The Atheist

It all started with the FB post by my friend quoting Ernest Hemingway “All thinking men are atheist”. I was decently surprised with such generalization on his part. I have great respect for Hemingway as writer. I have thoroughly enjoyed his short stories like ‘Indian camp’, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ etc.

I am not against atheism and have little experience in life to speak about God or spirituality. However I believe being theist or atheist is not a question of choice like someone choosing the sexual preferences. It’s about your belief and faith. There are some great atheist personalities like Albert Einstein who became believer in god towards later part of his life. If we were to consider ‘thinking men’ then Isaac Newton and Swami Vivekananda were among the best known people believing in god. There are many million such examples where strong atheist converted to staunch god believer.

Atheist is a great stage and it’s like true acceptance of non-existence of god. It’s a stage where you question everything which a religion and rituals offers. You reason with others to prove the corollary of god’s existence. So we cannot convincingly say that “All thinking men are atheist”. Yes thinking men try to create reasoning and probably create foundation of thoughts about their beliefs.  

Born Into Brothels

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

This Academy award winning documentary by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's touches the heart. You will be moved and would want to save these children from the poverty and abuse. I appreciate Zana’s effort to show that world of Calcutta's red light district. I would ignore the critics about calling it an ‘outsider’s attempt’ since it does not matter to someone like me. 

Old is Gold

Old is Gold

I like listening to discourses and attending satsang programs. That’s my way of keeping in touch with reality, finding peace and of course de-stress myself. The session began with Sanskrit versa which is part of one of the chapters in Gita. When the discourse of half way through the discussion became more interesting around ‘why old people were of great importance in earlier days?’

I had returned from vacations during the same time and had spent more than a week with my parents. I was conscious of the discussion and I could clearly feel the heat. During my vacations at my home town, I visited one of friend’s parents (my friend is settled in US and visit home once a year), they were almost in tears and desperately wanted their son to come back. I could feel the absence of life, the memories of their son captured in photographs all across.

So as I understand from the discourse, during earlier Yuga’s the knowledge was passed on from one generation to other by memorizing and reciting verbally. The writing were not the popular or rather advised way of transferring knowledge. The best way to communication the leanings or teachings to children’s and adults was through stories by old people. They commanded the respect and each section of society was responsible for making the strong ‘social fiber’. Hence the stories are always associated with grandfather and grandmother.

Needless to speak the current state of the treatment older people receive. The nuclear families and migration for job to metros and towns. The erosion of confidence in older generation about their own kids. The speed of life moves which leaves less time at disposal for people to think about their old parents and support them.

Celebrating Chinese Diwali

Well, this sarcasm stems from my angst. Why am I angry and how is Diwali associated with Chinese? I like celebrating even small occasions, events and incidents. I picked up this learning from my dad who would not let go any opportunity of distributing sweets in the neighborhood. When I was a kid I used to find this annoying however I realized the importance of ‘celebrating for small reasons’ as I grew up. I still don’t possess the enthusiasm, energy and zeal with which my dad used to create during such celebrations. I try in my own small ways. J

Now, Diwali is THE festivals for Indians and imagine the grandeur of this festival when more than billion people celebrate over a period of almost a week. I wanted to buy ferry lights and lanterns for decoration this year and of course some fire crackers. I visit the market nearby quite popular in the locality for such shopping. The market was quite like massive fair. The parking, honking, traffic, pollution and the October heat was intolerable. Great day for shoppers who were successfully wending their way for selling the goods.  

I was browsing rather strolling the market for the list I had for shopping. The first thing I realize is the dominance of ‘red dragon’. I mean most of the shops were only displaying Chinese goods. Though there were some choice but it was not good enough to make a decision. The ferry lights were cheaper and I am sure it won’t last till next year. I am not so much for ‘made in India’ or Indian flag bearer. I do buy American products and I like them as well. However would like to see our own culture to be reflected in our festivals. It’s a part of our many thousand year old tradition and was disheartening to see been encroached upon.  

What did I do then? I compromised and bought the stuff which will do for this year. And I am going to be judicious next year, will prepare bit early so that I find what I want for Diwali festival. 

ICDS : Rs. 6/day to address severe malnutrition?

Children in the age group 0–6 years constitute more than 13% of the population of India. Ministry of Women Child Development is implementing various schemes for survival, development and protection of children. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme is one of the flagship programs of the Government of India and represents one of the world's largest programs for Early Childhood Development.

Revised Supplementary Nutrition Norms

Provision of supplementary nutrition under ICDS is primarily designed to bridge the gap between the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) and the Average Daily Intake (ADI). On an average, the effort is to provide daily nutritional supplements to the extent indicated here in this chart.

I am still thinking how can a child between age group 6 month to 72 months suppose to address severe malnourished state with Rs. 6 per day? 

His nutrition needs can only be met by a variety of quality foods which includes Cereal and grains, rice, milk, seasonal fruits, vegetable soups etc. With due respect to government efforts and ICSD scheme, common sense tells me that its not possible.  

Grandma technique to control blood sugar

Finally it happened to me as well. I must say Diabetes is an interesting phenomenon in your life. The day you know you are diabetic or prone to high blood sugar, your life changes. The doctors start discussing side effects of high blood sugar levels and that’s when you realize, you are in trouble.

There are several factors which could be root cause for high blood sugar levels which includes stress levels, unhealthy diet, alcohol and smoking and also family history.  I am not the expert in blood sugar control however I did ponder on various articles, books and journals to understand what goes in increasing the blood sugar levels and how can I control it.  The fact is each person is different, have different tendencies and provide different response to any activity. So you need to experiment with yourself to understand how your body responds to food intake, exercise and medicines.

Scientifically, sugar travels in your blood as glucose, an important energy supply for your cells. Insulin is a hormone that helps move glucose from your blood into your cells. When body either fails to produce insulin or reacts abnormally to insulin that is present, the cells are unable to use glucose and levels of glucose in your blood become too high. If this condition becomes severe, diabetes may result.

I have a strong family history with regards to diabetes. So I knew since beginning its goanna hit me someday and it did. I began taking precautions the day i realized some consistent reading of above normal level blood sugar. Thankfully I am at the initial stages and can use preventive techniques. There is no substitute to exercise, minimum 45 minutes of exercise every day is necessary. Stay active and you will see the difference. Apart from exercise I am seeing good benefits including Fenugreek seeds in my diet on regular basis.

Fenugreek is a food and a spice commonly eaten in many parts of the world including India. Fenugreek is used for centuries by practitioners of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. It contains several biologically active components that may help lower blood sugar. It’s proved by several research practitioners that it does help in both the types of diabetes Type I and Type II.  

There are other herbs like Cinnamon and bitter melon can help you to control the blood sugar apart from your regular medicine prescribed by doctor.

In case someone in interested in going through research indicators, I found this document quite informative http://www.diabetes.org.in/journal/1992_april-june/article4.pdf 

Cost of Malnutrition to the Nation

I am moved by the report on malnutrition in India. I bumped onto very informative article and presentations from Dr. Veena Rao, Former Secretary to Govt of India with Domain expertise on Malnutrition. I thought will bring some insights into this subject. 

Interesting finding is that relatively small number of states, districts, and villages account for a large share of the burden – 5 states and 50 percent of villages account for about 80% of the malnutrition cases.

According to World Bank - The prevalence of child undernutrition in India is among the highest in the world; nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth.

Yes, this is eye opening that Malnutrition negatively impacts the GDP as it reduces physical/ cognitive growth of an individual by impacting the productivity (earnings of individuals) thus results in economic loss to the nation.

Malnutrition lowers the resistance of the body to infections and capacity to recover from illness and adds to the health costs of the nation. Protein Calorie Intake, Micronutrient Intake, Infections and illness, Nature of Occupation determine working capacity and income generation capacity

According to her research 4% of GDP is lost on account of malnutrition and its various types of manifestations. How? 

• Total no. of households in India= 193,579,954 (Census of India 2001)

• 30% of households =58,073986 consume less than 70% of energy requirements (NNMB Repeat Surveys in 1988-90 and 1996-97)

• Norm level of calorie intake: 2700Kcal

o Actual Calorie Intake: 1890 Kcal (70% of 2700Kcal)

• Energy required for Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): 1515 Kcal

• Calorie left for productive work: 375 Kcal (1890 Kcal- 1515 Kcal)

• Heavy work requires 219 Kcal per hour.

• Moderate work requires 122 Kcal per hour.

• Work hour lost per day per person due to inadequate calorie consumption: 4 hours of moderate work and 7.5 hours of heavy work

• Calculated on the formula:

Ea X Total No. of days in year (365)

Er X Total No. of working days in year (250)

Ea: is the Energy available for work: 375 Kcal

Er: is the energy required for a particular work: 219 Kcal for heavy work and 122 Kcal for moderate.

• Assuming average household has 5 Consumer Units,(NSS in Nutritional Intake in India, 50th Round,  July 1993: June 1994) then total no. of population consuming less than norm level for calorie intake= 290,369,930

• 55% of Adults= 159,703,461.

• Based on actual average wage of Rs. 60/- per man per day of 8 hours, per hour earning =  Rs. 7.50/- 

• Loss of total money due to low productivity due to inadequate calorie consumption = Rs. 30/- approx. per day per person.

• Total money lost by entire adult population per day= Rs. 4,791,103,830.

• Assuming total of 250 working days, total money lost in a year = Rs. 1,197,775,957,500 = US$ 29,944,398,937 approx. (1 US$= Rs. 40/-) = Approx. US $ 29 Billion

• Total GDP for year 2006-07 = Rs. 28481.57 billion, or US$ 712 billion  

GDP loss = 4% GDP