From the States

Andaman & Nicobar Islands

Guwahati

Telemedicine in chennai and port blair

The Andaman and Nicobar has been simplified diagnosis and treatment of children with disabilities by the newly- inaugurated Apollo - Vidya Sagar Telemedicine Centres in Chennai and Port Blair.

Six months ago Vivek Dutta (an eight-year-old) from Port Blair, was referred to Vidya Sagar, a special school for children and young adults with cerebral palsy. Along with mental retardation, Vivek also had a low vision and his family was asked to put him through a series of exercises.

In the tele-consultation session Lakshmi Gopalakrishnan (a coordinator at the Advisory Clinic in Chennai) instructed his father Alok Dutta about his follow-up. Vivek watched the proceeding from the lap of the NGO's Community- based Rehabilitation (CBR) Centre coordinator Mallika Rao, in Port Blair.

Gopalakrishnan said Vivek would have had to come to Chennai for follow-up in the absence of telemedicine facilities. That meant forgoing work for his parents, a week for travel on board a ship and another week in Chennai. Middle income or poor families stood to lose a lot. The telemedicine centre aims to help people like Vivek with diagnosis and continued treatment.

D S Negi (Chief Secretary Andaman and Nicobar) said such systems would benefits the islands, as most of the islands, being remote; travel within the Union Territory was a problem.

Poonam Natrajan (Director, Vidya Sagar) said the telemedicine facilities would also train special educators in the islands for its CBR programme. She said that a large number of children had to travel to mainland India for diagnosing physical and mental disabilities. The CBR programme would complement the telemedicine facility.

Inaugurating the facility, Preetha Reddy (Apollo Hospitals Managing Director) said while centres of excellence remained in urban areas, service provided had to focus on villages as nearly 80 percent of India live in rural areas. She said that through screening camps and health programmes, Apollo would involve itself in early intervention for disabled children.

Source: Telemedicine, a boon for disabled kids. Indian Express, Chennai, 8 September 2005.

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Urging the assam governor to provide facilities

The Karbi Anglong District All Categories Physically Handicap Committee submitted a Memoranda to the Lt Gen (retd) Ajai Singh (Governor of Assam) through the Deputy Commissioner, Karbi Anglong and Principal Secretary, Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAC) demanding fulfillment of its 9-point charter of demands.

The memorandum apprised the Governor that though various developmental works and schemes for physically challenged were launched by the Government for disabled persons of Karbi Anglong district, these schemes had failed to reach them.

The memorandum, signed by Babul Hrishi (general secretary) and Nirmal Das (president), urged the Governor of Assam to take steps for early solution of their grievances like immediate filling up of vacant posts reserved for physically handicapped persons in different departments under the administrative control of the KAAC which have been lying vacant since 1995, introduce special employment drive for the physically challenged by increasing the present employment ratio from 3 per cent in the hill districts, and the same ratio should be reserved in case of the physically challenged person's representation in Parliament, Assembly, Council and Town committees.

They also demanded that to solve the unemployment problem, reservation in allotment of public call office, distributorships of petrol pumps, LPG, and license of fair price shops should be done. The committee demanded that the Disability Act, 1995 should be enforced in all Government departments of this region. The organization further demanded of the authorities concerned to set up special schools for the physically challenged in the district, provide land and housing facilities and help mobility by issuing free bus passes.

Source: Physically challenged youth deprived of Govt. schemes: KA body. The Sentinel, Guwahati, 7 September 2005.

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New Delhi

Drawing attention to the Delhi Government's inability to comply with the National Human Rights Commission's recommendation that a prisoner attaining a sentence of life imprisonment should be considered for premature release if he has served at least seven years of the sentence in jail, the Society for the protection of Detainees' and Prisoners, Rights (SPDPR) has written to the Union Home Minister asking him to initiate measures that the Lieutenant- Governor of Delhi be empowered under Article 161 of the Constitution to allow for the premature release of old, sick, disabled and other deserving prisoners from Delhi's jails in the same manner as done by Governors in other States.

Pointing out that the Punjab Government in 2003 ordered the release of all persons of 70 years of age who had undergone a sentence of five years, and the Uttar Pradesh Government in 2000 ordered the release of persons of 60 years and above who were undergoing lie imprisonment and completed three years of sentence, SPDPR said that the Delhi Governments, under section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), can suspend of remit sentences of convicts, Article 161 of the Constitution only empowers governors of states to consider remissions of sentences of prisoners, and dose not apply to the Lt. Governor of Delhi.

The Lt. Governor of Delhi, in an order dated July 12, 2000, after considering the recommendations of the NHRC, constituted a National Capital of Delhi (N.C.T.) Sentence Reviewing Board to review the sentence awarded to prisoner undergoing a life sentence convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction in Delhi. The Broad is supposed to make recommendations to the Lt. Governor about cases of premature release in appropriate cases.

One of the categories of prisoners eligible to be released under this order are convicted prisoners undergoing a sentence of life imprisonment who have served seven years.

Source: Plea to amend law to enable release of old, sick and disabled prisoners. The Hindu, Delhi, 7 September 2005.

I am an orthopaedically handicapped person having permanent partial disability as certified by a government surgeon in 1992 from my native place/state i.e., Vijayawada, Krishna district, AP. I have been working in Palampur, Kangra district hp, since may5, 1994, as a permanent employee in one of the central government R&D institutes council of scientific & industrial research.

As I was told that I have to submit a new /fresh oh certificate to avail deduction under chapter VI - A, US/ 80U of the income tax act, I appeared before a medical board at a disability camp on 19.7.2005 at Palampur. The chief medical officer Kangra denied this certificate on the ground that I'm not having a bona fide certificate even after my having submitted the election id card and ration card.

However, he advised me in writing to obtain a disability certificate from the board constituted by the CMO, Krishna district. How can a doctor deny this certificate to a patient who is actually suffering from an ailment/ disability?

Source: Disability Certificate Denied. The Tribune, Chandigarh, 13 September 2005.

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Chennai

Campus placements have begun in right earnest this academic year at the Anna University for final year students of engineering colleges in and around Chennai.

On Friday headhunters from Hyderabad-based Satyam computers services limited came calling at the sprawling university to shortlist the best brains from among the 950 odd boys and girls who had qualified for the written test. A pre-placements counseling session was also held.

Students from 85 engineering colleges in Chennai region attended the written examination and the company has short listed 184 candidates for the interview to be held on Saturday. This is the first placement drive in the Chennai region coordinated by the state level placement cell, said mannar Jawahar, center for university industry collaboration, Anna university.

Earlier, software major infosys picked 177 final year engineering students through the campus placement drive undertaken in Madurai region covering students of 74 engineering colleges. Another leading player Cognizant technology solution had selected 139 students in the Coimbatore region which has 63 engineering colleges under its fold.

The HR managers of the companies would mutually inter change the regions for head hunting once the dates are finalized by the varsity authorities.

Satyam computers deputy manager he a sreejit chandran noted that positive attitude was a decisive factor for recruiting it professionals. Therefore, students must concentrate on improving their attitudes and they would do well to learn from mistakes made during an interview.

Anna University Vice Chancellor Viswanathan who interacted with the job aspirants stressed the need to develop good communication skills to land a good career. It was of concern that the students failed to make use of the language laboratories provided by the university, he said while regretting that once a company had recruited just 150 of the 1,50 Anna university students citing lack of communications skills as the reason for rejecting the rest.

Source: Satyam scans Anna varsity's talent pool. Indian Express, Chennai, 10 September 2005.

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