Israel some thirty years ago. From India Express:

The beautiful green Indian parrot called ‘Drara’ has undergone an “incredible multiplication” during the last few years as its predators have rapidly decreased in numbers, Dr. Yossi Lasham, an ornithologist, was quoted in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

The rich and natural food available all over northern Israel has aided its growth and they have wreaked havoc on the date plantations in Amakim, necessitating authorities to issue directives to adopt measures to control or even reduce their numbers, Lasham told the paper in Jerusalem.

To report the facts of this story correctly for SM readers I contacted the head parrot. He has been forced to remain in his cage for some time now under threat to his life. He told me that he does not recognize the right of Israeli date plantations to exist. The Israeli government is reportedly considering building a large cage around the entire country to curb the devastation to their crops.

Lurid Bollywood posters then, art now

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daag.jpg

“The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford has put together an exhibition of film posters to mark ten years of its Bite the Mango film festival, including Aan (Savage Princess) from 1952.” [BBC]

According to family history, my grandfather was a co-owner of the only 4 color printing press in Delhi after Independence. It was across the street from Jama Masjid, and is still in operation (I’ve been to see it). My father has fond memories of all the posters he collected as a child, and reflects that they would have been worth a pretty penny had he managed to keep them.

Be careful whom you canonize

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Who made the following remarks?

“I believe that caste has saved Hinduism from disintegration. But like every other institution it has suffered from excrescences. I consider the four divisions alone to be fundamental, natural and essential.”

“I am inclined to think that the law of heredity is an eternal law and any attempt to alter that law must lead us, as it has before led [others], to utter confusion…. If Hindus believe, as they must believe, in reincarnation [and] transmigration, they must know that Nature will, without any possibility of mistake, adjust the balance by degrading a Brahmin, if he misbehaves himself, by reincarnating him in a lower division, and translating one who lives the life of a Brahmin in his present incarnation to Brahminhood in his next. ”

“Caste is but an extension of the principle of the family. Both are governed by blood and heredity ”

“I believe that if Hindu society has been able to stand, it is because it is founded on the caste system…. A community which can create the caste system must be said to possess unique power of organization….”

“[The] hereditary principle is an eternal principle. To change it is to create disorder…. It will be a chaos if every day a Brahmin is to be changed into a Shudra and a Shudra is to be changed into a Brahmin. The caste system is a natural order of society…. I am opposed to all those who are out to destroy the caste system.”

It’s M.K. (he’s no Mahatma to me) Gandhi, that’s who. In the US, Gandhi is seen by Hindus as both a saint and a patriotic symbol, a 2-for-1 way to show Americans why Hindu Indian culture is morally superior. But this is a blind embrace of Gandhi, without much understanding of what he actually stood for. (“Many a colleague of Gandhi’s observed that he was greater than his writings would suggest. He himself said that they should be cremated with his body“) Continue reading →

Everybody outsources to India

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Even the Catholic Church has gotten into the act:

With Roman Catholic clergy in short supply in the United States, Indian priests are picking up some of their work, saying Mass for special intentions, in a sacred if unusual version of outsourcing.

American, as well as Canadian and European churches, are sending Mass intentions, or requests for services like those to remember deceased relatives and thanksgiving prayers, to clergy in India.

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‘Bombay Dreams’ premiere photos

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Here’s a great photo gallery from the April premiere of Bombay Dreams in New York. Celebs in the photos include A.R. Rahman, Padma Lakshmi, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, Meera Syal, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Claire Danes, Edie Falco (The Sopranos), Kenneth Cole, Donald Trump and hydraulically-assisted girlfriend Melania Knauss, Ivana Trump with boy-toy, and former Miss USA Shandi Finnessey. And it’s interesting to see, out of costume, the guy who plays Sweetie the hijra. Salman Rushdie and Bill and Hillary Clinton have also seen the show.

Janet Jackson was offered the role of Rani the seductress, replacing Ayesha Dharker. With family-friendly lyrics like ‘Got a nice package all right, guess I’m gonna have to ride it tonight,‘ and her patriotic role in the Teat Offensive, Jackson would fare well with desi family audiences.

Mapping Delhi

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I couldn’t beleive this one, but Stanford sophomore Rohan Verma has created a Mapquest type service for Delhi called, MapMyIndia.com. Never again will a rickshawallah take me for a crazy trip. How the heck can you possibly make a map of Indian roads? When I lived in Delhi a couple years ago I was at the mercy of drivers who didn’t understand my horrible Hindi when I told them where I wanted to go. Well I guess it wasn’t so bad as long as I stuck to main roads. From IndiaWest:

…Rohan Verma has been working day and night in New Delhi to put together the sort of Web site that’s mundane for U.S. Web surfers but unheard of in India – a navigational tool that produces printable maps to provide directions to destinations in India.

The result – after three-and-a-half months of work leading a team of 10 people -is Mapmyindia.com. “My role started from conceptualizing it, managing and execution of it, and deploying it, which we did on Sept. 10, and also marketing,” Verma, who is all of 19 years, told India-West.

National Gandhi Day of Service

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My senior year (1997) at the University of Michigan, The Indian American Students Association (IASA) had a novel idea. Why not create a Gandhi Day of Service where people perform volunteer work in honor of his birth anniversary? The next year the idea was picked up nationally and is now in its sixth year. Tomorrow, schools and organizations around the country will participate. From the NGDOS website:

MISSION: National Gandhi Day of Service (NGDOS) is an annual event sponsored by South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) to inspire and empower people around the world through civic engagement and community service. Participants will be united through Gandhi’s common values of equality, tolerance and nonviolence, regardless of ethnicity, racial or religious background.

VISION: To establish NGDOS as a widely recognized and well-respected event that fosters involvement in community service and civic engagement. NGDOS will provide the platform for meaningful service that highlights the universal beliefs of compassion, selflessness, and unity.

HISTORY OF NGDOS: The First Gandhi Day of Service took place on October 4, 1997 at the University of Michigan. Organized by the Indian American Student Association (IASA), their vision was to unify people through the common goal of serving communities in need. On that day, 200 students throughout the campus collaborated for a day of speakers, group interaction, and a range of volunteer projects. The tremendous response received for Gandhi Day of Service led to its expansion in 1999. The First National-level Gandhi Day of Service was a huge success, involving 20 universities and 2000 students nationwide.

Last year, over seven thousand volunteers from over two hundred universities and organizations contributed over twenty five thousand hours of community service in memory of the teachings and spirit of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Join us this October and help make the sixth annual Gandhi Day an even bigger success!

Please check out their site and volunteer if you can.

The effect of androgens on man-in-the-moon marigolds

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Wrestler Dalip ‘Giant’ Singh: a living testament to the effect of androgens on fetal development. 7’3″, 408 lbs, claims to eat five chickens and 24 eggs a day.

Wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh. Not so large, but like Hasselhoff, he’s big in Japan.

…running amok in a Japanese arena, bedecked in a turban and brandishing a menacing sword. Bellowing like a bull elephant in heat, he attacks members of the ticket-paying audience, scattering them hither and yon… He once mauled the editor of Tokyo’s largest sports daily newspaper. Another time, the Tiger demolished a Mercedes with a baseball bat in downtown Tokyo during rush hour… He claims that Japanese wrestling fans will not wash those parts of their body he has struck, so honored are they to be pummelled by Tiger Jeet Singh.

The jawans on the India-Pakistan border, from the always-funny Sin.

… the border guards are all MASSIVE. The midget amongst them was 6’8″ tall… the guards (quite literally) utter these primal screams at the other side of the border, in some sort of bizarre alpha-male routine. The whole macho element of guns, sabres, and massively magnificent moustaches is, however, completely ruined by the modern dance routine that ensues once the “parade” begins; although it defies description, lets just say that it involves high-kicks, stomping, twirling, a hip-shimmy, and much prancing.

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