C-Section in TN: Where are the ethics

It has been a long time since I wrote blogs. Lots of distraction and as usual, blame the work. I was browsing the net when I stumbled upon a news which took me through the states of surprise, shock and eventual anger, in chronological order.

The news was about a so-called recent achievement by a 15 year-old boy in Std. X. Apparently the boy had done a C-Section surgery (Caesarian) under the "expert" guidance of a doctor (his father). This had happened a few months ago and the proud father shows the video of the surgery as an evidence to the medical fraternity in order to get fame for his son in the form of seeing him enter the record books.

Now he and his son might see themselves, but this time facing legal action. Apparently the doctor had retracted his statement saying that his son merely watched the proceedings with curiosity and was not a part of the surgery. What the heck!

There are certain things that anger me here.

1. What the hell was the 'Dr. Father' thinking when he let his son do the surgery? God damn it, he is a doctor, a literate!
2. What happened to the ethics of the profession? In an already conflicting world of pharmacists, doctors and nurses in India, why should a Class 10 student contribute? Just because there was a "watchful" eye doesn't mean that my neighbor can do a surgery with some other watchful eye.
3. How would the actual person who had the baby feel? Does she even know about it? Isn't it a betrayal of trust? Poor lady. She would have seen the baby only after waking up from her anesthesia not knowing a kid did it. Thank God he didn't do anything wrong.

What angers me even more is the statement made by father which goes something like "When a 15 year old can be a doctor in US why not accept it here?". What bullshit of a question is this? What is your son studying? Std. 10 and not MBBS you moron.

If I have knowledge about how to make a bomb doesn't necessarily mean that I should actually make one and explode it. Knowledge is wealth, but that doesn't mean that you get qualified to implement it.

Unless or otherwise the Government steps in, these kind of activities would encourage others to go for such extremes, just for the heck of getting their names in record books.

Sivaji: Hear the name rumble

"Pera kaettaa summaa adhurudhillaaa..."

A punch dialogue from the Tamil blockbuster movie SIVAJI. Makes the crowd go crazy, not minding the long wait both for the movie to release and also outside the cinema hall.

I happened to catch the second day's show in Chicago. A very good attempt by Shankar, the man who is the Spiderman of Tamil Nadu. Everything is extravagant and makes sure that you get stuck in the web of magic he weaves every time with his movies.

Sivaji  - The Boss was no exception. A 3 hour 5 minute movie keeps the audience's mouth busy (Don't get anything wrong here). I was referring to laughing and whistling. I guess Shankar had put in an effort to make an ordinary story tailored to fit perfectly for Rajni, to fit perfectly his Larger-Than-Life image.

What is astonishing is the way he manages to pull it off. Now comes the part where many reading this blog might not like. A few flaws in the movie. I have read enough reviews of the movie listing its plus points as well as the minuses. Don't jump to conclusions that I accept logic-defying scenes in Hollywood movies. I do not accept them too.

SPOILER WARNING: For people who have not seen the movie yet, a word of caution, please do not read further.

The part when Rajini dies and comes back to life after many units of distance and time, comes back to life when Raghuvaran the doctor uses a Defibrillator to amazingly save his life. This was the major part that I was not able to digest.

Apart from that, the stunt scene in the music shop has Rajini hitting the goondas with instruments like Guitar. The villains fly off with the impact but nothing happens to the instrument! Come on!

Third one is when Rajini stabs a guy but he does it in a meticulous way where nothing happens to the fellow inspite of the serrated knife getting in by many inches!

Putting these Logic and Gravity defying acts apart, the movie was good. A nice & fast screenplay, excellent song picturization and the never-cloying style which says 'Rajini'. Vivek comes back to form.

All in all a very good entertainer. At the time of writing this blog, the movie has broken the record of highest per-screen average ever grossed for a film in the United Kingdom.

 Being a fan of A.R.Rahman and Shankar, this was what I would call a "Paisa-vasool" movie.

My recommendation: Must watch

Nuclear Deal: Letters to Editors

I was going through one of the "Letters to Editors" in The Hindu. The title "The Nuclear Deal" attracted me. I was very curious to find out what the bigger Indian public is thinking.

I don't want to be rude here, but these were some of the thoughts that came to my mind as they seemed obvious to me.

• People write letters to be with the editor's column irrespective of what they write (Some columns don't make sense how much ever or however you try to interpret them, but that by itself is a separate story) so that they can see their names in the newspaper.
• People who have a good command over the language of English (unlike me) try their luck at things that they know little or don't know.

The Know-It-Alls sure don't do their research properly. They don't know what the deal is about. They don't know what has taken place. They don't know how long it has taken place. They don't know why this is being done.

It has to be noted that the entire negotiations was kept under wraps till the UPA government came into picture. Nuclear stuff being highly sensitive needs to be under the veil of secrecy. If you think you are the sole citizen of the country who cares about the Nation more than anyone other patriot, you are wrong.

Certain matters do not fall under the category of "Right of Information". Certain negotiations have to be conducted without the interference of the general public. When we have a very very less percentage of people's representatives who are politically educated, read "knows-what-they-are-supposed-to-do". Half of the crowd in the Parliament do not know what the hell is being talked about.

Given this situation, it does not make any sense to involve any of the non-strategic parties in the deal.

Everyone, it is a deal, means it is give and take. Can anyone of these people tell what is the give and what is the take? They don't know. I have read Strobe Talbot's book on the negotiations that took place between him and Jaswant Singh. I would suggest everyone to read the book before writing anything about the Nuclear deal.

You shouldn't just act smart by writing something that you don't know about, but should be smart enough too to actually know what you are writing. It still beats me. What were they thinking?

Shots fired: Chicago downtown shooting

Three hours ago, I was running an automated performance test when I started hearing sirens. You hear them all the time. Responding to some domestic violence, some person getting locked in the bathroom or someone had a heart attack, but by the time I realized that it was occurring frequently, I got news that shots were fired in the building directly opposite to where I work and diagonally opposite to where I live.

Not knowing the seriousness, just out of curiosity, as anyone would have, myself and my colleagues decided to go down and it ourselves. Only when we went down did we realize that the situation was much more serious.

Inside the office everything was calm but outside, it was chaos. Sitting at home and watching news in TV doesn't create that impact. I have seen cops killing a person on TV. It doesn't impact you much. May be because they are in electronic form. 10-15 police cars, 5-6 ambulances, 2-3 fire engines. The scene had all the ingredients to churn your stomach.

Story in short:
A gunman enters an office building in 38th floor. Apparently has an argument. Opens fire. Critically injures three people and shooting one women in the foot. SWAT team arrives, shoots down the gunman. One block radius blocked for civilians.

Reporters across the world would be having a field day with this event, but me sitting so close to the actual site of event (sambavam nadandha idam - Technically this happened a few metres away from me.) had affected me somehow in the deepest of my mind. It may be fear of closeness to danger or the thought that someone is fighting for his/her life at this very moment, I would never know. Only time can tell when I replay this event in my head and the impact it had on me.

One thing that has to be appreciated. SWAT team shoots down the "offender" minutes after the shooting. The whole area is secured. Police go floor by floor to check everything is okay. Not the kind you would expect in India. If a person is shot, he is dead. End of story...

Lunar Objectives: Another Star Wars?

NASA makes it a point that it announces something or the other every month. So what's the latest? Setting up a permanent base on the moon by the third decade of this century.

If you go through the "Lunar Objectives" in that page, it is immediately evident that it is highly ambitious. Lot of them sounds like science fiction to me, but yesterday's fiction is today's fact. It is just how fast we overcome the limitations and risks.

The document which is based on Lockheed Martin's list (Copy-pasted), has objectives in the following areas.

• Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Heliophysics
• Earth Observation
• Geology
• Materials Science
• Human Health
• Environmental Characterization
• Environmental Hazard Mitigation
• Operational Environment Monitoring
• Life Support & Habitat
• General Infrastructure
• Operations, Test & Verification
• Power
• Communication
• Position, Navigation & Timing
• Transportation
• Surface Mobility
• Crew Activity Support
• Lunar Resource Utilization
• Historic Preservation
• Development of Lunar Commerce
• Commercial Opportunities
• Global Partnership
• Public Engagement & Inspiration

Some of them are interesting and makes sense as well but some do not, for a simple reason that it is the best case scenario. Let me put it this way. Some of them are so future looking, even our great grand children might feel the same way as we do now. I hear arguments that the recent technological advancements have been tremendous and at this same rate, this is definitely possible, but even today we see Star Wars as a fiction.

I see the immediate requirement is fuel. The natural resources are draining pretty fast. So next nearest place is the Moon. So attack there. Like setting up the ISS, set up an off-planet drilling/mining/excavation/extraction plant taking a few decades to complete. Then use your space vehicles to transport them back to Earth. Voila! Now this sounds like achievable.

Particularly interesting for a lot of countries, nuclear-powered countries, is the million tons of Helium-3 waiting to be exploited. Everyone wants to be self-reliant, independent of the Middle-East for fuel and this is a nice achievable option.

Why is it possible? Because this is one of the few things that have happened, but at a miniscule level. Another perspective: India says that it is interested in contributing. We normally don't waste our time or money unless it is useful. Media reports and even scientists of ISRO have been commenting about the use of Helium 3 and using that to cater to India's future energy needs.

China and Japan have their own Lunar probes for 2007 while India is eyeing for 2008, provided we don't run into some major issues. UK is likely to opt out of the US plans because of its participation in the ESA. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and the race did not begin now, it began a few years back.

Even though the US and Russia have a very big headstart, the actual competition is between the other countries which are almost on the same footing. Now as citizens of this planet, we will have to wait and watch as to which country takes this seriously and tries to get a lead in this global competition. Bear in mind - As time goes by, we will not be the only ones in this race for fuel. Who knows future STAR WARS might be because of this even though "Global Partnership" is an objective.