067. WHO, IMF, IBRD And ADB Money To India Health Finances Human Rights Violations And Corruption. Documentary Essay By P S Remesh Chandran

067 

WHO, IMF, IBRD And ADB Money To India Health Finances Human Rights Violations And Corruption

P. S. Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By Arvydas 19730616. Graphics: Adobe SP.

First published: 13th Nov 2014

NOTE: This article is under edit, to be republished as a 120- page book under the same title. This book outlines how much money India Health receives as foreign assistance, from which countries, organizations, foundations and governments and for which projects, how successful or failure these projects are, how much of these huge amounts are lost in corruption, and how the availability and free use of these funds promotes and finances human rights violations. The figures are in US Dollars. The higher the assistance and richer the coffers, the more widespread and taken-for-granted the corruption and more intense the human rights violations. This revised book will replace the one slim book already available as e-book at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D42C2CK 

It will tell in detail how WHO, IMF, IBRD and ADB lost their integrity through the years, how they were hijacked by imperialist countries and for-profit non-state donors, and promoted corruption and human rights violations in India. Anyway, this article here will remain, as an archived item. Additional information on these institutions and human rights violations are available HERE as a stop-gap arrangement till the new book is released.

Child birth scenes captured through mobile phones reaching internet for public to enjoy is one of the major crimes in medical field. People are always anxious about government storing their clinical medical data. The Indian Medical Association justified three Kerala doctors arrested for capturing and circulating delivery scenes in Whats App and is now accessory to crime. This story has serious implications world over. We will follow this story through news reports, comments and documents. 

People who give money have the right to know how it is utilized and if there is transparency and fairness at the receiving end.
 

Title Of A Coming Book From Sahyadri Books Online.

The news was reported by regional, national and international news media like India Vision Malayalam Channel, Times of India and Wall Street Journal. The comments appended were written and published by P.S.Remesh Chandran in these media, using Face Book Log In. India, especially the State of Kerala, receives billions of dollars as financial assistance, grants and loans for development in the health sector, from such international agencies as the World Health Organization, International Monitory Fund, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Asian Development Bank. All this money belongs to the world’s people and when it reaches India, it is squandered 95 percent through corruption, unaccountability and human rights violation. People who give money for good purposes have the right to know how it is utilized and if there is transparency and fairness at the receiving end. Without ensuring these conditions, no one will give money to anyone as assistance, grant or loan. And no one will give money to gross corruptors and human rights violators. 

Doctors butcher patients in surgeries, steal uterus, bones and tissues and sell kidneys.
 

A New Book By P S Remesh Chandran.

The WHO, IMF, IBRD and ADB do not care whether countries at the receiving end have transparency, accountability and the integrity to uphold the dignity of human rights. These international financial institutions continue to spend billions of world people’s money each year blindly, for financing and promoting corruption, unaccountability and human rights violations, in countries such as India. It indeed is a grave allegation but the facts and evidence are undeniable and cannot be over-looked. It is time the world’s people, the owners of the money these organizations spend, interfere and stop exporting funds to unaccountable and corrupt countries, India included, especially to the Health Services Department of Kerala which is one of the largest beneficiaries. Unaccountability, corruption, lack of control, indiscipline and non-transparency in this largest department in Kerala which is at the receiving end has gone to such extreme that doctors who stole patents’ delivery scenes from labour rooms and circulated them through Whats App were not only let free by the Director of Health Services, but were justified by the Indian Medical Association also.

Health gets the bulk of world’s assistance and Kerala is the state the highest literate in India.
 

International Funds Passes Through Incompetence.

This article examines how rampant human rights violations are and how darkened transparency is in the organization which is standing at the receiving end of world people’s money through WHO, IMF, IBRD and ADB assistances, grants and loans, gulping down the bulk of this international assistance. The field selected is health sector in India and the organization selected is health services department of Kerala which is for two reasons: Health is the sector which receives the bulk of these assistances and Kerala is the state with the highest literacy in India, for illustration purposes. The article has two parts- the state of human rights violations in the health sector in India and the state of non-transparency in the highest literate state of India. Human rights violations in Kerala Health are traced through a single incident of the gravest act of capturing patents’ delivery scenes from hospital labour rooms in mobile phones and circulating them in Whats App, how ineffective and biased are investigations, and how large and influential organizations are supporting culprit doctors and helping them escape clean without punishment. Incidents of human rights violations in health sector from the states of Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have also been mentioned, under proper documentation. Non-transparency at the receiving end of world peoples’ money is documented through the single incident of a citizen seeking specific information from the seat of Kerala’s ultimate health control station and how that citizen is not only denied information but shamelessly ridiculed also by the senior-most officials in the Directorate of Health Services and Government. Screen prints of concerned department’s relevant web site pages and scan copies of questions and answers under the Right to Information Act of India are included, and they are self-explanatory. Though distributed throughout the article, the images belong to specific paragraphs in the article and they may please be viewed or waived as such by readers.

PART 01: STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR IN INDIA
 

$330 For Bearing Surgeon's Knife For 20 Years.

News 1: Delivery scenes circulated in Whats App; case against hospital.

India Vision Tele Vision on September 21, 2014 reported that a case was registered against Payyannur Taluk Hospital for capturing delivery scenes in the hospital and posting them in Whats App, following a complaint from a lady alleging that delivery scenes from the hospital were circulating in Whatts App. Kannur DMO asked for report from hospital authorities and said, action would be taken without prejudices. The Cyber Cell was approached by Police for obtaining technical evidence and for ascertaining whether scenes are those of the complainant.

Comment On September 21, 2014:
 

Delivery Scenes Captured And Circulated By Doctors.

Child birth scenes captured through computer applications finally reaching internet for public to view as objects to watch and enjoy is one of the major crimes in the medical field, and in this particular case, the sole responsibility rests with the Medical Superintendent of Payyannur Taluk Hospital, the District Medical Officer of Kannur and the Director of Health Services of Kerala. There is no relevance in the DMO who is responsible himself conducting enquiry. Even the Additional Director of Health Services, Vigilance, is not qualified or empowered to conduct such an enquiry. The first thing that has to be enquired by whoever would come to be empowered by statute is, how much this Payyannur Taluk Head Quarters Hospital is connected and linked to the new E-Health Project being implemented by the Kerala Health Services Department with Central Government Assistance, directly or through agencies taking part in this project, for during the same period this agency was in the process of distributing medical data collection apps to doctors. It was only this project which was given authority to collect patient medical data in Apps, with the collaboration of associated, dubious, service providers and agencies. Perhaps, they were just testing the readiness of their new infra structure. Even from the beginning of this E-Health Project, it was predicted by learnèd quarters that things like this would happen in Kerala. If anyone has doubts, read the internet article, Kerala’s E-Health In Dark Shadows, which was published first by Kerala Health Research Online and then by Trivandrum Social Research Institute. E-Health is a digital project, much feared even in advanced countries for its openness for patient data abuse and misuse, trying to be implemented by the incompetent Health Department, through its ignorant staff, aimed at digitally inter-linking all government hospitals in the state, collecting vital medical data through Industrial Apps, and selling them to whoever are interested, including those in the field of insurance and pharmaceuticals. This project was got sanctioned and brought to Kerala at the same time as the Solar Scam which rocked the state and that is why the implementers of Kerala’s E-Health Project fear to disclose the names of people associated with this project and who expressed interest in this 96-crore project, which is more lucrative and comparatively easier to loot than the solar project. Probably the same persons were involved in both. What happened now at Payyannur is collecting patient data digitally through Apps and releasing them illegally, or even selling them, which in plain terms is ‘Medical Data Theft’. Department’s enquiries would only be directed at proving there was no connection between this hospital, these doctors and the e-health project. Privacy of a citizen is of paramount importance. One can ask, if sacrificing personal privacy for the privileges of an advanced medical technology for the benefit of the entire state is not desirable? The answer would always be ‘no’. It is government’s job to ensure that citizen’s right to privacy and his right to advanced medical treatment do not come face to face. As men are not yet gods, implanted, hand-held and mounted medical devices can, not only collect and transmit data from human body but in the hands of wicked persons such as these can reverse engineer them also to sabotage the very same human body.

News Link: പ്രസവചിത്രം വാട്സ്ആപ്പില്: ആശുപത്രിയ്ക്കെതിരെ കേസ്

http://www.indiavisiontv.com/2014/09/21/354626.html?fb_action_ids=532861793510579&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582 
This link is no more available except in G. Archives.

News 2: Incident of releasing delivery scenes in internet; Special Investigation Team to investigate.
 

Botched Sterilization Ends In Death, Shock, Trauma.

India Vision Tele Vision on September 22, 2014 reported that a Special Investigation Team would be formed and the doctors questioned, and that the investigation by Kannur District Medical Officer had not found doctors guilty.

Comment On September 22, 2014:
 

A Doctor Stole Kidney And Another Wombs.

People have always been anxious about their clinical medical records stored by government. Their concern over the possibility of this data being stolen, traded or misused has led to law courts’ intervening to define which data can be stored and how much of it can be used by government, but demarcations remain still ambiguous, for electronic medical data storage is new to the world. Governments and private medical companies collaborating with government in implementing government’s various e-health governance schemes try their best to establish larger and larger medical data bases, and this collaboration- in some countries shameless fusion and amalgamation- has only increased the intensity and magnitude of people’s fear and their eventual resistance to collection of their data and its storage in electronic networks. (See the book ‘E Health Implications And Medical Data Theft’ soon to be released). Governments’ unlimited access to medical data and the resultant people’s vulnerability to bureaucrats’ and industrialists’ selfish motives in using this data have only emphasized the need for people’s increased and concrete resistance to this unholy connection of governments and private companies collecting and using patients’ electronic medical data. In the beginning of this century, people certainly had their right to control who can access their data, how much, and for what purpose. But the need of rich companies and greedy politicians to amass whatever medical data they can before the whole world becomes alert against medical data theft and abuse, has led to billions of money being transferred to legislators for enacting laws one after the other for forceful collection of people’s medical data and making them available to anyone who has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with government or government’s private partner. As more and more laws came to be passed in more and more countries, this people’s control over their medical data gradually weakened in strength and is only a shadow of its former self now, existing only in law books and law court judgements, which governments do not mind anymore. Chief Ministers, Health Ministers and Health Secretaries in provinces and states are the ones who are expected to tell these things to people but they stand on the other side of the battle field, heavily armed, bribed and corrupted.

News Link: പ്രസവദൃശ്യം പ്രചരിപ്പിച്ച സംഭവം: പ്രത്യേക അന്വേഷണ സംഘം രൂപീകരിക്കും

http://www.indiavisiontv.com/2014/09/22/354806.html?fb_action_ids=533253046804787&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
This link is no more available except in G. Archives.

News 3: Delivery scenes released in Whats App: Indian Medical Association justifies doctors.
 

A Directorate For Human Rights Violation Services!

India Vision TV on September 25, 2014 reported from Cochin that the Indian Medical Association appeared on the scene and justified the three doctors who were suspended for circulating delivery scenes in Whats App. A committee delegated by IMA claimed that pictures of babies born in an extra ordinary delivery were only captured and no privacy of the lady was violated. The IMA added that generalizing isolated incidents like this, this way, is equal to tarnishing the medical field.

Comment September 25, 2014:
 

Pay Compensation To Victims At International Rates!

The Indian Medical Association is just an association, a registered gathering of doctors, formed to protect the interests of doctors, not of patients or the health field. It is not an authority; Indian Medical Council is the authority. Indian Medical Council’s top-ranking officials were questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation of India and their offices and homes raided for evidence, in connection with corruption involving crores of rupees. It is not strange that this case related to illegally favouring and helping a Trivandrum Medical College in getting a few Post Graduate medical seats sanctioned by overlooking criteria, was clearly routed through Kerala’s medical associations. Now that even the Medical Council of India has been implicated in corruption and favouritism, who is here remaining in the medical field beyond corruption and favouritism? The IMA Kerala Chapter in its long history has never condemned a single doctor, charge-sheeted or got involved in malpractice, medical crimes, theft of department funds, or willful violation of patients’ rights. In fact, whenever such doctors were booked, they were found to be office-bearers or members of doctors’ associations. The first and major example was the doctor from Vilappil Primary Health Centre in Trivandrum District who stole nearly 32 lakhs from State Treasury through bogus bills, caused the death of many including his wife and children and him in a hotel room, with bundles of currency notes burned and scattered around the bodies. People have not forgotten this incident and the stolen money could not be recovered still. Doctors’ associations conveniently forget such several incidents and the young bloods among them do not like to remember anything at all from history. Now they have come forward to claim that delivery scenes were taken by doctors in Payyannur Taluk Hospital using personal cameras as it was an extra-ordinary delivery to be recorded for posterity! What extra-ordinary? Do they ever see the web sites of famous university medical schools? Who authorized government doctors in Kerala hospitals to take pictures of delivering females? Did the Health Secretary of Kerala, Director of Health Services, Medical Council of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India, or even the World Health Organization, permit that ever? The IMA admitted those doctors’ taking pictures, only when the bright and alert tech-savvy officers of Kerala Police collected evidence and proof against them, and not before. What they committed is a crime in India, warranting cancellation of Medical Council Registration, heavy fine and long imprisonment. When the IMA justified this medical crime, they became accessories and accomplices to crime according to Indian Law; the law is clear. They are trying to put pressure on Health Secretary, DHS and investigating officers, to let the doctors go free. They are plainly putting pressure on police-investigation and criminal justice-administration, creating a clever precedent, to be used later by the other criminals among them who already might have put similar videos and pictures in internet sites. The IMA’s long history indicates that they always stood for criminals every time a doctor involved in a criminal case was booked. There is no light viewing of the seriousness of this crime committed on an unwary female patient by unscrupulous doctors, in a state hospital. Did anyone verify their school, college records and medical qualification certificates?

News Link: പ്രസവദൃശ്യം വാട്സ് ആപ്പില്; ഡോക്ടര്മാരെ ന്യായീകരിച്ച് ഐഎംഎ

http://www.indiavisiontv.com/2014/09/25/355741.html?fb_action_ids=534623630001062&fb_action_types=og.commentsThis link is no more available except in G. Archives.

Article Title Image By K Fuhlert. Graphics: Adobe SP. 

News 4: 11 Women died in India after botched sterilizations, 7 battling for life and 40 in shock and trauma due to blood loss.
 

Tell Information Act To Go To Hell!

Wall Street Journal on November 11, 2014 reported from Mumbai that eight women were dead and dozens of others were hospitalized after they underwent sterilization surgery as part of India’s population-control programme. Public-health authorities said the women suffered fevers and pain after a surgical team performed a laparoscopic procedure on 83 women on Saturday at a hospital in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The deaths and complications are under investigation.

Times of India on November 12, 2014 reported from Bilaspur that bungled sterilization at a government health camp in Kanan Pendari village in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh triggered the worst-ever medical tragedy in the state, with 11 women dead, seven battling for life and 40 in shock and trauma triggered by loss of blood and that as many as 83 tubectomy operations were performed in three-and-a-half hours, with one doctor and his attendant spending, on average, two minutes per surgery.

Comment On November 12, 2014:
 

DHS Web Site On 11.11.2014. Page 01.

When surgeries fail and patients die, doctors are suspended, state conducts inquiry, Indian Medical Association interferes and culprits are let go free. Not one doctor in India has ever been dismissed for the death of a woman or child in a government hospital in India. In Kerala, actually, a lady doctor who caused the death of a woman and a child through a Post Partum Surgery was promoted five times and made Director of Health Services of the state. Tens of thousands of women die in and after simple procedures like PPS in India but the Union Health Ministry, Cabinet of India and World Health Organization never care. Actually it has become the greatest human rights violations in India. Medical Superintendents of the concerned hospitals would always say, ‘those doctors were well trained and brilliant and I wonder what went wrong’! Everything went wrong! The surgeries were done in open camps as part of political campaigns for publicity. There was no clinical cleanliness and hygiene maintained. Things put into abdomen were not taken out. Scissors and knives remained inside peritonis membrane, patients began to show signs of fits, had to be re-admitted, and died of peritonitis. Doctors who did surgeries got medical school admission through capitation fees payment and were not qualified for admission normally. There might have been urgent demand for vital organs which could be removed stealthily from women’s bodies only in the guise of post-mortem examination for which they had to be killed. Uterus, bones, kidneys- anything could have been removed after death by greedy doctors, or patients deliberately had to be caused to die to keep in balance the demand and supply for human organs. No one needs wonder if such things could happen. Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission in 2008 ordered government to pay compensation of 25000 rupees to Coimbatore Veera Keralam Thentral Nagar-native Mohanraj’s wife Nandini for carrying for 20 years a surgeon’s knife inside her abdomen, deposited there and neglected to be taken out in a PPS operation. In July 2012, Reuters reported from Raipur that doctors from this very Chhattisgarh state illegally removed wombs from poor women in hysterectomy surgeries, to claim $540 on account of each patient from the national insurance scheme to help poor families to pay for expensive surgeries. The Press Trust of India in July 2012 reported from Jaipur that a doctor was arrested in Rajastan for stealing a kidney from a two-year-old child which led to his death. How many doctors were dismissed and imprisoned for all these crimes by the India Government? None! Not only that, the government skillfully escaped also from paying compensation in ten thousands of hospital deaths of women and children in India. It is the world people’s money coming to health sector in India as assistances, grants and loans from WHO, IMF, IBRD and ADB that is being misused to finance these kinds of human rights violations and subsidize the setting up of necessary infra structure for carrying out these gruesome businesses at government expense. It is time world’s organizations interfere and investigate every child and woman death in Indian hospitals. Our women and children are no more safe in our hospitals. 

News Links:

Eight Women Die in India After Botched Sterilizations: Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/articles/eight-women-die-in-india-after-botched-sterilizations-1415720471

Botched govt. sterilization kills 11 women in Chhattisgarh: Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Botched-govt-sterilization-kills-11-women-in-Chhattisgarh/articleshow/45116726.cms

India reached Mars but Indian Prime Minister’s website does not even have a link for people to submit complaints!
 

DHS Web Site On 11.11.2014. Page 02.

We will live in this world only once and we can sympathize with those in distress only once and we too can report these kinds of atrocities to authorities and demand immediate action and exemplary punishment. It is things started by individuals, not organizations, which cause changes in this world. Never hesitate to report human rights violations because the victims themselves can’t do it, for they would already have lost their will power and mind to respond. We are here to act for them. You can directly upload and report to web sites of organizations in the field or send emails. Most human rights organizations in the world are with links to donate money, to receive which is their sole purpose. Do not waste your time there. Even Green Peace and Amnesty International may not care unless there is scope for good publicity for them. Perhaps if you contribute money, such organizations might look into things and take up. Or you can experiment by interacting with organizations like Human Rights Data Analysis Group, Human Rights First, The Carter Center, World Organization Against Torture, Front Line or Civil Rights Defenders. Some of them are just research organizations who do not take action and some others are mostly regional which may or may not be effective, depending on the geographical location of the origin of the complaint. A few others are arrogant organizations who would either respond to only the privileged or not respond at all. Some move only against governments and some do not move against governments for fear of exposure and examination of accounts. Considering the population of the world and the number of human rights violations occurring every year, it can be said that there are barely enough number of organizations and agencies in this world to attend to all complaints. In countries like India, complaint links in even the Labour Ministry will not open when we click. They are not meant to open but to track who clicks. India reached Mars but Indian Prime Minister’s website does not even have a link for people to submit their complaints to! Only the President’s website has it, and it is prompt in action too.

Never hesitate to report human rights violations you learn about, experience or witness: we all are noble.

 

RTI Application To DHS 06.10.14 Page 01.

As we have seen, victims of human rights violations will not be able to report incidents themselves, as they would be maimed, stained, oppressed, tormented, traumatic, shocked, exhausted and energy-drained to do this. Goodness and goodwill of others is their only hope and salvation. After experiencing horrible acts from other human beings, they would only be wanting to go away from this world and say farewell. It is us who have to pull them back to life and dignity through noble interference. This is the basic principle of all human rights protection and legislation; one needn’t necessarily be the victim to report a human rights violation. If you see otherwise anywhere, never trust that establishment, organization, entity or person. There are a number of establishments, governmental and non-governmental, which are bound to record incidents reported by individuals in their data banks and take immediate action. The first and foremost is the United Nations Human Rights Council where only countries can make complaints. But the United Nations Human Rights Committee will record incidents reported directly by individuals from anywhere in this world. You can report here: http://www.ohchr.org/ . Another is, the United States State Department which records human rights violations from anywhere in this world, directly into their website, as part of the proclaimed democratic policies of America, a model to the world. Remember that India’s Prime Minister was denied US Vista for ten years on account of his alleged involvement in human rights violation in the Gujarat Riots in 2002, which was relaxed and visa granted only when he became Prime Minister in 2014. It is believed that America can deny vista to any concerned official from violator countries whose names shows up in their data banks in connection with human rights violation. If it is true, it is a majestic and grand gesture by the Americans, just like their first experiment with democracy two centuries earlier which kindled hopes of people’s rule in so many countries and made democratic freedom a reality in those countries later. Suppose severe human rights violations are reported from the health sector in India and they record them in their data bank, and supposing this data comes up when Indian health officials apply for US Vista to attend WHO meetings, how can Indian health officials secure WHO grants? If used the right way, visa denials can bring down habitual human rights violators and rogue governments.

In India, the national agency for reporting human rights violations to is the National Human Rights Commission in New Delhi where you can upload your report directly to http://nhrc.nic.in/. You needn’t necessarily be the victim. In Kerala, there is the State Human Rights Commission at http://www.kshrc.kerala.gov.in/ and you can email your report to hrckeralatvm@gmail.com. 

Constitution of which country allows human rights violators to set foot in their land?

 

RTI Application To DHS 06.10.14 Page 02.

Countries like US can deny visa as part of exerting international pressure against human rights violators or revoke an already existing visa, if one was reported to be responsible for wrong performance of a state institution in his own country. It is a symbol of world’s resistance to human rights violations and non-transparency, prompted into legislation by the ideals the people in those countries uphold and cherish. If even an Indian Prime Minister could be denied visa in foreign soil for ten years due to alleged involvement in human rights violations, why would anyone hesitate to deny landing permission to faceless health officials with score records of thousands of human rights violations against women and children in government hospitals in India behind them, after receiving billions of world people’s money as assistance each year? Constitution of which country allows human rights violators to set foot in their land? 65 Parliament Members from India writing to US President against human right violations in Gujarat was not considered an unpatriotic act. That is what the world has become today. Anyone can interfere in human rights violations in any country. It is now everyone’s right. The world has already become one. Even Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will some day soon have to cross continental barriers and take up protection of human rights in countries on the other side of the world also.

Article Title Image By Heung Soon. Graphics: Adobe SP.  

PART 02: STATE OF NON-TRANSPARENCY IN THE MOST LITERATE STATE OF INDIA

 

RTI Reply From DHS 14.10.2014

When India learned that enactment of transparency and right to information legislation could not be delayed at the risk of not continuing to get international grants and loans in the changing world of information revolution, the bureaucracy of the country hastily opened websites for giving information where links won’t open, and reluctantly enacted Right to Information 30 years after all the world had done it, where there are only loop holes. In India, this law remains in a ridiculous and laughable state of condition in which arrogant officers still deny information and challenge people as if they are monarchs. As health service is one of the largest recipients of world people’s money as grants and loans, we shall examine the state of conditions existing in the Directorate of Health Services in Kerala state, the state with the highest literacy rate in India. See the Right To Information link in this directorate’s website where none of the officers mentioned as Public Information Officers and Appealing Authorities work there now and most of them have retired long ago. http://dhs.kerala.gov.in/index.php/right-to-information . 

No transparency in government offices; officers are angry and they hate information-seekers.

 

RTI First Appeal To DHS 29.10.2014.

See how the very senior gazetted staff of this office reacts out of sudden anger, ignorance and stupidity to people’s applications seeking information under the RTI Act. Almost all the Senior Superintendents there do not know the official language English, and are recruited not through Public Service Competitive Tests but on compassionate grounds as dependents of relatives who died while in service. Even graduates among them do not know how to read and write in English. It is inconceivable that all of them passed tough departmental tests and secured several promotions unless they used other people’s test results and certificate numbers. Most of them possess dubious certificates and qualifications and scrutiny is lax. Almost all of them skillfully use the famous delay tactics to prepare grounds for bribes and corruption. The director of health services cannot control any of them or take action because that post is filled up through communal and caste rotation, not based on qualification, service and seniority. Which people in this world who give money to governments will believe things are this loose in a country which successfully sent space vehicles to million-miles-distant Mars?

Reply to an application made under the RTI Act to the DHS is scanned and posted here, which is signed by one Ms.S.Kumari, typed in Malayalam which was not the language in which the original application was made. She is supposed to be a Senior Superintendent but doesn’t seem to know what was asked and what was to be answered. She doesn’t even seem to know the difference between appointing authority and posting authority. No one asked her reasons for delay; she was asked only information. A crude translation of her letter from Malayalam to English is here: ‘The information requested vide letter referred to are appended hereunder: In the applications you submitted to this office several times through the DMO and otherwise for various purposes, original documents were not enclosed. Therefore action could not be taken on that application. Therefore, as per NDis. ED2-64625/14/2005/HSD Dated: 07-10-14 the copy of which is enclosed, application for each purpose with original documents is to be submitted to District Medical Officer who is your appointing authority. Yours Faithfully, Sd/- S.Kumari, Public Information Officer, ED Section, Directorate of Health Services, Trivandrum.’ This is the level of public awareness of Senior Superintendents in the Establishment Section of a State Directorate, a section which controls the life and services of thousands and thousands of brilliantly qualified surgeons and physicians, and nurses and technicians, throughout the state. What might have been their untold experiences with these half-baked brains!

Officers who cannot read or write English handle international affairs, funding and spending!

 

RTI Reply From Chief Secretary 28.10.2014.

They cannot understand what information a citizen is asking for, and they believe what they believe is what the citizen is asking for. There is no controlling authority, there is not an educated appealing authority anywhere and there is not even a Chief Information Commissioner for the country, for that matter. We have seen just one application made by a citizen and the irresponsible and arrogant reply given by a Gazetted Senior Superintendent. She escaped without punishment. She does not know to read and write in the official language and that is why the reply is in Malayalam, the only language she knows, in violation of the mandate that the reply should be in the same language as the application and should strictly be in the prescribed format. This is the state of condition in the entire state, and the office of the Chief Secretary to Government of Kerala is no different. The same application was sent to him also and the reply from his office was equally irresponsible too, which is reproduced here. So, the question is, why should the world’s people entrust their money to these corrupt and non-transparent people, for whatever good purposes?


FOR MORE DETAILS: It is assumed that you have already read in full the article 'WHO IMF IBRD And ADB Money To India Health Finances Human Rights Violations And Corruption' in Sahyadri Books Online, Trivandrum. You may need more details. Here are a few draft unedited chapters from proposed book under the same title, published HERE as a stop-gap arrangement for your use, till the original book is released. Please feel free to use the information if needed- Editor.

The link is https://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.com/2013/08/special-report-1-corruption-in-adb.html

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Pictures Courtesy: Sahyadri Books Archives Trivandrum

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Dear Reader,

If you cannot access all the articles of P.S.Remesh Chandran, access them via the link provided here: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

For more factual evidence on the total collapse of governmental health infra structure in Kerala, Visit Kerala Health Research Online and Trivandrum Social Research Institute.

Visit author's own blog Sahyadri Books Online Trivandrum which is this.

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About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book.

Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum,
Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.

Article Title Image By Wiki Images. Graphics: Adobe SP. 

066. Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Rabindranath Tagore Poem. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

066
 
Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Rabindranath Tagore Poem. Reintroduced 

P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By Karl and Ali. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Tagore was one of the most musical-minded poets of the 19th century who lived to see the glories and advancement of the 20th century also. India’s supreme educational visionary, he started Saanthi Nikethan in Calcutta which grew into the Viswa Bhaarathi World University. Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Where The Mind Is Without Fear is the 35th song in Gitanjali, his Nobel collection of poems, Gitanjali meaning Dedication of Flowers.
   
Tagore grew up in an unbelievably intoxicating atmosphere of music and dance and literature. Who will believe he would ever write poems with no music at all?
 

Tagore was born in a house where veena, tamburu, harmonium, mridamgam, tabala and flute resounded day and night from every room, and that great house in Calcutta had so many rooms too. It was a large family, every member being artists, painters, singers, poets, musicians or dancers. Father, mother, uncles, aunts, in-laws, brothers, sisters, nieces- everyone immersed in art or music or dance. He grew up in an unbelievably intoxicating atmosphere of music and dance and literature. Who will believe he would ever write poems with no music at all? He himself wrote and tuned more than Five Hundred songs in his Bengali language; they gained wide popularity in Bengal and constituted that famous branch of Bengali Music which later came to be known as Rabindra Sangeetham. So, we have a real musician with us, who also cared to write songs, plays and short stories, in Bengali as well as in English, all excelling one another. 

In exquisiteness of the music in his poems, Tagore is comparable only to Omar Khayyam, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQWwZsiDI4&t=64s

Even though the tunes of almost all his Bengali songs are known, as he himself had tuned them, the tunes of songs which he wrote in English still remain a mystery. That they also had exhilarating tunes hidden in them was certain but he never cared to reveal them to public. It seems this expert and visionary in the field of education, literature, music and art, wished to keep them as a challenge to the whole English-speaking world, for them to rediscover in their time and leisure. He hardened the challenge by locking his lines too. The standard locking method he used was positioning the start and end of lines where they should not be. In general appearance, his English poems would look like prose-poems, generally known in English literature as free-verse. But once we shed academic pride and approach these poems as enjoyers, we have the option to try and try and try sincerely to sing them in their tunes and in some unexpected moment, they will click and unlock themselves and the original tunes without which these poems could not have been written will be revealed to us. In exquisiteness of the music contained in his poems, Tagore is comparable only to Omar Khayyam, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The fact was the world came nowhere near what he expected the world to do in this intellectual challenge of his, with the result that Tagore still remains widely mistaken as a free-verse poet in English. 

The most paradoxical thing about recognizing Tagore as a writer is, his Nobel Prize Collection Gitanjali of 1913 was Tagore in his least brilliance.

Educated in England, firm-rooted in traditional Indian style of teaching, and open to the whole world’s literary influence, we see him in counsel with Gandhi, agreeing and disagreeing, conferring with Einstein in closed rooms and they never revealing the subject of their discussions, touching musical chords in Sarijini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, switching Romaine Rolland to oriental themes, moving Kahlil Gibran to read and enjoy him and causing Haldane to accept Indian citizenship. What shall we call this person with wide acceptance, reputation and influence? The National Poet of India is too narrow a title for Rabindranath Tagore. His poems made people awakened and alert. His plays made people roused and kinetic. His stories made people weep, and occasionally, laugh. The treasure-trove of Bengali and English literature he produced remains unparalleled and unique in this world. Even his love-songs were classic creations of harmony with nature, mostly in Bengali. He was in actual love with nature! The most paradoxical thing about recognizing Tagore as a writer is, his Nobel Prize Collection Gitanjali of 1913 was Tagore in his least brilliance. 

He instituted Santhi Nikethan as a school where classes were conducted in the lap of nature, amid bird-cries and murmuring streams, under shades of trees, in mango gardens.
 

A school is an assembly of teachers and a class is an assembly of learners, with no walls and buildings. When Tagore conceived an educational institution, he conceived it without walls and buildings. He instituted his Santhi Nikethan, the Abode of Peace, as a school where classes were conducted in the lap of nature, in the midst of bird-cries and murmuring of streams, under shades of trees, in mango gardens. We have noted his openness to the world, his firm-rootedness in Indian teaching styles and his dislike for bondage, slavery and intellectual darkness. To celebrate these three important views, he created three of his most musical and famous poems, and sure, locked their lines too, intellectually challenging the world in general, and the academic community in particular, asking can they ever unlock and sing these lines. Who will deny he was playful also? Anyway, his stories and plays are full of little children. He could easily have revealed their original tunes but he chose not to and to leave it to time. They still remain the most challenging and unyielding in musification and musical recitation, eternally mistaken as free-verse poems. They are, Leave This Chanting, Govinda’s Disciple and Where The Mind Is Without Fear, respectively. 

Tagore pointed fingers at world’s ignorance, fear and exploitation, like Shelley did in his Song To The Men Of England, without actually pointing fingers at anyone.


Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnjSnH1qa8

Without knowing the cosmopolitan world Tagore lived in and the broad world perspective he cultivated and held, we cannot understand the meaning, depth and relevance of his poem Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Only when we are able and intellectually equipped enough to enjoy the liquidity and clearness of the waters that fed into the pool of his imagination can we understand and enjoy fully this trio of poems and laugh with heartiness at the skill with which Tagore pointed fingers at the whole world’s ignorance, fear and exploitation, like Shelley did in his Song To The Men Of England, without actually pointing fingers at anyone. It was the time of industrial revolution and exploitation and economic slavery throughout the world, in Russian, British and German Empires. The world was on the brink of October Revolution. Temperatures were high everywhere in the world. What state of affairs are described in this poem existed in British India and in the other inhuman empires as well. The Russian Empire collapsed within three years in 1917 and the British and German around 1947. It was only natural and logical that all these three empires collapsed within 25 years of his envisioning and a little breeze, sunshine and freshness seeped into the world just as Tagore prayed in this song. 

The poem’s dual purpose of unveiling the position to which Britain brought a country and being a scale of measure to gauge if India has progressed any, after half a century of independence.
 

When we pray, if we pray for riches, it is clear we are very poor. If we pray for health, we are then certainly sick. And if we pray for freedom, we are sure in shackles, bondage and hands and feet fettered. Written in the peak hours of the cruelty and brutality of the British administration in India, around 1910, Where The Mind Is Without Fear is Tagore’s Utopia, in a sense, in which he presents his dream world of liberation, freedom and upliftment for his country and his world. The distance between his dream and the real state of affairs in his country is far, and he skillfully brings to world's attention the state into which his great nation has been made to fall by the British administration. He does this without offending anyone, and as was expected from an England-educated noble genius. As an aftermath of the Second World War and due to severity of the Indian Independence Movement, the British were however forced to leave India in 1947. But six years earlier, Tagore had died without seeing his free India. In present times, this poem serves the dual purpose of unveiling the horrible downtrodden position to which Britain brought his country and its heritage, and being a scale of measure to gauge if India has progressed any, after half a century of independence. 

In countries condemned to live in darkness and gloom, people will hope for a ray of light in the far distant horizon, expressed through their poets and visionaries like Tagore and Shelley.
 

Think about a country anywhere in this world where people live in constant fear and terror of evil and horrible things that can happen to them from authorities- they can be brutally trodden over and crushed down to death by soldiers’ horses, cut down by police bayonets, hunted down by government spies, betrayed by neighbours who work in collision with authorities, imprisoned for saying things publicly and executed without trials for speaking against government. Do not wonder where such countries were or are existing. Look how people lived in Asian, African and American colonies under the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish conquerors in the past- suppressed, oppressed and cruelly beaten, brothers, sisters, wives and children raped and killed before them, flogged to death or executed publicly in gallows as a warning to all. Look how people lived even till recently in totalitarian and militaristic states like Russia, China and Germany, constantly fearing when GRU, MSS or Gestapo will knock on doors at the dead of night. So, fear has not gone from this world, nor will it go. In such miserable conditions of animalistic living, whose heads will not be lowered due to helplessness and shame? In such hopeless countries which are not illuminated by the light of knowledge but condemned to live in perpetual darkness and gloom, their people will hope for a ray of light, of knowledge, in the far distant horizon, expressed through their poets and visionaries like Tagore and Shelley. Knowledge is something to be pursued in peace and calmness. One should be free, unencumbered by jealous and spiteful authorities watching like hawks, to access knowledge. Do not anyone interpret Tagore’s lines that he wished for free knowledge for his people. 

Why cannot we travel throughout ancient civilization routes like Huen Tsang, Fa Hien, Marco Polo, Barbosa, Nicolo Conti, Sulaiman, Megasthenes and many others did through ages, without Pass Ports?

 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgGvw5SIqk

If we travel through great land masses of the world- Africa, Asia, America, when we pass each country and reach the border, we will be asked Pass Ports and Vista. What system is this? Cannot we travel throughout ancient civilization routes like Huen Tsang, Fa Hien, Marco Polo, Pliny, Buchanan, Barbosa, Nicolo Conti, Sulaiman, Megasthenes and many others did, through ages? Not anymore. Even though it is a single world filled with people who all look alike, narrow nationalist feelings have caused it to be broken up into fragments by raising domestic walls around each little hostile piece. Which intelligent and sensible man will not grieve at the prospect of loosing all worlds beyond, for a small confined one of his own? This genuine grief of the open-minded, civilized and cultured man brutally suppressed down and walled in by worthless administrators in tyrannical states is such unearthly, godly, universal and eternal that world has begun to respond, in some land masses, initiated by the wise and thoughtful in those parts of the world. In Europe, if you have a single Pass Port, you can travel through all signatory countries now, spending the same Euro wherever you go. Tagore wrote this poem in a time when Bertrand Russell, H.G.Wells, Arnold Toynbee, George Orwell and many other visionaries were thinking about oneness of the world. 

We have learned about Euphrates and Tigress giving birth to Mesopotamian civilization, Iraq serving as a beacon of light, hope and enlightenment to the world and Baghdad shining as a seat of learning.

Mankind has a destination, a purpose, in life. But in totalitarian, militaristic, colonial and undemocratic states, they cannot pursue this purpose but can only do what the state says to do. In such countries, day after day, decade after decade, people are compelled and forced to do what they do not like but what authorities very much like. Life, for people, becomes a burden of dead habits and weights there. How much tirelessly and hard people strive in their lives to achieve man’s missions, with their arms stretching towards perfection in life, their lives will only become purposeless and futile in the end, in such countries with only persecution and suffocation and no freedom. Every spoken word will be an untruth, clothed to disguise personal motives as state’s wishes, to keep slaves in perpetual subjection and sovereigns in unquestioned power. Gradually the clear stream of logic and reason looses its way and dries up, and vanishes into the dreary desert sand of dead habits and purposelessness in those countries. We have learned about Euphrates and Tigress giving birth to Mesopotamian civilization, Iraq serving as a beacon of light, hope and enlightenment to the world and Baghdad shining as a seat of learning. Last we heard from that great city was, Saddam Hussain was storing and using chemical warfare weapons, slaying his own people in tens of thousands and finally succumbing to world’s will power. So, Tagore was right in his poem: lack of logic and reason kills not only the people of a country but its soul too. It can happen anywhere, anytime, once dictators ascend the throne. 

We cannot touch and feel a state, unless through its people. If we already have touched a nation and felt it good, know that its people are good, well nurtured and benevolent.

Who has more freedom and responsibility for thought and action- the citizens or the state? It is an age-old question, discussed well and having a well-cut answer. A state cannot think unless through its people. And it cannot act, unless through its people. People are real, and the state is amorphous, something not precipitated. We cannot touch and feel a state, unless through its people. If we already have touched a nation and felt it good, know that its people are good, well nurtured and benevolent. State is a conviction of its people, something they envision in their absolute freedom, something they achieve through the collective thought and action of their unrestrained minds, led forward by the godly inborn purity of their self awareness and self respect. Putrid rulers cannot force people to build their nation: they can only force and people will obey, but they will not believe. To become a heaven of a state, it has to be conceived that way by its people, goaded by goodwill for the whole world, because, once it has built its ideal nation, human mind will not stay in that cocoon; it will wish to pass to worlds beyond. 

You can view, listen to and download the most challenging Tagore songs in Bloom Books Channel, absolutely free.

 

04. Slide Bloom Books Channel.
 

Many people in the world, in all continents, have tuned, orchestrated and video-produced many of Tagore’s songs in English, as they are very popular among students and teachers and included in university studies. Some recordings came very close to original tunes, some nowhere near them and most not at all with any tune. In India, his home country where he is celebrated as National Poet, no attempts were made in the academic world or by authorities to orchestrate his English songs. Even Prasar Bharathi Corporation, All India Radio and Door Darshan with their vast resources and enormous funds, did not even try during the past fifty years. Try these three most challenging of his songs from Bloom Books Channel in You Tube. They are of course crude recordings made with pagan tools, created by poor people, but they do have a tune and they are the only sincere attempts ever. Remember, they are just prototypes for the world’s children, released into public domain, for any one to build upon. Someday, fine recordings of these songs will come, from those little children who download them now.

1. Where The Mind Is Without Fear
2. Leave This Chanting
3. Govinda’s Disciple

First published on: 16th September 2014
 

Article Title Image By Micael Widell. Graphics: Adobe SP.

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Tags
 

Appreciations, Articles, English Literature, Essays, Indianwriters, P S Remesh Chandran, Rabindranath Tagore, Reintroductions, Reviews, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Stories, Tagore Songs, Tagore Videos, Where The Mind Is Without Fear


About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran: 

05. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single. 

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra 
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
 

Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.