Archive for the ‘News’ Category
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Airport red tape strangles HIV+ Mizo girl’s last wish
MANGALORE/KOLKATA: A 22-year-old HIV-positive Mizo girl - counting her last breaths - tried desperately to reach home to see her parents, but airport red tape strangled her last wish. Mawii died at Kolkata airport on Tuesday after being turned away by Air India officials on Monday.
Mawii was being treated at Bangalore's Bowring Hospital and had taken a fit-to-fly certificate from there, said former Bangalore police commissioner and ex-MP H T Sangliana. But in Kolkata, AI officials wanted another fitness certificate when she tried to catch the connecting flight to Aizawl. "I tried to reason with the airline officials, but to no avail. I again got a medical fitness certificate and faxed it to them, but they still refused to relent," said Sangliana.
Mawii was booked on a Kolkata-Aizawl Kingfisher flight on Tuesday, but died before she could board the plane. AI officials maintained that they could not bend rules laid down by the Director General of Civil Aviation.
According to Sangliana, who had made Mawii's travel arrangements, she boarded a flight from Bangalore without hassle at 6 am on Monday. The connecting flight from Kolkata to Aizawl was at 11 am. But AI officials wanted a fitness certificate taken in Kolkata before she could board the flight. She went back disheartened.
Arpit Basu, for TNN
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Police purging hijras out of Bengaluru
Police subject hijras and human rights defenders to illegal detention and arrests, custodial torture and sexual assault
As India progresses, reaching out to the moon, Bengaluru has become a dangerous city for its citizens. especially the most vulnerable, and any one who dares to support them. In the last few weeks, there seems to be a drive against hijras in particular and any person without a secure place of work or livelihood security.
These vulnerable people are being arrested, beaten and harassed by the police. In an age where street dogs and cattle are being enumerated, government employees are getting massive pay hikes, the transgenders are seen as totally unworthy of any attention. There is neither any data of how many people we are talking about and a total blank on how they can meet their basic needs to survive with dignity.
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HIV tests compulsory for Punjab transport workers
The Punjab government has asked truck and taxi owners in the state to ensure that their drivers and other employees undergo tests for HIV at least once a year.
Amending the Punjab Motor Transport Workers Rules, 1963, the government has added a clause making it compulsory for all transport workers to undergo the tests at civil hospitals. The new rules also state that in case a worker is found to be HIV positive, the employer would ensure his free treatment.
Issuing a notification in this regard, the department of labour, Punjab, said it had invited objections to the amendment before finalising it. "We have not received any objection to the rules and these would come into force from the date of the notification," said Raminder Singh, states labour commissioner.
Though the amendment is timely with the National AIDS Control Programme-III focusing on reducing the risk of HIV among truckers, the State AIDS Control Society is likely to raise objections to it.The society follows the guidelines of the National AIDS Policy which do not allow compulsory testing.
Chitleen K. Sethi, for Tribune News Service
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Sex and the poor
ONE of Indias leading AIDS doctors, Alka Deshpande, did not choose her specialisation. Working as a hospital doctor in Bombay (now called Mumbai) in the late 1980s when AIDS was discovered in the city, she merely decided that she was prepared to touch the infected. Her colleagues would not do so-and perhaps still will not. According to a recent UN study, over half of Indian health-care workers thought AIDS was transmitted by touch.
In a mostly-Hindu society, which for thousands of years considered one-fifth of its members "untouchable", discrimination and ignorance of this kind have a particularly unpleasant significance. Indeed, the ways in which AIDS and Indias traditions interact are a striking feature of these essays about the disease in India, commissioned by the Gates Foundation. On a tour through the south-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh, which has a fifth of Indias estimated 2.5m HIV cases, Kiran Desai meets women of several hereditary prostitute castes, including relatively affluent beauties who are apparently not unhappy with their lot, as well as wretched sex slaves, pimped by their neighbours. AIDS haunts them all.
In Karnataka, a hilly southern state, William Dalrymple-the only non-Indian contributor to the collection-meets the inheritors of the now illegal tradition of temple prostitution. In ancient times, its practitioners included the daughters of royalty, dedicated in childhood to service the devotees of the goddess Yellamma. The modern lot almost all belong to a single caste of illiterate dalits. They are distinguishable from run-of-the-mill village prostitutes only by their early entry into the career and therefore a higher probability that they will contract HIV. Nearly 40% of Karnatakas devadasis-literally, slaves of god-are believed to be infected with the virus.
Economist.com
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HIV test kits not sub-standard, Centre tells HC
The Centre today refuted all allegations against supplying sub-standard HIV test kits to various medical centres in the country.
In an affidavit filed by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) on behalf of health ministry in the Delhi High Court, the government said that such allegations made by Dr Kunal Shah, a US resident and member of World Bank, is baseless.
"There is no evidence to support the vague, incorrect and wrong allegations regarding the substandard kits. On the other hand, there is evidence to show that the kits are not substandard," the affidavit said.
The government's response came on a PIL filed by Dr Shah, through his counsel R Venketraman, seeking probe into an alleged racket of supplying sub-standard HIV test kits to medical centres.
OutlookIndia.com -
Police arrest transsexuals, brawl ensues
BANGALORE: A drive against transsexuals on Monday landed the police in a soup at Banashankari. Activists working with transsexuals protested in front of Banashankari police station, demanding the release of six members who were arrested.
At 3.30 pm, the Girinagar police arrested six transsexuals who were collecting money near traffic signals and from shopkeepers. Trouble began at 4.30 pm, when activists went to the Banashankari ACPs office, urging him to release the arrested persons. When the police refused to release them, a heated argument ensued between the two groups, and the police arrested the activists also.
Times News Network -
PM asks Cabinet colleagues to sort out rift over gay laws
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has intervened in the intra-Cabinet war between home minister Mr Shivraj Patil and health minister Dr Ambumani Ramadoss over the question of legalising homosexuality, asking the two ministers to sit down and sort out the issue.
The issue figured at todays Cabinet meeting in the wake of Delhi High Court hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the legality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which bans sexual relations among people of the same gender. While the home ministry wants the penal provision to continue, saying that it is in keeping with Indian tradition, the health ministry has argued for decriminalising homosexuality on the grounds that it impedes the battle against HIV/AIDS.
The court had yesterday pulled up the Centre for relying on religious texts to justify the prohibition on gay sex in the country and asked for scientific reports to justify it.
Statesman News Service -
Provide report on HIV in jails by Nov 10, HC tells state
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) to submit a report on the prevalence of HIV in jails in the state, especially the ones at Amravati and Yerwada. A division bench of Justice F I Rebello and Justice Ashutosh Kumbhakoni gave MSACS time till November 10 to submit the report.
The report will comprise details of the number of prisoners who have tested positive for HIV, the figures of inmates who require HIV anti-retroviral treatment (ART) and those who are undergoing the ART treatment. MSACS has also been asked to list the infrastructure required at the jails for counselling, testing and giving treatment to prisoners as well as the time that would be needed to upgrade the facilities.
The issue first came to light when the high court was hearing a bail application filed by a HIV-positive prisoner serving a life sentence in Punes Yerwada jail. The court was informed that there were around 32 HIV positive convicts who had died in Yerwada jail between 2001 and 2006. Expressing concern at the statistics, the high court appointed advocates Anand Grover and Yug Choudhary as amicus cuirae (friends of the court) to assist the judges in dealing with the issue.
Shibu Thomas, for TNN -
Scourge of HIV/Aids hits adoptions
HYDERABAD: In what is certainly bad news, adoptions have reduced drastically in the city with 60 per cent of the abandoned children turning out to be human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive.
According to the records of the women and child welfare department, of the 125 children who were abandoned in the city and the surrounding districts of Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda, and who were potential candidates for adoption, 64 tested HIV-positive.
Children not adopted are sent to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and orphanages where medical care is given to them. However, not many are adopted as most families do not want HIV-positive children.
Due to the stigma related to HIV/Aids, the adoption rate of abandoned children has reduced from 40.3 per cent in 2007 to 36.7 per cent in 2008. "Most couples are not interested to adopt a child with a disease. In most cases, they want healthy babies to be taken into their family fold," an officer from the women and child welfare department told TOI. Children who have diseases are given to organisations which have good medical facilities.
Nikhila Henry, for TNN
© 2008 Wake Up Pune.
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