readmoreTHIS QUOTE IS APTCURRENTLYCONSIDERING THAT“STATUTORY RAPE”WAS ADJUDGEDNOT CRIMINALAND THE COMPLAINANTSWERE PUNISHED! +++++ I read some many years ago on how an eastern European community punished a town rapist*. After ravaging the teen orphan he killed her. The town council kept the body of the victim in the morgue until the rapist was apprehended. He was … Read more
.readmore http://maztulisstrategicmanagement.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/if-blackmail-mahathir-is-the-s-bread-and-butter-who-licked-the-jam-mahathir-guilty-of-destructive/
Rosmah Mansor, the cut and thrust of Umno and Barisan Nasional politics and his own inadequacies swirl around him in ever concentric eddies that threaten to whirl him away to places unknown.
Thanks to a power cut, this is being written by the light of an emergency lamp. It's more than possible that you're reading this in a similar situation. Because of long, routine power cuts, millions of factory hands, office workers, housewives and students can't get on with their jobs, or can't do them as well as they would like to. This is the real cost of what has come to be called Coalgate: the huge and incalculable cost to the nation in terms of enforced unproductivity in all sectors because of acute and chronic shortage of electricity, which in turn is due at least partly to a persistent shortage in the supply of coal to thermal power plants.
Who will get your vote? Najib Tun Razak or Anwar Ibrahim? Will your political affiliation decide your choice or would quality of leadership matters? Honesty, compassion, integrity, confidence and flexibility are all qualities impossible to find in abundance in either of them when political leaders should have all of these qualities – and more.
Najib is at best mediocre. He plods around bemused and befuddled by the unfamiliar situation he now finds around him – Rosmah Mansor, the cut and thrust of Umno and Barisan Nasional politics and his own inadequacies swirl around him in ever concentric eddies that threaten to whirl him away to places unknown.
Anwar does trip the light fantastic at times. A charming chameleon who can make himself to be the person we want him to be with just that hint of sincerity that allows us to think that maybe, just maybe that is the real Anwar. And yet the next day he goes off at a tangent because the political expediency needed in juggling Pakatan Rakyat gives him no other option but to do so.
Will our choices be based on what is good and right and in the best interest of the nation as a whole? Perish that thought. We are humans and as humans, we reserve the right and the privilege of choosing a leader we think will do good to us.
And there my friends lies the confidence and bravado that Najib and Anwar have in their belief that the Malaysian people might choose either of them as prime minister. Surely those right-thinking people among us (of which… ahem… this writer thinks himself as one) would have consigned either of them to that heap where the “not to be resuscitated” sign should tell us that they are both past their use-by-date. But we humans are not creatures of rationality.
But this is Malaysia. We have no others. So Najib or Anwar it is.
Defining our political future
If it was a matter of choosing between Najib and Anwar, then I say that Najib is the lesser of the two men. But the lesser of the two men is now the prime minister of our nation.
Those of you who do not want Barisan Nasional say you are tired of the corruption, the abuse of executive power for political and personal financial gain and the total lack of good governance displayed by BN leaders.
Those who do not wish to see Pakatan in government talks about the impossibility and improbability of having three diametrically opposed political entities (now together within the Pakatan coalition for political gain) working in tandem for the common good of the nation and its people.
How could these three once opposing political organisation be held together just because of their hatred for Umno?
We are moving towards the 13th general election and toward our future with all these dilemmas unresolved – not the best of situations but that is all that we have. The pity of it all is that it will still be with us whether we vote for Najib or Anwar. So what are we to do? What should we do? What must we do? What can we “janji” to do?
We need to move towards good governance. And the bottom line to good governance is a vibrant democracy. Only then will we have sustainable and equitable economic growth and political stability. This we will not have with the present crop of political leaders now in power and even among those waiting to gain or seize political power.
We need to define the culture of our political future. We do not want leaders who seek to gain or remain in power by the manipulations of ethnic or religious sentiments.
There are not just Malays and the “others” in Malaysia. We are all one people. Let us no longer talk about Ketuanan Melayu, the institution of royalty, about educating our children in schools that accentuate their ethnicity while ignoring the realities of a society that now demand equality in opportunities and the personal freedom to decide and express their voice in politics, education and in everything that affects their life and the life of their family and the nation they live in.
We already have independence. We already have national integration a long time ago. Now we want the freedom to go on with our life the best way we can – and the function of government is to facilitate that demand. We want and we will choose a government that can do that.
We will not allow Najib or Anwar to lead us elsewhere. If the two of them want their political kingdom, then their political kingdom must conform to our aspiration of what we want. Who your father is, who you are, what race you belong to, what language you speak, what your religion is and where you are coming from politically no longer matters to us – what matters is that we will have our Malaysia. You ignore these demands at your own peril.
And if either of them are fearful of what these changes will mean to the Malays or to the “others” in terms of the potential for racial and religious conflicts, then I want to tell them both that these changes have already happened and are happening today.
And we the people are comfortable with it and we are living with the realities of a multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious society without conflict and in harmony.
We want to tell Najib and Anwar that politics is no longer about “who gets what”. The economic, social and political integration of the people of this country started many years ago no thanks to BN or Pakatan. The political culture of our future is 1Malaysia. Any attempts by anyone to change this will be met with their dismissal from office through the electoral process.
Paying lip-service to what we want and then proceeding to do as you want will not be tolerated.
The rakyat is ready
Putrajaya will no longer control the economy just so it could bring about national integration and “equitable” distribution of our nation’s wealth. We are wise to these lies.
Malaysia is a case of the people overtaking their own government in intellect, in thoughts and in deeds. We are already building a Malaysia we all aspire to. Where the state should lead by example they lag behind and now the people are demanding they catch up.
Umno busies itself with retaining political power to the detriment of everything else. It neither has time nor the interest to serve the people or the country. We see Malay politicians within Umno moving from their former state and rural base and into Putrajaya and KL to reap the rewards of office.
The state of politics in our country has so deteriorated that Umno now needs political oppression, ethnic and religious strife, and economic problems (manufactured or otherwise) as an excuse and the reason that it be given the mandate to stay in power – because it claims that it needs another term in office to finish its work in government and because only Umno can do that job.
There is in our society a need for continuity in that the Malays want political power to stay with them and yet at the same time we all, the Malays included, want change – especially in the equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities.
We want democracy, free election and the end of autocratic government. The incoming government must try to deal with these nuances that colour the politics of our nation.
Democracy in the Malaysian context means multi-party elections, representative legislatures, a free press, and an independent judiciary. It means the right of people to elect their own government.
Only a democratic system can guarantee the full exercise of fundamental human rights now judged to be universal and applicable to all individuals without distinction as to age, gender, descent, religion, ethnicity, or race.
Today our political leaders, Najib more so than Anwar, lag behind in their inability to understand the changes that their own people are demanding. Najib and the BN government are playing catch-up with an impatient society.
Nothing more personified this demand than Bersih. Where the people are already translating their thoughts and aspirations for change by channelling them through Bersih, this BN government does all it can to curtail, prevent and physically intimidate and prevent their own people from doing just that.
The tide has turned
Najib and Anwar are poles apart in their understanding as to why Malaysians are resorting to activism to express their need for change. They each use the situation to their own political advantage.
Whatever Najib or Anwar’s vested interests are and however they choose to harness the positive or negative aspect of these new-found public need to express their support or otherwise, what is obvious is this: The tide has turned.
We have passed the tipping point and it is now time to take stock of what the masses are demanding – if nothing more than for the fact that Najib and Anwar will need their votes to take or retain power come the 13th general election.
There will not be enough money to buy their votes. Not enough promises, transformation programmes and economic initiatives can be made to sway the masses into voting for either of them because the people are now wise to the ways of these politicians.
Promises to do away with prisons, taxes on imported cars and lowering of the price of petrol will be taken for what they are – just promises that may not see the light of day.
Of the two, we know Anwar is at a disadvantage because Najib as the incumbent will do and has done, all that an incumbent can do through the use of executive powers vested in him as the prime minister of our nation.
What he has not done, he has no compunction to promise that he will do. Promise and be damned seems to be Najib’s mantra.
Anwar has to win the hearts and minds of the people – hard to do when all he has going for him now is his ability to convince us to give him the opportunity to do good for us. That is all he wants… just the opportunity.
Of course, if what Pakatan has done in the states it manages is any indication of what is to come under a Pakatan government, then we have reason to believe that Anwar may make good his promise of good governance and an open, responsible and accountable government under his leadership. But that is still a maybe.
Peas from the same pod
Najib and Anwar are all we have got for now. Two Hobson’s choice in as far as most of us are concerned but that will have to be enough for now.
Like Anwar all that we want is the opportunity for change and once given that opportunity, we will run with it – run away from the years of an irresponsible BN government that has left us bereft of any hope for a decent and promising future.
You must remember that it is Najib or Anwar – two individuals impossibly flawed by their years in Umno. Two individuals that are cut from the same cloth by the same self-titled bespoke tailor that was Umno.
Both political animals that understand the “winner takes all” philosophy of politics in Malaysia. Two peas from the same pod.
And yet Anwar has treaded the road less travelled. Anwar knows what it is to have power and what it is to have it taken away from him at a time when the crown jewels were within reach.
Anwar knows how to use power and he has also been at the receiving end of its abuse. Anwar, and not Najib, knows personal humiliation at its very worse.
Now you must ask yourself this: Is Anwar the better for it? As the Malays say: sudah insaf?
The word “insaf” does not indicate just repentance – it asks if one has become a better person for what one has endured. Only Anwar can answer that.
For me given Najib or Anwar …the choice is done. Anwar it is for our future.
India is said to have one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Despite this, the country's once-vaunted growth story is swiftly turning into a groan story in which shortage of power plays a major role.
The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pegged the loss to the exchequer caused by the coal allocation mess at a math-boggling 1.86 lakh crore. Finance minister P Chidambaram has retorted that the loss is notional since most of the coal is still in what, with a poetic turn of phrase, he calls 'mother earth'. The question is: What is all that coal - estimated to total some 6,680 million tonnes in 60 mining blocks examined by an inter-ministerial group (IMG) set up for the purpose - still doing in 'mother earth' instead of having been extracted and put to work for the progress and prosperity of Mother India?
Of the 60 coal blocks scrutinised by the IMG, 53 were allocated by the UPA government from 2004 onwards, and seven had been awarded by the NDA between 1999 and 2004. Of these 60 blocks, more than 50 may be de-allocated - have their mining licences revoked - as they are unlikely to be able to start operating before the cut-off year of 2013.
Parliament has remained paralysed through the monsoon session because of the confrontation between the Congress and the BJP, which has been demanding the PM's resignation and the de-allocation of all 218 allotted coal blocks. Accusations and counter-accusations have been hurled back and forth, and arguments and counter-arguments have been advanced as to whether all natural resources - from coal to airwaves - should be put up for auction by competitive bidding or be allotted on a first-come-first-served or similar basis.
It has been argued that competitive bidding for resources, in this case coal, would raise the cost of input and so increase the cost of electricity. On the other hand, the allotment of blocks to parties - many of whom have no expertise whatsoever in mining - has led to wasteful bottlenecks in coal production that have throttled productivity even as many of the allottees have profiteered by selling off equity in their companies, which were set up solely for this purpose.
In this blame game, few have pointed a finger at the real villain of the piece. And that villain is nationalisation. When coal was nationalised in 1971-72, the stage was set for the political exploitation of a natural, and national, resource. The mining of coal became a secondary activity to the mining of political gain. Professional experience in mining played second fiddle - in more ways than one - to the political advantage to be had from assigning mining rights to various players. The result is a massive coal shortage, and a resultant power shortage, and the economic harm caused to the country.
Nationalisation -
Your primordial reaction should be one of downright disgust. How dare I plant racialism and classism amongst human sufferers in a world where All men are created equal! But are these thoughts merely snappish impertinences of useless intellectuals? Or smug imaginations of some quirky scientists bent on hacking the world into social pieces? Or do we have a rationale here?
Truth be told that there do exist diseases more inclined for the rich and affluent just as certain other diseases hog the limelight from the not so socially privileged. The immediate and easy reasons are social and directly related to economics. After all one of the cardinal indicators of health care status of a country is accessibility to health care, a direct outcome of socio-economic status. In a world of open privileges and secret connections, people with low income have neither and suffer both ways. They have neither the money to afford the very best of medicine nor do they know the right telephone numbers to access the right privileges.
One quick example and the picture will shout out loud and clean. Take for instance, breast and cervical cancers. Both are invariably higher in the underprovided populations simply because they fail to access the screening tests of mammogram and Pap smear. Lack of education, time, and of course money form the fulcrum of many a potentially preventable disaster. And again, smoking and drugs…two vices that form the sine qua non of the socio-economically backward sections typically provide with all the ingredients of unexpected and premature cardiac and cerebral fatalities.
We all know these. No rocket science behind this. It’s a global issue and spares no country. Even in United States, that represents one of the finest health care systems, discrepancies creep in. A certain taciturnity sets in whenever these disorders are noticed in the murky recesses of an otherwise good looking health care system. If you don’t have health insurances, you are in trouble. And if you attempt to socialize health system, you are barked at. Ask President Obama and you would know what I mean. Yet its implications are huge in terms morbidity and mortality.
But then let’s throw money out of the equation. Can we still have a disease that’s restricted to the upper class with or without money? According to many psychologists and to many of us…yes! Studies have shown that kids of lesser means actually do better emotionally. There’s a certain "psychosis" among upper middle class parents who are too wrapped up about where their children go to college. Getting a grade B is a disaster. Not getting into Harvard or Yale? It’s a crime! Social shame, peer pressure…and you have a nice cocktail of anxiety, stress, paranoid, depression and eventually in none too exotic situations – a plunge for the rope, the jump, or the pill. The origin of bulimia and other eating disorders sprouted from the concept of ‘thin ideal internalization’. None of these upper crust university students had any concept of hunger, for none of them never really missed a daily meal. On the contrary an over obsession for a perfect body image leads them to such compulsive purging or anorexic habits.
So, there you are…even in disease, we stand divided. Is it the money or the mind? Or a bit of both? What do you say?
of anything, from coal to airlines - doesn't work. Kingfisher faces bankruptcy and closure because of bad management. Air India will continue to fly, at enormous expense to the taxpayer, no matter how ruinously bad its management. From Coalgate to Airgate, nationalisation has been revealed in its true colours of anti-nationalism.
All diseases or disorders, follow a central pattern. They are objective, to the point, carry a no nonsense attitude, and usually mean business. They either prevail or perish. All… save some glorious exceptions. Depression, with its towering presence is easily the queen of all exceptions.
Overdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed...this is one diagnosis that troubles both the physician and the patient. Whimsical as an English weather, this disorder comes in various nuances, various moods and at various times. It's infinite range and subtlety of presentation makes it a hard animal to hold and harness. The hushed presence beguiles the stormy intensity inside…a reluctant demeanor that can easily lead astray an un-mindful mind. Let us deal with its vagaries.
Some of depressions' mannerisms are easily detectable. Conceptually we group them into three major baskets. The first is all about emotions (depressed mood, loss of interests or pleasure). The second dabbles with Ideation (worthlessness or guilt, death or suicide). And the third involves neurovegetative or somatic symptoms (disturbed sleep, appetite or weight, lack of energy and concentration). They usually don't come as a blast. These symptoms tip toe in; pass through fleeting phases before settling inside with utter determination.
We physicians are unanimous in our verdicts. If anyone has one or more of these symptoms, don't flirt, don't waste time. Seek medical help.
The challenge however is not in these presentations. It's the offbeat, beyond what the eye meets manifestations that pose real challenge. To put it simply, some of us may not be able to communicate intense sadness or melancholy. Wrapped in an inward contemplation, what comes out is a vacant obedience that may not and does not come out as a depressed mood. It's the inability to bring out emotions that makes a diagnosis of depression slippery and elusive. Emotional numbness, or what we fashionably call as "blahs" gets manifested as a 'flattened affect' on examination, that is misunderstood and hence missed.
Reverse signs are the other manholes we easily fall prey to. Instead of weight loss, there may be weight gain. Instead of loss of appetite there is hyperphagia (increased appetite). Ditto for sleep pattern. In lieu of the traditional insomnia, we can have increased sleep ( hypersomnia). And again, instead of the expected depressed mood, anxiety or irascibility could be the primary emotions…and still be termed as depression.
Thus the need for education and awareness. Awareness that one should not have to wait for the hair tear events, or the inconsolable crying spells, to be recognized as depression. It's the early silent presence and the hushed hints that need to be realized and taken control of. Let us remind ourselves that if detected appropriately depression is a highly manageable entity. Be it through counseling or prescription medications. Every type of help is offered…cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, and interpersonal therapy. And a promise that there's light at the end of every tunnel.
If you ever flip through the annals of human sufferings, you will come across certain diseases that are set in stone. And certain others that are constantly evolving… ever restless, ever dynamic. The more you probe, the more you discover, the more they evolve. Diabetes, without any hesitation tops the list.
One of the worst fears we harbored as a student was a topic concerning diabetes. For, anything and everything can come from this dreaded question. Banter apart, this is one disease that can attack any place of our body, can kill in any number of ways, and more importantly can flaunt or hide like a perfect charmer.
Give me one more disease that is so catholic. From the very young to the very old, from the very royal to the very pedestrian, this is one disease that really doesn’t care who or what you are. Very few diseases can claim to be so protean in nature. So diverse, yet so deep.
Thus, if one is diabetic and is persistently tired, it can be anything from an impending heart attack to a well settled kidney failure. For diabetes is not the eagle that swoops and flies. It’s the serpent in the grass that crawls, chooses and chews cell by cell. And by the time we feel its expressions, the damage is done.
Silence is another catch phrase of diabetes. Silent heart attacks, silent Aortic Dissections, are true nightmares on silent nights. In other words, one does not have the pain, yet one feels the gloom inside. Outcome? Pretty much fatal, for with no crushing pain, we tend to tough it out. And with disastrous consequences.
So, what are the buzz words? Blurred vision (retinopathy), facial and pedal swelling (nephropathy), numbness (neuropathy), chest pressure (coronary artery disease), all form the center stage. Some of us know these. Yet it doesn’t harm us to remind ourselves how life threatening this disease can be, if allowed to prosper. But as I wrote before, diabetes is much more than this. From diminishing sexual drive, to relentless tiredness to constant skin ulcers, this disease loves our body.
Do we have a remedy? Can we get on top of this disease? The answer is an absolute yes! For, despite genetic compulsion, one gracious truth that emerges from our ruthless battle with diabetes is an understanding that a lot of it is created by us. And hence can be cured by us.
The problem is we Indians, we Asians, we sojourners of this plant are one big calorie eating race. There’s calorie everywhere…rice, coke, pizza, cheese…the list is endless and still growing. Cut down the calories and you have won half the battle. The governments are doing no good in allowing such high calorie substances to flourish all around us.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has drawn a lot of flak in attempting to curtail soda intake. I don’t support these so called liberals. My view point is straightforward. If we have officially restricted cigarette smoking, we should do the same for calorie intake. For both are dangerous. In matters of health there is little to opine.
Couple this with daily exercise (one doesn’t have to learn aerobics, simple walks will do) and we can beat this beast. Not that we are unaware of these remedies, but we got to walk the talk. More importantly this realization that this disease can be silent and fatal should be our first step of management. In most cases, awareness forms the fulcrum of disease treatment.
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