Modi's year in office

He is lying prone on the mat,

And striking classic yoga poses;

With a million cheering him on,

Of course, impeccably dressed!

 

He takes the US by storm,

Cheered by Desis at Madison Square,

A million are always turned out,

To cheer the ultimate showman on!

 

He speaks in quotes and aphorisms,

Perfect for the age of twitter;

He knows the art of byte-sized sound,

For a world that can't focus longer!

 

He shares the stage with world leaders,

In their home, visiting their town;

Hosts visiting ones on jhulas,

In his own beloved home town!

 

His ministers form a circle,

Whose role is to point to the center;

Lest anyone still misses it,

He's the one dressed in most splendor!

 

Each event of his is so well-timed,

Though he thought of it years in advance;

He won't let any good thing go,

For lack of timing, unheard, unsung!

 

He's got the teams to project him,

For any event, the right platform!

Laser shows during the elections,

Followed by one show every month!

 

He knows the art of projection,

Of waiting, and of deception;

With no family to distract him,

There's also the aura of renunciation!

 

He keeps his enemies at bay,

In different Machiavellian ways;

They cheer: those who wish to gain,

The others' balls: he holds in his hands!

 

Enemies have been known to vanish,

All but friends, decimated;

A man you  can't antagonize,

Either you cheer, or stay silent!

 

He has an event for the moment,

And several scandals held in reserve;

To release when the time is right,

When he's in trouble, or before the polls!

 

From the gullies of Gujarat he came,

To storm the walls of Lutyens' Delhi;

Over every person he looms,

Who stare in awe or cower in fear!

 

Who knows if this is for the good,

Or will lead to anything better?

A megalomaniac come to save us,

Or a mahiavellian deliverer?

The Maggi madness

The world has lost it, it is collective madness.

They are saying Maggi without the lead is good!

What they are testing for is lead, so that is the focus,

With which everyone is so obsessed.

 

The problem is with how it's made, not lead.

It has to cook fast, since it is 'instant';

It has to last long, since it is sent

To all corners of the land – it may take months;

It has to taste good, for kids to want it,

So chemicals are fixed for it to reach the 'bliss point';

It needs to be loaded to the brim with salt and other things,

It's one or all of: fat, salt and sugar; before putting into a packet;

And many more deadly carcinogens, which are packed in,

Called preservatives, enhancers, QBz11 or such cute names.

They start with grain, god knows of what quality,

Made to flour, all nutrients removed;

Then based on a formula tweaked in their research labs,

All the other ingredients are blended in.

Invariably, the process involves high heat,

And also killing anything that lives,

For living things in there will make it spoil,

And rot before it reaches the shelves.

 

Eat only food that spoils, should be the motto,

But eat them before they spoil;

In chasing after lead, we are being made fools of,

By the same people who claim to safeguard us;

They will test it again, and lo and behold! Free of lead!

And claim victory, in safeguarding our health.

And we will happily go back to eating Maggi,

Or whatever other noodles we switch to instead;

 

For someone is benefiting from this controversy,

It is a plot to undermine Maggi.

The whole world chases after a false scent,

And we too, get carried away, part of the herd.

 

Why only Maggi, why only noodles?

And why only lead, or any one isolated chemical?

These things in packets don't come from kitchens,

They come from labs, and are then advertised,

To convince us that they are good for us.

 

There is only one answer,

But the world won't see it.

You and I know it, but refuse to acknowledge it.

We need to buy food fresh and cook it,

In our own kitchens,

And eat it before it spoils!

Stop those statins!

Dr. BM Hegde's article on why not to take statins (link attached at the end).

It seems to be very difficult for many people to accept such articles, much less act upon them. Like the quote by Noel Coward at the beginning of the article says "It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit"!

Nowadays, we like to outsource everything to so-called experts. Every article you read says things like "experts are of the view that walking even for two minutes is better than sitting on your butt the whole day" or "experts opine that it is good to eat vegetables; however, make sure that it is low-fat, low-carb, low glycemic index, high protein, low calorie, and germ-free, which is what our supplement ensures. As certified by the world's leading nutritionists, it is better to have our supplement than to have the vegetables themselves"!

Medicine is among the worst cases of this kind of abdication. We don't trust ourselves when it comes to health, but want to listen to the "experts". We have been indoctrinated to believe that good health is a matter of high science, which we cannot understand. The science part is outsourced to scientists, who are paid by the pharma companies, and in most part, are looking at the wrong things anyway.The interpretation part is left to the doctors, who have not been taught about what is health in their entire curriculum, and then for updating their knowledge depend on the pharma salesmen. 

The result? People take drugs like statins, which a little bit of reflection will tell you is a scam. There are tons of other examples from medicine. 

Financial scams are better. At least what you lose is only your money. When it comes to medicine, it's a matter of both your money and your health.

link to article:

http://www.moneylife.in/article/stop-those-statins/41666.html

Dinesh Gopalan

mob: 9845257313; blog: http://www.dineshgopalan.com

On Jayalalitha's acquittal

What happened is not surprising. It almost comes as an anti-climax since this was bound to happen.

( http://www.dineshgopalan.com/2014/09/on-jayalalithas-arrest.html  - that's the link to my article on this in September - I think it is going as per the script! )

The HC acquits Jayalalitha based on the same document that lists out the reasons for her conviction by the special court! 

Jaya has always been unpredictable, mercurial, imperious, and downright arrogant. To keep someone like her in check it is required to keep a sword of Damocles forever hanging over her head. This is achieved by making a prosecution case that is tight enough to convict if required, and loose enough to acquit if the need arises. The multiple layers of Indian judiciary takes care of the rest. 

After the conviction, Jaya would have sent her emissaries to the Center to work out things. And things do magically workout once she expresses her contrition and assures support to the ruling dispensation. What only needs to be hammered out is the timing of each subsequent move. And the timing of this verdict is brilliant. Just in time to declare early elections, ride in on the sympathy wave, and, can you believe it, an anti-corruption plank! 

But then, this is not the end of the story. I expect an appeal will be filed in the SC, which will of course take its course. In the meanwhile, the prosecution can be as efficient or as lax as it chooses in ensuring a conviction. The sword cannot be put back in its sheath.

Jaya is a great ally to have since she is virtually a goddess who can ensure TN for the BJP. But goddesses are known to be temperamental, and destructive. Basmasura's  hand on top of her head ready to fall and incinerate her if she steps out of line - that is what is required. Which a well-timed appeal will ensure. 

Another goddess who has immense power, and is probably more unpredictable, though not as sophisticated, and needs to be kept in check even more strongly is Didi. The Sarada scam is good for ensuring that. There is enough evidence to convict; the prosecution can be as lax or efficient as it wants; and there are enough layers in the legal system. Being a Kali to Jaya's Durga, Basmasura will have to be deputed to keep an eye on her too.

The other  games being played out in our most populous state, is keeping the Pehelwan and his puppet son in check, along with his lady rival. But they are easier than the two formidable devis - they are much more practical, and not so mercurial. So in their case, the stakes need never be raised this high. A few well placed cases, along with backroom discussion, without too much grandstanding on either side should do the job.

Advantage Modi. Chanakya would have been immensely pleased.

On unnecessary medical check-ups

An article by Dr. Atul Gawande on unnecessary testing in medicine and the harm it causes.

Personally, I have all along belonged to the school of thought that preventive medical checks are totally unnecessary; the "annual medical check-up" is guaranteed to do you mostly harm, and very little good. Dr. Gawande explains why in a better fashion than I have seen anywhere. I like his analogy of diseases being like turtles or birds; but we treat them like they are rabbits.

My own two-bits:

Remaining free from disease has very little to do with medicine and a lot to do with lifestyle, which includes diet, sleep, exercise, and state of mind. For each of these areas, on how to improve quality of life, advise can be found in several different sources, but never, repeat never, from your doctor. Doctors, especially of the allopathic kind, know very little of how to stay healthy - they only study disease, are obsessed with disease, and with the narrow specialty which each one of them comes to represent. When my son was eight years old, he had a peculiar problem - pains all over his body -  wherever we touched him, it would pain him. The pain was real, but the cause was unknown. We made the mistake, based on a local doctor's recommendation, of taking him to a specialist on Rheumatoid Arthritis. And guess what? His diagnosis was that he suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the solution? Steroids!  One dose was all it took (my son had hallucinations after consuming that dose) to convince us that something was seriously wrong. We asked around and took him to a more enlightened pediatrician who basically told us that it was all in the mind; if we waited for a few days the problem would disappear. And it did! For a carpenter with a hammer all the problems in the world will seem like nails!

And this whole "testing" thing - what is it based on? You get tested for a hundred different things, for each of which "normal" ranges have been established based on some statistical cut-offs. The probability of each marker being awry, even if two percent, leads to an almost certain chance of something being diagnosed as wrong once you look at some forty parameters. And based on that one parameter that looks wrong, you undergo several more tests - the chances are, by the time the tests are done, there will be something wrong with you. Not because something is actually wrong with you, but because the tests say so. Until something is really wrong with you, it is better to let the body take care of itself. Chances are, if you get yourself tested three months later, that particular problem would have disappeared but some other problem would be thrown up by the tests.

Add to this the pressure on doctors to make money. They get cuts (40 percent, and in some cases, even 60 percent of the test fees) from the diagnostic labs. They are employed by hospitals which insist on a minimum success rate, not in terms of curing people, but in terms of getting people admitted to hospital. And the hospitals themselves operate on metrics like "revenue per bed" which of course includes allied services like unnecessary tests and further interventions. Investors in these hospitals demand "profit" and the patient is just a cow to be milked for getting that profit. It does not help that in a lot of these hospitals, the investors are doctors themselves. 

And what about the medicines that are prescribed as a result? Based on suspect statistics, or should I say scam statistics, which in turn are based on tests like cholesterol, which are getting increasingly discredited, people are put on things like statins for life. Completely unnecessary drugs, actually harmful, which cure nothing, and create more problems while solving none. The advantage (to the pharma companies) of course, is that, these drugs are life-long; and they are very likely to cause other complications for which you are likely to take more drugs, not that you will ever know the cause and effect relationship.

Mammograms are also being increasingly discredited. As to the so-called cancers that they can detect, and the desirability of operating for the same, Dr. Gawande's article brilliantly brings out the fallacies of such  thinking.

The tribe of doctors qualifying nowadays are not specialized in overall health and wellness. They all know about a small part of the human body, and study it in isolation from the rest. The body, though, is a holistic system operating on natural and biological principles; not a physical machine where if one part goes phut, you replace it, and the machine runs on. Add to this, the proliferation of for-profit diagnostic centers and hospitals, and what do you get? The more hospitals and test centers there are, it goes without saying, the more sick people there will be in order to fill those beds. The cause and effect cycle works both ways! And the fact that they are for-profit, answerable to shareholders who look for return on investment, means of course, that all of us will end up spending more and more money on these treatments, frequently giving up other things in life in the process. And in a lot of cases, eroding our quality of life due to the treatments and their inevitable after-effects.

The fact that most of us are covered by insurance in one form or another does not help. It makes everyone go in for unnecessary treatment and medications since someone else is paying. That kind of logic is fine while buying jewelry - if someone else is paying, more is better. But not when it comes to health - in health and treatment, less is often better. 

One more personal anecdote  - when my son was born I was working for Shell, where the policy was to cover all costs on maternity, whichever hospital, no limits. The mistake would have been to go to Breach Candy (one of the pricier places in Bombay). We went to the local hospital which was exactly 20 meters away from our house, and the total costs, including delivery and pre-and-post expenses? Rs. 8000. Even though it was 1995, I think that was a pretty moderate sum. A bigger hospital would never have let us off so lightly!

A brilliant article which you must read. Dr. Gawande is now part of my pantheon, along with Dr. B M Hegde.

Dinesh

America's Epidemic of Unnecessary Care

				America's Epidemic of Unnecessary Care Millions of people get tests, drugs, and operations that won't make them better, may cause harm, and cost billions.
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Regards

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Posted By Dinesh Gopalan to Personal Finance, Investments, and other things at 5/06/2015 03:56:00 PM