SKIMS is SICK
One man committee has submitted its inquiry report on the escalating number of infant deaths in G B Pant hospital. Dr Showkat Zargar, Director SKIMS, probing the fiasco of more than 500 infant deaths, submitted his sealed 50 page report to M K Divedi in presence of House Committee. The report is going to be public on July 24.
It is believed that Dr Zargar’s final report is almost a reiteration of his preliminary report submitted on June 6, 2012. As per the preliminary report the chaos was result of the mismanagement by the former Medical Superintendent cum Head of the Department, Dr Javed Choudry.
But at the same time the Valley’s lone super specialty hospital is also in news for bad reasons. Doctors were on strike for 5 days which resulted in the death of about 33 patients. 400 resident doctors went on strike when a staff member and a security guard hit a doctor with an iron rod over the issue of parking which resulted in beating up of security guard by the doctor, Dr Imran and his colleague Dr Arfat, said Police. Two Non-gazetted employees of the SKIMS, Ghulam Rasool and Javed Ahmad, came to rescue of the security guard and they beat up the two doctors resulting in head injury to Dr Imran.
Dr. Imran lodged an FIR (No. 47/2012) in Police Station Soura against the two employees for beating him and Dr Arafat. The security guard also lodged an FIR (No. 47/2012) in Police Station Soura against the two doctors for beating him.
This is not the first case; there have been a number of times when patients had to suffer due to the tussle between doctors and paramedics and other allied staff, which is again a reflection of mismanagement. The present director started his innings well but gradually issues of mismanagement have started surfacing up.
Acting on the complaint of Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of SKIMS-Soura, Director SKIMS suspended two employees Ghulam Rasool and Javed Ahmad and handed over a charge sheet to them. After which 5000 Non-gazetted employees of the SKIMS including the para-medics went on strike and demanded immediate revocation of the suspension order of the two employees. The director SKIMS revoked his order saying the matter is in police station and parallel proceedings can’t be initiated against them. After the revocation of the order, the Non-Gazetted employees called off their strike and resumed their duty.
The strike paralyzed the functioning of Out Patient Department (OPD) and surgery badly but Emergencies; Intensive Care Units and High Dependency Units were functioning normally. Around 3500 patients were being examined in OPD every day but according to figures, since strike began, it came down to 500 daily.
Militancy and MACHIL
In an atmosphere where judicial verdicts are promoting court marshal proceedings against erring army officials in fake encounters, militant strikes are now stirring defense on ground.
In recent militant strikes, militants fired a rifle grenade at the Civil Secretariat, Srinagar, which however, didn’t explode.
The attack on Civil Secretariat comes a day after the General Officer Commanding of Srinagar-based 15 Corps Lt Gen Om Prakash said here that militants are planning Fidayeen attacks on security forces in Kashmir.
Army says that around 550-600 militants are waiting at various launch pads near the LoC in PoK to infiltrate into the valley.
Gen Prakash described the recent incidents of terror, particularly the killing of a soldier in broad daylight at the highway township of Pampore, as “serious” and claimed that armed forces had observed maximum possible restraint.
Already Army top brass has turned their back to AFSPA revocation so far, these recent militant strikes are now leaving least room for this controversial law to exit from the scene. The Commander refused to comment on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and said: “It is not in my domain and army has left it to the Ministry of Defence”, he added.
Early this month, army lodged its protest against High Court orders on Machil fake encounter case, which paved way for court martial of the accused army officers.
Army in its petition had challenged the orders of Sessions Court Baramulla and CJM Sopore wherein the courts had held that civil court has the jurisdiction to proceed against accused army men. Three youth — Shezad Ahmad, Riyaz Ahmad and Mohammad Shafi — hailing from Nadihal village of Baramulla were allegedly killed by army officers of 4 Rajput Rifles at Machil on April 30, 2010 in a staged encounter and later passed as foreign militants.
The case came to limelight when villagers of Nadihal in North Kashmir alleged that three youth were killed in fake encounter by army. On May 29, 2010, the bodies were exhumed and the trios were identified by their family members. Subsequently, on July 15, 2010 police charge sheeted an Army colonel, a Major and seven others under Section 302 in the fake encounter of the three youth.
Commenting on the judgment senior advocate, Mian Qayoom said that the verdict of Supreme Court in Machil fake encounter case is just a beginning.
Meetings COINCIDED
Problems and cross- LoC trade are made for each other. When the two countries decide to sort out issues, the traders have unending list. Recently when the meeting of India-Pakistan Working Group on Cross-LoC Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) was being held in Islamabad, traders from both sides met at zero line at Chakan-Da-Bagh in Poonch district to discuss their demands and sort out the pending issues.
The meeting was held under the supervision of Trade Facilitation authorities of both sides at zero line hosted by traders from other side of Kashmir. Besides sorting out long pending issues among the businessmen, the meeting also prepared a charter of demands to be submitted to their respective Governments to boost the cross-LoC dying trade.
Pawan Anand, president and Krishan Singh, general secretary led the traders’ delegation from Jammu while Akhter Hussain Shah, president and Hafiz Malik, general secretary headed the delegation from PoK.
Officially from Indian side, the working group was led by Y K Sinha, Joint Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry while the Pakistani delegation was headed by Zehra Akbari, Director General (South Asia) in the Foreign Ministry.
The prime concern of meeting was to discuss cross-LoC CBMs to boost the trade between Jammu and Kashmir and other part of Kashmir.
Terming the trade on Poonch-Rawlakote route at the verge of death, the trade has been reduced to just three or five trucks a day as against the entitlement of 25 trucks a day from each side. They demanded that number of the tradable items should be increased to boost the trade.
Optimistic about the meeting, the traders hoped that the Indo-Pak officials would take some positive steps to revive cross-LoC trade or, otherwise, it is nearing death in the absence of tradable items.
To streamline the trade, the cross- LoC traders had decided to prepare a negative list of the items and submit them to respective Indian and Pakistani Governments. They had stated that barring negative items, trade on cross-LoC routes of Poonch-Rawlakote and Uri-Muzaffarabad should be allowed on all other items. Is it only issues they have to talk about, or someday they will reap the benefits as well. Time only can comment!
All For PRANAB
Valley’s top votes have been dedicated to ‘Dada’ who was here last week to garner support for his berth in presidential office.
In Jammu and Kashmir, voting was held in the Central Hall of Legislature in Srinagar.
The Electoral College for the Presidential election in Jammu and Kashmir comprised 87 MLAs and 10 Members of Parliament (MPs)—six of Lok Sabha and four of Rajya Sabha having a total vote value of 13,344.
The new President would be in place before July of 25th and going by the equations, Mr Mukherjee was likely to have smooth sailing to Raisina Hills.
While all 10 MPs—six from Lok Sabha and four from Rajya Sabha—from Jammu and Kashmir would vote for Mr Mukherjee, out of 86 MLAs, 72 including those of National Conference and Congress besides main opposition party—the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), one MLA each from CPM, DPN and PDF and two Independent candidates—Engineer Abdul Rashid and Charanjit Singh Jasrotia would cast their vote in favour of the UPA nominee taking his vote bank to 12,264.
Remaining 14 MLAs with a total vote value of 1008 would vote for BJP backed candidate PA Sangma. They including seven BJP rebels headed by former Union Minister Prof Chaman Lal Gupta, MLA Jammu West, four BJP MLAs and three National Panthers Party (NPP) legislators.
With the support of SP (66,688 vote value), BSP (45,473), JD-U (40,737), Shiv Sena (18,495), JD-S (6,138) and CPI-M and Forward Bloc (around 41,000), Mukherjee can expect a vote share of around 7.5 lakh while Sangma is expected to be way behind Mukherjee and is likely to garner around 3.15 lakh vote value. The fourteenth Presidential elections in India have brought together strange political bedfellows in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Corruption SNIPPET
This anecdote came from Jammu when vigilance staff of the Public Service Commission caught red-handed, a gazetted officer of J&K High Court, copying by unfair means, while writing his examination (KCS judicial). Identified as Rukhsar Ahmad Khan of Mendhar, he was writing his examination at a centre in Government Gandhi Memorial Science College Jammu. He has been booked for unfair means.
In Srinagar, the government finally acted and dismissed the services of erstwhile Additional Deputy Commissioner, Pulwama, Adil Rashid Naqash, during whose tenure more than Rs 20 crore meant for acquiring land for the new highway was swindled. The case is currently being investigated by the state vigilance organization. Though the state government has made it clear that it would recover every single penny from Naqash, indications suggest that it might not be a totally successful operation.
SVO has already registered a case (FIR No 37/2010) and attached his property. It includes two residential houses at Peer Bagh and Rawalpora (Srinagar) which are registered in his and his wife Farukh Jahanzeb alias Rinku’s name. The property includes five kanals of land in Nowgam, four shops of a shopping complex at Pulwama, almost four kanals of land at Largam-Tral, nine kanals of land at Midora-Tral, seven kanals of land at Noorpora-Tral and a kanal of land at Shahabad Payeen. If all the assets are auctioned, it does not even make on third of the entire amount that he swindled. There are clear evidences of how vast patches of the land shown on papers do not exist on ground at all and various officers who paid that amount in different capacities are still free.
The new collector is understood to have redrafted entire records afresh and clearly identified variations have been found. The latest development on corruption on the political front is that the in-house probe into the J&K Cricket Association has absolved its President Dr Farooq Abdullah from all charges. The probe carried out by four members appointed by Dr Abdullah have held three office bearers of the Cricket association responsible – Dr Abdullah’s political adviser Aslam Goni, Ahsan Mirza and Salim Khan. The “encouraging” part of the finding is that the swindled amount that was earlier termed to be around Rs 27.90 crore has now surged to Rs 40.53 crore.
It was in the midst of all these that SVO attached a residential-cum-shopping complex and five bank accounts with Rs 30 lakh deposits of Tehsil Supply Officer (TSO) of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) Department, Sujan Singh in Kishtwar. While the attached complex is valued at Rs 30.5 lakh, he had thirty lakhs in his vaults and the house that he owned at Subash Nagar in Jammu was worth Rs 40 lakh – an overall property worth a crore rupees.
