This refers to your well researched, thought-provoking and eye-opening cover story, The Teaching Shops of Medicine (October 24). India’s system for training doctors is in disarray. The country has been rocked by a series of recent medical scandals, including doctors accused of serious crimes. It is plagued by rampant fraud and unprofessional teaching practices, exacerbating the public health challenge being faced by this fast-growing but still poor nation. Reports say that since 2010, at least 69 Indian medical colleges and teaching hospitals have been accused of such transgressions or other significant failings, including rigging of entrance exams and bribes to admit students. The best medical schools in India are absolutely world class, but our government’s process of giving accreditation to a large number of recently opened private medical schools “has at times been highly dubious”. Paying bribes—often in the guise of donations—to gain admission to medical schools is widespread. Don’t we think that the next generation of doctors will teach to cheat and deceive even before entering the classrooms?
Vinod C. Dixit, Ahmedabad
There appears to be no hope for curing the ills of medical education and the resultant callous negligence in healthcare. There are a few good doctors, but a single swallow does not make a summer. And nobody treats a patient for free. Some may be less greedy, but in a country where money is the yardstick of a man’s ability, the patient becomes a milch cow. An attempt was made by the Supreme Court to stop donations and curb the mafia’s role in admission, but the Modi government undid it because politicos running medical colleges would have been affected. If the men in power can’t check corruption, they should stop bragging about it. That is annoying.
J.N. Bhartiya, Hyderabad
Just like teachers, doctors are also on sale in India. The reason is the low priority given to both education and health by successive governments in India. This is reflected in the GDP India spends: 4.7 per cent of its GDP is spent on health and education while the Sub-Saharan African countries spend seven per cent of their GDP on these sectors. Even our neighbours—Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—have better health indices than us. Generally, government hospitals, schools and public transport—all of which are of extremely low quality and in a pathetic condition—are for the poor while private elite schools, hospitals and good transport systems are for the rich. Until this system changes, private schools and hospitals will remain what they are—money making enterprises, no matter which government assumes power.
Rakesh Agrawal, Dehradun
For some time now, private medical institutes have been mushrooming all over. These institutions are no patch on older prestigious institutions in terms of faculty and infrastructure. An underqualified management graduate has consequences for himself but underqualified doctors are dangerous for the society. The draft bill prepared by the Niti Ayog to replace the Indian Medical Council Act 1956, scrapping ceiling or regulation of fees, allowing profit organisations to set up medical colleges, doing away with the policy of shutting down colleges that fall short of requirements, has given way to a market-oriented policy.
M.C. Joshi, Lucknow
I would like to share my experience of corruption at a top corporate hospital and how I lost my young brother who, blissfully unaware, rushed into a trap of an alleged “licensed quack” working at the emergency ward during late night hours. One late evening in 2011, my brother, aged 33, rushed to the emergency ward of a private hospital in Jamshedpur after experiencing uneasiness and chest pain. He met a physician employed by a leading business house, who could not correctly interpret an irregular ECG and ignored not one but six stark and clinically consistent symptoms of an impending cardiac arrest. My brother was grossly misdiagnosed as a hyper acidity patient and was asked to return home in the night. He died the next morning after suffering a severe cardiac arrest. I had suspected the doctor to be a ‘licensed quack’, and my worst fears came true when I could not get a copy of his MBBS degree, despite a dozen RTIs to the concerned university, the state medical council, the MCI and the investigating agency. The university outrightly stonewalled my RTI plea and later even refused to bring documents on record defying the crime branch and the state information commission.
Shishir Chand, New Delhi
The most urgent research need is to develop a vaccine for these rotten institutions!
Rajneesh Batra, New Delhi
This refers to Reel Patriots (Oct 31). The Indian Motion Picture Producers Association has announced a ban on Pakistan’s actors and technicians working in India. In addition, political parties such as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena have threatened artistes from Pakistan. How can organisations ban or threaten Pakistani artistes when the Indian government has given them visas and work permits? It is only the prerogative of the government to decide whether these artistes can be allowed to work in India. Some people are already seeking a ban on yet-to-be-released films that have Pakistani actors in them. The film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which has Fawad Khan in a leading role, faced a lot of heat in the last two weeks. Preventing people from watching films amounts to a contravention of the right to free speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution. If someone does not want to watch films with Pakistani actors in them, they are free to do so. But they have no right to stop others. If the government were to ban it, we would respect its decision, for it would be in our national interest.
M. Kumar, New Delhi
There was a time when British civil servants and police officials, not to mention soldiers, regularly wore shorts in India. But the only adults in the country doing it for decades after the British left were the RSS members. Now, even they have discarded khaki shorts in favour of long trousers (Deep Throat, Oct 24). While RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav may claim that the cover-up was a result of his wife Rabri Devi’s criticism of “elderly RSS cadre roam(ing) freely wearing half pants without shame”, it is unclear whether the RSS’s move to give up its 90-year-old practice was a nod to modesty or a necessity, given these dengue-ridden times. By the way, Laluji’s half pants might have vanished but men, both young and old, nowadays enjoy wearing shorts, regardless of their political ideologies.
J. Akshay, Bengaluru
This refers to An Open Letter to Nitish by Suprakash Roy (Letters, Oct 24). A 70-year-old retiree from a PSU and enjoying a couple of whiskies in the evening—my ‘happy hour’—I empathise with 85-year-old Roy’s predicament after the Nitish imposed dry days. Intoxicated with his prohibition agenda, the Bihar CM is behaving like the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who, while fighting the nation’s drug users and peddlers, shamelessly compares himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. A sustained awareness campaign against alcohol abuse and poverty alleviation (poverty being the major cause of alcoholism) would be a much better option than a draconian prohibition law.
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
This is with reference to your Leader comment (Not this, not this!, Oct 31). There is nothing wrong in asking questions, but then the Upanishadic tradition has four kinds of arguments—samvada, vada, jalpa and vitanda. Samvada is the discussion between the teacher and the taught. Here, the student does not question the teacher but questions his understanding for clarification. This type of discussion can only occur when the student completely surrenders to the teacher. Vada is the discussion between two equals, where the purpose is to settle what the truth is. Here, both come to the table for discussion with an open mind and the discussion is based on some accepted pramana (proof/assumption). For Vedanta, the pramanas are specifically the Vedas, the Bhagvad Gita and the Brahmasutra.
Jalpa is where each person in the discussion comes to the table with a preconceived notion that they are right and the others are wrong. The purpose of the discussion is only to convert the person from the other camp. No knowledge is exchanged in these discussions. Such a discussion is, obviously, filled with a lot of noise. Vitanda is the discussion where one is willing to take up the other person’s arguments, which he himself does not believe in, and argue against the other fellow just to prove that he is wrong. Here, you are wrong, not because the statement by itself is wrong, but because you made the statement.
When it comes to the army, most of the questions asked (by Outlook, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and others like them) fall under jalpa and vitanda. Hence, they need not be taken seriously.
Akash Verma, Chennai
During the latter half of a two-decade-long editorship, Vinod Mehta had been proving his acronym V.M. to be “Vaunt (the) Madam”. Towards the fag end of his life, he was magnanimous enough to admit this along with the declaration that he was a ‘pseudo secularist’. The New Delhi Diary (Oct 24) by his successor Rajesh Ramachandran reminded me of the above.
Jawahar P. Sekhar, Calicut
Apropos Everybody Loves a Don Who Brings in The Votes (Oct 24), yes you are right that all political parties have these vote bank-holding criminals as politicians. But why have you not mentioned the number of criminals being harboured by the Congress? It confirms my doubt that the Congress has hired you as PR. I would love to stop reading your magazine.
D.K. Dewan, On E-mail
The final word of the Supreme Court on the Nitish Katara murder case must have come as a great relief to his family. This is a rarest of rare case where an ordinary citizen stood up against a bunch of criminals belonging to a political clan. Examples like this one should drive our society to fight against anti-social elements who seek to bend the established legal system. There is a need to re-look at our political system, which at times provides safe haven to criminals and tainted personalities of all sorts.
J. Akshobhya,Mysore
