Panda Curie Cancer Hospital partners with HCG; Becomes the 1st in Orissa to offer CRT Facilty

Well known centre for cancer treatment, Panda Curie Cancer Hospital of Dr. Krupasindhu Panda, is now equipped with Comprehensive Radiation Therapy Facility, in partnership with the Health Care Global Enterprises Ltd, (HCG) of Bangalore. This facility is the first of its kind in Orissa.

HCG is Asia’s Largest Cancer Care Network, with 27 Cancer Centers, 4 tertiary Care Centers and 4 Fertility Care Centers. It makes high quality healthcare accessible to all by adopting global innovations.

Participating in the launching ceremony that took place on August 18, Chairman of the HCG group Dr. B. S. Ajalkumar said, “ HCG has redefined cancer care in India, by creating accessibility to technology, innovation and expertise. We are happy to partner with Dr. K S Panda, leading oncologist in Orissa and launch the 1st comprehensive radiation centre in Orissa, which has been lacking access to quality cancer care. HCG model of taking advanced cancer treatment to tier 2 & tier 3 cities, has benefited the patients immensely, with better medical outcomes and quality of life.”

Rededicating his efforts to cancer patients of the State, Medical Director of the centre, Dr. Panda said, “A comprehensive cancer centre in Orissa was the need of the hour. The incidence of cancer is on the rise with better diagnosis, lifestyle factors and increasing age. With the inauguration of the most advanced radiation therapy centre a dream has come true, where all the modalities of cancer treatment are accessible to patients, which will redefine cancer care treatment in Orissa.”

The advanced radiation centre was an outstanding need.

SATAN NEVER ERRS

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“Satan never errs”. So also our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

His Independence Day speech on August 15, 2013 is so full of self-glorification that even the Satan will not dare to vie.

To keep the Sonia Gandhi family pleased, he did not mention the names of the former Prime Ministers who did not belong to the personal heirdom of the maternal grand father of her husband. Now being criticized for soft stance shown to Pakistan despite her repeated offense against our men on the LoC, he has not shown the curtesy of remembering the two Prime Ministers – Lal Bahadur Sastry and Atal Bihari Vajpayee – under whose leadership India had vanquished the the American stooge at the border that had attacked us in 1965 at Kutch Peninsula and in 1999 at Kargil respectively.

We may come to this issue some other day; but for now, subject of our discussion would be his claim of credit for development of India in his speech on the independence day.

He has used ‘decade’ as a yardstick to measure post-independence development of India. And, has declared that except the decade under his rule, economic development of India has “increased” so spectacularly “in no other decade”.

He credited the first two decades – the 1950s and 1960s – of developments to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru; the seventies to Indira Gandhi; the eighties to Rajiv Gandhi, and the nineties to Narasingh Rao under whom, according to him, he being the Finance Minister, economic reform commenced to usher in the new phase of development that has been ever since increasing to higher altitudes.

But the decade begun from 2004, the year that handed him over the reign, has registered the highest rate of increase in development; a development which neither Nehru, nor Indira, nor Rajiv, nor Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister had been able to bring in. “In no other decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade”, he has told the country.

When increase in suicides of farmers, increase in starvation deaths, increase in body selling by nubile girls, increase in baby selling by mothers and fathers under insurmountable condition of pernicious penury is the reality that scornfully defines the decade under Manmohan Singh,his assertions from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, that, “In no decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade” appears exactly as the Satan’s bragging that his regime is the best, because he never errs.

When increase in economic offenses known by the syndrome called corruption, increase in instances of denudation of the national exchequer by his colleagues by way of corruption, increase in instances of audit-unveiled mega scams, increase in the density of the clouds of economic misconduct shrouding over more and more of his colleagues, increase in crime against the country by the Indian lobbyists of the economic empires of the Americans sic passim the decade under his administration is overwhelming India, his assertions from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, that, “In no decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade” appears exactly as the Satan’s bragging that his regime is the best, because he never errs.

When “economic misery is rising in India” which would “hurt the poorer segments of the society much more than the wealthy” according to the latest study by Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd, increase in Consumer Price Index, according to the Government’s own Labour Bureau, has risen to 231 from 100 in 2001 for industrial workers whereas for agricultural and rural laborers, from the last base of 100, it has increased to 729 and 730 respectively. This is indicative of how the maximum majority of Indians – the industrial workers, the agricultural laborers and the rural laborers – are increasingly being exploited by the private owners of means of productions and economically ruined by hoarders, black-marketeers, and profiteers in Manmohan Singh’s regime. He has, under his anti-people economic policy and gang of exterminators of India’s constitutional resolve for equality and socialism, so severely damaged the economic backbone of our people that their irrecoverably ruined purchasing power does not allow them even to purchase the rice so badly essential even to live in a condition of slow starvation. Lest the country rise in revolt and lest the world wake up to the tragedy of mass death that his treachery against the people would certainly precipitate, he has been ruining the national exchequer in giving the people below pverty line rice at Rs.2 a kg (which in Orissa has become R.1/-) with no scheme to stop the subsidy by increasing the purchasing power of the people. When no greater misfortune has ever overwhelmed India, his assertions from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, that, “In no decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade” appears exactly as the Satan’s bragging that his regime is the best, because he never errs.

The UNICEF reports that 20% of India’s children below five years of age suffer from wasting due to acute undernourishment, constituting one-third of the entire world’s wasted children. It further shows that 43% of our under 5 children are underweight and 48% are stunted due to chronic undernourishment. Shamefully, India accounts for more than three out of every ten stunted children of the world. When this is the picture of the decade under the rule of Dr. Singh, his assertions from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, that, “In no decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade” appears exactly as the Satan’s bragging that his regime is the best, because he never errs.

He has claimed credit for routine developments like laying of roads, establishment of techno-education institutes, increase in industries and the likes, when these are normal activities of the executive. Had there been no Manmohan Singh in the prime minister’s chair, these routine works could have been normally executed in course of administration.

In a democracy, political government is temporary, but the executive government is permanent. And hence, planning for and execution of utilities meant for the benefit of the people is vested in the employees of the State, not in the political leadership.

Political leadership has only one responsibility. And, that is, promulgation of a political economy which should eliminate economic contradictions amongst the people of the country and ensure that the value of their money does not go down in international market, so that the country continues its upward journey unhindered. Manmohan Singh has blatantly failed. More dangerously, he has rendered Indian national resolve for making the country prosper on the basis of political economy of socialism inconsequential by subjecting us to GATT and other American machinations, as it was not possible to cause any amendment to the Preamble of the Constitution of India to do away with the resolve to make India a Socialist Republic. And the American pattern of capitalism he has forced us into, has destroyed the mana of Indian National Rupee in the international arena. In the decade under his regime, the value of our money has constantly declined in front of American Dollar that has multiplied the plight of our people, whose indigenous market has also been rendered subservient to impact of US Dollar and FDI in retail trade.

When Singh was delivering his speech on August 15, 2013, for one US Dollar, Indians were being forced to pay 62.500 INR. But when he grabbed the chair in 2004, the value of 1 USD was 45.2603 INR in the annual average. And, through out the decade under his grip, we have been forced to suffer the ignominy of having a rupee of increasingly more devastative devaluation against the American Dollar. When this sordid reality hurts us unabated and constantly in the regime of Dr. Singh, his assertions from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, that, “In no decade has our economic development increased as much as in this decade” appears exactly as the Satan’s bragging that his regime is the best, because he never errs.

Mother India, I am sorry, you are to suffer, till at least this regime of subterfuge ends and your constitutional resolve for socialism returns.

In Dreams for Independence

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Transition from British bureaucrats to Indian plutocrats is no Independence. Our Independence is far away. Yet, we salute the day in memory of those who loved India as their mother and dared the dreaded prisons, guns and gallows in their dreams for our Independence.

Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee gives a great touch to Orissa’s History of Journalism

Journalist-turned media academician, presently the Prof. and Head of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee, has his signatures in almost all facets of mass media with his role as a sub-editor and later North-Orissa edition-in-charge of Sambad, as a popular anchor in radio and television programs, as screenplay writer and as an author. His lated publication is “History of Journalism in Odisha”.

The book maps the status of journalism in orissa till mid 2013, encompassing print, radio, television and web media. It attempts to provide a ringside view to the exciting and fascinating world of journalism in Orissa and to a large extent of India and to some extent of the world.It will help the media students, practitioners and scholars to know the history of Oriya journalism and also to understand the factors impacting the course of history.

From the early years of journalism to the future of journalism in Orissa, the book covers from print to web media and discusses specialty strands like business journalism, entertainment journalism and sports journalism. Cartoon and Cartoonists, Photo Journalists, Columnists, Women Journalists are focussed too, even as present trend of journalism in Orissa is discussed as is politics twined with journalism.

We very strongly recommend the book.

Readers may collect the book from the publisher ‘Sephali Communications, Sanchar Marg, Dhenkanal or from Modern Book Depot, Station sqr, Bhubaneswar.

Professional Journalists shall have their own PRESS CLUB

When media environment is vitiated with formation of a Club in the name of the Press by a team of owners of media industries known more for hyper-commercialism than adherence to Ethics of Journalism, professional journalists of Orissa have woken up to form a PRESS CLUB of their own.

A preparatory meeting was held for the purpose under presidentship of Sri Prasanna Kumar Mishra, Editor of the daily Sanchar on August 7 at Bhubaneswar.

Participants were clear in their opinion that “Press Club” should be a Club of professional press-persons, not a hodgepodge of users of press vanity.

Senior journalist Rabi Das, eminent columnist Prasanta Patnaik, web journalist Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Subartta editor Pradyumna Satpathy, Resident Editor of The Telegraph Prakash Patra, Zee News bureau chief D.N.Singh, Subrata Das, Shubhashish Mohanty, K.Rabi of The Statesman, Dillip Bishoi of Financial Express, Pratap Mohanty of AFP, Debabrata Mohanty of Indian Express, Basudev Mohapatra of Nxatra TV, Secretary of National Union of Journalists Prasanna Mohanty, Debendranath Das and Ambikaprasad Kanungo of Sahana Mela, Umapada Bose and Ambika Das of Orissa Express, Akhand of India Media Centre, Sagar Satpathy of News Insite, Kedar Mishra of Anupam Bharat, Columnist SriRam Das, Subas Sarangi, Pradyumna Mohanty, Janatantra editor Vivekanand Dash, Krantidhara editor Gobinda Samal, Television journalist Durga Madhab Mishra, Ramachandi Prasad Ranasingh and Santos Tripathy of Suryaprava, Samajavadi editor Sanat Mishra, Ranjan Tripathy and Bibhuti Bhusan Rana of Orissa Times TV, Dyutikrishna Pahi and Sudhansu Patra of Live Orissa TV were active participants. Amongst others, who, because of being pre-occupied could not join, but had sent messages in support of the mission of the meet, were senior journalists Basant Das, Sampad Mohapatra, Sarada Prasanna Nanda, Jatin Das, Rajaram Satpathy, Debi Pattanayak, and Kishore Satpathy.

Eminent journalist Debendra Prusti, convener of the meeting, had initiated the discussion.

It was decided to draft a constitution for the new PRESS CLUB by a committee comprising Sri Prakash Patra (Former President of National Press Club of India), Sri D.N. Singh (Zee News) and Sri Subhas Chandra Pattanayak (orissamatters.com), under chairmanship of Sri Mishra. Sri Devendra Prusti shall remain the convener.

Mother Orissa, if Yotsna is silent, wherefrom shall I get the words to console you?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Mother Orissa is, this afternoon, bereft of Yotsna Rautray, her daughter of extraordinary creativity, whose role as an author was as humanitarian as ethical was her contribution to journalism.

When a student of class eight, she had earned the rare distinction of becoming a published author with her first novel “Gaira Atmakahani” receiving critical acclaim in the famous soil of letters, Balasore.

In all her works, such as ‘Kichhi Nirdosha Ghatana’, ‘Potashraya’, ‘Bhinna Bhugola’, ‘Anya Nadi Anya Diganta’, ‘Baitaranikulara Jhia’, ‘Draupadi’, ‘Parajita Samragni’ etc, and her acclaimed columns, sic passim was the same signature of humane values that her first published work had carried.

One who has watched her on the desk of Orissa’s first modern broadsheet ‘Sambada’, knows how ethical and keen was she in editing. She was there, since its inception, for more than two decades till she decided with her husband Jimuta Mangaraj, who was also a staff reporter in Sambad, to lead a self-employed life in journalism.

With her passing away, at the age of 55, a chapter that had begun with her birth in 1958 was abruptly closed on a bed in a private hospital at Bhubaneswar this afternoon, when the sky was sending monsoon showers to collect her last breaths in the softest possible fold of vapors the rains could create, oblivious of how that would cause a severe loss to Orissa’s world of journalism and literature.

Her absolutely untimely demise is the severest loss to Jimuta, her partner in life and profession; and to her daughter Rutuparna, and to her son, Amrut; and to her in-law and natural relatives. But to me, and to many others like me, a personal loss, that can never be encompassed in words.

Mother Orissa, over physical extinction of such an object of your pride, wherefrom shall I have the necessary words to console you?

High Court should review the compromise in the case of Ileana Citaristi

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa High Court, under Article 227(1) of the Constitution of India, has “superintendence over all courts and tribunals throughout the territories interrelation to which it exercises jurisdiction” in the State. Therefore, it should suo moto review the bail granted to accused Krushnachandra Dasmohapatra by the SDJM, Puri that makes a farce of prosecution in a case of utmost public importance even before it commences.

The case is against a Daitapati Sevayat of Sri Jagannath who is alleged to have assaulted Italy-born Odissi dancer Ileana Citaristi, who has adopted OrIssa as her home, on the chariot of Sri Jagannatha, as she refused to pay him a sum of Rs. 1000.00 as Dakshina (money collected by way of extortion from devotees of a Deity by the Sevayats/priests). She was subjected to brutal attack even on her head, and in a bid to justify the attack, the said Sevayat had raised the bogy of desecration of the chariot by Ileana, who besides being a non-Hindu is of foreign origin. The shocked Ileana had moved the police.

Now nobody has any doubt that the case will end without any punishment to the miscreant; because the accused has been granted bail on the basis of a document depicting a compromise between the accused Sevayat/body of Daitapati Sevayats and Ileana Citaristi.

Even though the bail order delivered by the SDJM is interlocutory in nature, the case will assumably end in non-prosecution.

Bail is, as per practice in vogue, denied to an accused before submission of charge-sheet in a criminal case, and even beyond, when there is apprehension that the accused may put pressure on the complainant to withdraw the case or to come to a compromise in order to render the case inconsequential or to tamper with evidences or to try to derail prosecution. In this instant case, without submitting to police to cooperate with the investigation, the accused Sevayat had put pressure on Ileana to compromise the case and to derail prosecution by submitting the same while praying for bail.

Should this manipulation be encouraged? The High Court should oversee it; as otherwise, it would be easy for the accused Sevayat to force Ms. Ileana Citaristi to withdraw her case against him.

Once a case of crime is registered by the Police it becomes a case between the State and the accused. How can the complainant or the accused or the both put a stymie on prosecution behind back of the State? The learned SDJM has not thought of this before granting bail to the accused in taking into cognizance the compromise petition. The prosecution seems to have become a farce.