TIMES CITY

THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABAD | FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

VEGGIE RATES GO UP AGAIN, TOMATO STINGS AT
RS 80; ONION, POTATO ALSO COSTLIER | 4
HIGH COURT SEEKS REPLY OVER CHIEF OF POLICE
COMPLAINTS AUTHORITY | 4
Ahmedabad: A team of city
crime branch arrested a
youth from Goregaon, Mum-
bai, for cheating a city-based
youth on the pretext of provid-
ing him job in a major compa-
ny. Police suspect the youth to
be part of a national crime
ring that is suspected to have
cheated more than 500 youths.
According to crime
branch officials, Ajay Akhani
had got an email offering
high-profile job where the
website azurex.net had
claimed to provide job with
Adani Power Ltd on Rs 25,000
per month salary.
When Akhani applied to
the mail, he got a mail from
Manoj Kumar Sharma, HR
head of the firm, who told him
to deposit Rs 10,000 in a bank
account. When nothing hap-
pened afterwards, Akhani in-
quired with the company and
got to know that he was cheat-
ed. Sharma, the actual HR of-
ficial, had registered a com-
plaint with crime branch.
Youth nabbed from
Mumbai for e-fraud
Ahmedabad: Shilpa Patel, 87, has fi-
nally got the smile back on her face.
After being driven out of the house by
her grandson, whom she had brought
up after the death of her son, she has
found a saviour in the district admin-
istration. She has now got back her
land, which her bank officer grand-
son had usurped.
Same is the case with 94-year-old
Seema Patel. After she was driven out
of the house nearly 25 years ago, her
son on the pretext of getting stay on
the demolition of their bungalow
made her sign some documents and
snatched the property worth crores.
Jignya Jadav, 68, faced similar
plight. Her younger son and daugh-
ter-in-law, after forcing her out of the
house, had cheated her of the house in
aposh locality.
Shilpa, Seema and Jignya all
three who were sheltered in an old age
home in Naranpura got support from
Farsu Kakkad.
We then filed applications with
the district administration and after
the due process of law, we are now suc-
cessful in helping these old women
getting back their properties, which
they were cheated by their own, said
Kakkad.
I still dont want to make my
grandson homeless
Shilpa Patel suffered two huge
losses within a short period. Barely
two years after the death of her hus-
band, her son also died leaving behind
seven-year-old grandson, Ashok. She
brought up Ashok who became a bank
officer. She also got him married.
Things changed thereafter. I was
deprived of food and even beaten
sometimes by my sons wife. Fed up of
the torture, I moved to an old age
home, said Shilpa, as tears rolled
down her cheeks.
One day suddenly, Ashok turned
up at the old age home and informed
her of the birth of a baby boy. I was
very happy. Ashok took me with him
to our house. However, one day Ashok
took me along to government offices
and made me sign some documents,
said Shilpa. From the next day, Ash-
oks behaviour towards her changed.
Whenever I asked for money, Ash-
oks wife would tell me that money
doesnt grow on trees. I moved out of
the house and again settled in the old
age home, added Shilpa. The admin-
istrator of the old age home, Farsu
Kakkad, said through her daughters
Shilpa came to know that Ashok had
actually made her sign documents of
her land. We got together and ap-
proached the district collector office
with an application and now the ver-
dict is here. The land is back with Shil-
pa, said Kakkad.I could not believe,
Rakesh could do such a thing
After her husbands death, 94-
year-old Seema Patel could not have
imagined that on the pretext of get-
ting a stay on the demolition of her
house, her son Rakesh would get her
sign the papers transferring the bun-
galow to his name. As soon as the sig-
natures were taken, I was subjected to
severe torture by my son and daugh-
ter-in-law. I decided to leave the house
and went to my daughters house,
said Seema.
Kakkad said they kept Seema in
the old age home. With the help of her
daughters, we started a legal process
to take back the bungalow from her
son and at the end we were success-
ful, said Kakkad.
My son beat me on Dussehra
Jignya Jadav was staying with
two sons, Dharmesh and younger one
Satish, at her house in a posh locality
of the city. Dharmesh is always nice
to me but Satish sometimes instigates
him to fight with me. They both stay in
the same house but have different
kitchens, said Jignya.
Jignya said Satish always had an
eye on her bungalow.
House-grabbing sons out!
Ahmedabad: There is a bit of good
news for external students at Gujarat
University. Exam forms for external
students will now be available at post
offices in villages and towns across the
state. Until now, students had to con-
verge on the GU campus from across
the state to buy and submit forms.
This move is aimed at helping ex-
ternal students save money and time.
They can submit exam forms at post
offices. For the service, GU will pay Rs
30 for every form processed by the post
office, said GU vice chancellor, M N
Patel. A decision to this effect was tak-
en by GUs syndicate in its last meet-
ing.
Presently, students can fill forms
on GUs website. They have to then
submit a copy of it to the post office
along with the necessary documents.
Students will also be able to pay exam
fees at post offices. This will be handed
over to GU authorities by post office
staff.
If errors are found in the forms or
queries arise, we shall contact the stu-
dents by email or phone. Only in ex-
treme cases shall we call students to
GU campus, said Patel.
GU has more than 20,000 external
students for BA, BCom, MA and
MCom. These are students who also
hold part-time jobs and cant attend
regular classes. From September 20,
the form filling process for these stu-
dents will begin and will continue till
October 14. The students neednt wor-
ry about exam receipts or hall tickets.
These will be available on GUs web-
site four days before the exam. Stu-
dents will be able to download
documents from the website.
Post offices to help external
GU students submit forms
Ahmedabad: Come winter
and Amdavadis can fly to new-
er destinations directly from
the city. A string of airlines
have rolled out their plans to
begin operations on new in-
ternational and national
routes. Airlines including Air
India, Tata-Singapore Air-
lines joint venture airline
Vistara, AirAsia and Jet Air-
ways will be introducing di-
rect flights on routes such as
London, Abu Dhabi and some
tier II cities in India.
Ahmedabad will soon have
direct air connectivity with
London as Air India is in proc-
ess of assessing the logistics
for the same.
This followed discussions
between Gujarat civil avia-
tion minister Saurabh Patel
and Airports Authority of In-
dia (AAI) chairman S Raheja
in Gandhinagar earlier this
month.
A large number of Gujara-
tis living in Britain and the
United Arab Emirates will
benefit from the direct flights.
Ahmedabad is now linked di-
rectly with most parts of the
Gulf region including Shar-
jah, Abu Dhabi and Doha and
indirectly via Mumbai
with New York, Frankfurt and
London.
Middle-East has been at-
tracting lot of travelers these
days. To cash in on the in-
creasing traffic, Jet Airways
will start a direct flight to Abu
Dhabi from November 14.
The flight will operate from
Ahmedabad airport daily at 8
pm. The passengers traveling
by Jet Airways can then take
the connecting flights from
Abu Dhabi in Etihad airways
with which we have a seat
sharing arrangement, said a
Jet Airways official.
The international traffic
at Ahmedabad recorded a
growth of 9% last year and is
expected to grow by 12% in the
current year.
Gujaratis Living
In Britain, UAE
Will Benefit
Ahmedabad willalso have direct
air connectivity to London
Representational pic
New routes,
flights from
city soon
PiyushMishra@timesgroup.com
Ahmedabad: A science college, situated
close to Vadodara, has come under
Gujarat Universitys scanner for allegedly
demanding a donation from a student in
exchange for admission. The student
accused college authorities of
demanding Rs 65,000 for admission to the
BSc course. The student surreptitiously
recorded college authorities asking him
to pay the money in return for admission.
This video evidence was submitted to
Gujarat University authorities by NSUI
leaders. The sting operation was shown
to GU vice chancellor, M N Patel a couple
of days back. TNN
College under scanner
for donation demand
Ahmedabad: A 35-year-old
history-sheeter was killed
by a group of six persons
near Bhimjipura Cross-
roads on Thursday eve-
ning.
According to Naranpu-
ra police, Jigar Baba Ra-
wat, a resident of Chan-
drabhaga Society in Vadaj,
was going towards a temple
in the area at 5.30 pm on
Thursday along with his
brother Anand. At that
time, Jayesh Rawat, a local
resident, invited him for a
cup of tea at a stall near SE-
WA office at the crossroads.
According to Anand, as
soon as they went near the
stall, they were surrounded
by men who attacked them
with sharp weapons includ-
ing swords and knives.
Anand managed to flee and
went to his house nearby to
call upon his friends and
relatives to help Jigar.
When they reached the
spot, they found Jigar in a
pool of blood. He was
rushed to a nearby private
hospital where the doctors
declared him brought dead.
Jigar had sustained more
than 16 stab wounds, said a
police official.
Anand has named
Jayesh along with Ramesh,
Amrat and Manoj Rawat
and two other accomplices
as assailants in the case.
History-sheeter
stabbed to death
Ahmedabad: The family of
Chimanlal Desai, one of the
pioneers of Indian cinema,
paid him homage on his
birthday on Thursday with
launching of the book on Sa-
gar Movietone, a film studio
that set a number of land-
marks in Hindi and Gujara-
ti film industries.
The book titled Sagar
Movietone, launched this
February in Mumbai by Aa-
mir Khan, saw the city
launch at Tagore Hall on
Thursday by Kailash Sure-
ndranath, noted ad film-
maker and son of yeste-
ryears star Surendranath
who worked in a number of
movies by Sagar Movietone,
in presence of film histori-
ans, film aficionados.
Biren Kothari, biogra-
pher and author of the book,
said that the film company
produced Narsinh Mehto,
the first Gujarati talkie, in
1932. Many well-known
film personalities in 1920s
and 1930s got their break
from Sagar including Meh-
boob Khan, who later went
on to direct Mother India.
The company produced 75
films, including 51 in Hindi
and others in languages
such as Gujarati, Tamil, Te-
lugu, Bengali and Punjabi,
he said.
Desais grandson Suke-
su and his wife Daksha have
been pivotal in bringing out
the book.
Book on film studio
released in city
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com
C
ardiovascular diseases, cancers,
diabetes and trafc accidents
are among leading causes of
death and suffering in India.
Lakhs of mothers and babies
also continue to die, keeping maternal and
infant mortality rates, two basic health in-
dicators, unacceptably high. The situation
where health problems of the developed
and developing worlds co-exist is made
worse by a public health sector hobbled by
perennial shortages of both infrastructure
and personnel. This in turn forces most
people to seek expensive and unregulated
private healthcare, expensive and in many
cases of questionable quality.
Public health infrastructure is wanting
by even governments own assessments.
This is true of subcentres at the lowest
rung to community health centres (CHCs)
and district hospitals. Theres a short-
age of about 7,000 primary health centres
(PHCs). In some states, the shortages are
staggering -- 66% in Jharkhand, 58% in
Bengal and 42% in MP. Only two-thirds of
the required number of CHCs are in place.
In Bihar, against a need of 774 CHCs there
are just 70, a 91% shortfall. Assam has less
than half of what it needs, UP 40% less.
Theres an even bigger crisis of health
personnel: A shortfall of 2,225 doctors in
PHCs, and the gaps growing bigger. Over
36% PHCs were without a lab technician,
23% without a pharmacist. There is a 53%
shortfall in radiographers. Considering
just the existing infrastructure, there was
a shortfall of all kinds of specialists includ-
ing 72.2% of surgeons, 64.7% of obstetri-
cians and gynaecologists, 82.1% of physi-
cians and 73% of paediatricians. In effect,
even in the existing infrastructure isnt
staffed. In many states, health indicators
of the urban poor are far worse than their
rural counterparts, revealing how under-
served the urban poor are. In the mostly-
urban Delhi, theres massive shortage of
subcentres, PHCs and CHCs.
The bulk of healthcare in India is pro-
vided by the private sector, thats meant
escalating costs. In states like
Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu,
governments demonstrated
how providing free drugs and
diagnostics in public facili-
ties could signicantly bring
down health expenditure. Yet, neither the
Centre nor other states replicated these
programmes. In the name of universal
healthcare, government is being per-
suaded to become the payer for health-
care provisioned by the private health
sector and administered by insurance
companies. In most states, these insur-
ance programmes have been riddled
with corruption and inefciencies
such as the epidemic of hysterecto-
mies done on hundreds of women by
hospitals in Andhra to collect govern-
ment money for the procedure. Theres
concern among health activists that state
funds that could be used to
strengthen public health
infrastructure are getting di-
verted to the private sector.
In absolute terms, the
money allocated for health
by government has gone up more than 13
times from Rs 2,000 crore in 2000-01 to Rs
27,500 crore-plus in 2013-14. Yet, health ex-
penditure is short of 1.5% of GDP though
successive governments have promised
that spending would touch 3%. If the
promised 3% had been allotted, perhaps
the public health sector could have been
revolutionized to deliver quality service.
An expensive private sector has stepped in where govts failed delivering health
facilities that are often suspect. The trend grows while state facilities struggle to cope
Where State Drives Patients To Private Wards
IMPORTANT DATES
Applications Start | Sep 12, 2014
Applications Close | Oct 13, 2014
Submission of documents by
shortlisted entities | Dec 5, 2014
Awards Event | March 2015, New Delhi
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C
D
A
B
REALITY CHECK
HEALTH
Infants dying (IMR) is a basic health measure India has been grappling to reduce. A
look at the shortfall in health infrastructure and human resources (%) in those
states with the best & worst IMR
56 55 53 53 49
10 12 18 25 25
MP Goa Assam Kerala UP TN Odisha Mshtra Raj Delhi
SC 29 21 34 18 * * * * 22 54
PHC 42 * 33 1 13 * * 2 18 62
CHC 33 54 40 * 7 0 * * 34 100
PHC: Health
assistant
(Female)
55.1 61.2 0.5 51.8 11.8 57.1 3.0 14.8 *
Doctors# 22.1 NA NA 29.6 5.7 16.7 * 24.6 6.8 0
Specialist 80.3 73 43.7 79.8 91.4 68.8 96.3 100 66.1 0
Pharmacist 31.3 * 71 8.7 73 36 * 18.5 3.8 20
Radio-
graphers
49.2 40.9 76.6 89.1 39.7 0 92.3 43.4 66.2 0
In states with worst IMR In states with best IMR
* No of facilities/personnel exceeding estimated requirement In CHC
#GDMOs-General duty medical officer
SC- Sub-centre, PHC- Primary Health Centre, CHC- Community Health Centre
Specialists include surgeons, obstetricians/gynaecologists, paediatricians, physicians
Source: Rural Health Statistics 2013
SICK BAY
SHORTFALL IN THE HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE AND PERSONNEL (%)
Infant
Mortality
Rate
(IMR)
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Ahmedabad: On her way home earlier this week, bar-
rister Aisha Wakil (44), better known as Mama Boko
Haram a name given to her by the Nigerian media,
picked up copies of Gandhis works from Sabarmati
Ashram which she wants to read out aloud to her mis-
guided boys. I want to make them realize that an eye
for an eye will make the whole world blind, says Wakil,
who was named as a negotiator by Boko Haram repre-
sentatives. Wakil says she has been in constant touch
with them even while in Ahmedabad. My first priority
is to get the abducted girls released. I am continuously
reasoning with my sons that they cannot abduct girls in
the name of Islam. Islam preaches that even if a woman
slaps a man, he is not supposed to hit back, she says.
Wakil was well known to the former Boko Haram
chief, Mohammed Yusuf, who was shot dead allegedly
while trying to escape custody in 2009. She used to visit
Yusuf s Islamic school where she became popular be-
cause of her cooking. They soon started calling her Ma-
ma. I never realized when Yusuf and the boys picked
up arms to fight the Nigerian government, says Wakil.
Boko Haram is asking for the release of 70 men, plus
ranson money, for freeing the girls.
I have to negotiate for the girls release on my re-
turn. If the government offers them security, there are
many who wish to lay down arms. But Boko Haram no
longer consists of just the boys I know. There are many
other sub-groups. The government will have to address
each of them independently to solve the complex prob-
lem, says Wakil.
Bapu antidote to Boko
Haram venom
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Continued from p1
Radha.Sharma @timesgroup.com
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
TIMES NEWS NETWORK