Top of the Word

 

I have seen all kinds of reports about the journeys of Jesus to various parts of the world, including to India - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_years_of_Jesus.

 

Now, England has been added to that list, thanks to a new documentary on Jesus -- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jesus-may-have-visited-uk/546495/.

 

To quote the first sentence from the report verbatim, "Jesus may have visited Britain and walked the Glastonbury grounds, a new documentary alleges. "

 

I have no issue with it, but why should it be an allegation?  It is not wrong to call it an allegation as the word merely means any assertion that is not supported by evidence. However, a simple and more appropriate word will have been "claim". This may not carry any literary or lexicographic merit as it is only a matter of personal preference -- just as I do not like the word "imminent" (or even "impending") to be used with happy events that are about to happen. I associate the term more with danger.

 

Perhaps, it is okay to say that "Woman Alleges Jesus Went to Hell." I am not cooking this up, this is a claim that was actually made by a woman as you will see here -- http://777denny.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/woman-claims-to-have-visited-hell-with-jesus-30-nights-says-jesus-cried-and-is-warning-people-not-to-go-there-part-1/

 

There may be more Indians teaching English in foreign universities and schools, including in England, than the Chinese. Indians may even be outnumbering the Chinese in terms of the English teaching certifications they may have (such as the IELTS). We all also know that one reason why Indian IT professionals have been more sought after than equally or better qualified Chinese is because they can communicate better in English -- something that also resulted in the call centre boom in the country.

 

But all that is set to change as the Chinese have begun to outsmart the Indians in English language proficiency. India has fallen behind China in the number of people speaking English, according to a report in the BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8365631.stm. I have no reason to doubt the findings as my own experience in multiple Indian cities, including in Delhi and Mumbai, trying to have my way with just English, has been punctuated by helplessness. Maybe it was my fault not to have picked up Hindi during the first 30+ years of my life in India!

 

I must nonetheless admit that I have had more language-related trouble in China than in India. That is fundamentally because the educated lot in India are reasonably comfortable with basic English than their peers in China.

 

Numbers, however, tell a different story. It is believed that only 5% of the Indian population are proficient in English. That is about 50 million people as opposed to 300 million people in China who can speak the language. The data may not be accurate, but there can be no denying that India is losing the edge it had by virtue of the 300 years of British rule in the country.

 

Indian leadership during the post-Independence era has been largely busy building their own coffers and fostering jingoism and populist insularity for their own selfish interests. It is a pity that there are leaders even now resisting the use of English when the rest of the world is leaving the country behind.

 

Singapore is 100% English-literate, but most countries in Asia as well as in Europe and Latin America are still struggling with English. But at least they have begun to see the emergence of English as the lingua franca of the world and are vigorously promoting the language.  

 

I don't see that happening in India although English language institutes have mushroomed trying to capitalize on the outsourcing boom in the country. Pride in our own languages and cultures does not have to prevent us from accepting ground realities and seeing merit in global trends. What does this leave India with? Are we going to lose one more bastion that has yielded good dividends so far for the country?

 

 

 

Some Tamil boat people from Sri Lanka appear to be on track to proving wrong the dictum that "beggars cannot be choosers". Rescued off Indonesian shores by an Australian Customs vessel, these Tamils were vociferous in demanding that they be taken only to Australia. In other words, they did not want to be resettled  in Indonesia but Down Under where refugees are able to get handsome doles. The issue, however, is whether they are refugees escaping from political persecution in their home country or just illegal immigrants who want to strike it rich in a prosperous country through a dubious tactic.

 

They launched a hunger strike and even threatened to blow the vessel up before the Kevin Ruud government budged and offered to locate them in Australia as per the UN convention for refugees. I do not want to jump to conclusions as they could be genuine asylum-seekers. But the strategy they adopted only appeared to show that they were seeking a backdoor entry into an affluent society.

 

It has triggered a debate in Australia on whether the country should continue to be soft towards unskilled people trying to enter their shores through sly means. You can get a taste of public opinion at the following links:

 

 

 

 

Clean up your home first before trying to hunt down terrorists elsewhere. This is the first thought that comes to my mind from the Texas killings by Major Nidal Malik Hasan yesterday. While going to the root of the problem is a healthy way to measure up to any challenge, the U.S. will have done itself a world of good if it had paid greater attention to the threats within.

 

The lesson for the U.S. now is not to waste time trying to fight terror in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran as that approach has only ended up exacerbating the crisis. Get rid of the enemy within first before dreaming of playing a global role. Your days as the superpower are over, accept this reality and start putting your house in order.

 

 

I often find the refrain that "India is shining" too annoying though there is truth in it. The issue I have with any jingoistic euphoria is that India is no match for China in everything aside from freedom of expression and the resulting gibberish. It is too late to play catch-up as well as they are miles ahead.

 

For a nation that is not scarce in natural resources and talent, we could have done a lot better if only our leaders had the vision to think beyond self-aggrandisement in an effort to transform the economy. I find it hard to digest that even now India is doing little to tackle corruption on a warfooting. If anything, that is only worsening if the alleged corruption of unprecedented proportions in the doling out of wireless spectrum is any indication.

 

During my visit to Chennai earlier this week, I found the press covering the issue extensively, with opposition leaders alleging a fraud of more than Rs one lakh crores (I don't have the patience or the mathematical ability to calculate how many hundreds of billions of dollars it translates to!) in the allocation of the spectrum. But nobody seems to be doing anything beyond issuing press statements. That only shows no one is clean in the country, all leaders have some skeletons to hide in their cupboards. So, who can save the country from these rascals?

 

Everytime I visit the country, I am amazed at the development that is happening there. But along with it, I also see the age-old problems of corruption, inefficiency, arrogance, poverty and illiteracy as deeply entrenched as ever. Does anybody care? When we are only busy imagining that we will be the superpower of tomorrow and doing little to rid the nation of its evils, that can only be a dream that will hardly crystallise!

 

 

When big bucks are at stake, shame takes a backseat. This is not the only way to look at the admission of former Wimbledon champion Andre Agassi that he took drugs and proferred lies during his heydays. I do not wish to be mean and suggest that being less newsworthy now than in the past may have made him embrace openness at its shocking best to garner guaranteed attention. Flamboyant and charistmatic in his prime and now deep into charity and public welfare, Agassi deserves a better label than just a publicity-seeking maniac.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deepavali (Or Diwali) is one of the occasions when I miss being In India. The celebrations are sparkling in Singapore, too, but there can be no substitute to being in India to savour the spirit of the festival.

 

To me, Deepavali is one festival that cuts across all religions (Onam is another one), getting all Indians into a genuine mood for fun and celebration.

 

Have a wonderful Deepavali with family and friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, now we know Barack Obama is a Gandhian!! And, judging by reports in India's news portals, Indians are gloating over the Nobel Peace Prize that he has won even as the chemistry win for Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has made them euphoric. Indians love role models, they don't like to be one. We love celebrating the successes of people, which is a good thing as it does show us as a gracious lot who will not hesitate to give others their due.

 

But praise is lavished only on winners, not on potential winners. In fact, potential winners may even be easily brushed aside as Nobel Laureate Hargobind Khurana discovered when he was rejected for a lecturer's job in India. The country lost him to the U.S., and that went on to fetch him a Nobel. It is quite another story that even if he had been offered the job in India, he may still have migrated as those were times when there were not enough facilities for research in the country.

 

Talking of potential winners, I did not realize until yesterday that imaginary or assumed potential successes also can win people Nobel prizes as that appeared to have been the yardstick for giving the American President the honour. It negated the joy over the Nobel that Prof. Ramakrishnan won for Chemistry. It takes a lifetime of research to win that, but here we have a politician who has had it fall on his lap for what the Nobel committee thinks he will achieve in the future. In winning the Nobel, Obama has now joined the likes of Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. The value of a Nobel Peace Prize is indeed eroding step by step. The list of all winners is here -- http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/peace.html 

 

Obama to visit Singapore: That said, there is no reason for Indians to be exuberant over Obama. "The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi," Obama is reported to have said. But then he is a man full of words and little action -- a true American who talks big and means little, a culture that reverberates in politics as in business.

 

Nine months after he took over the American Presidency, he still does not have an India visit on his agenda.  He will be in Singapore next month for the APEC Summit from where he will head to China, stopping in both Shanghai and Beijing, before heading to Japan and South Korea -- http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-BarackObama/idUSTRE5965MY20091007.  Clearly, business comes first for this self-professed Gandhian.

 

Anyway, the Nobel for Prof. Ramakrishnan is a matter of pride for Indians. But India may have contributed little to this American citizen -- his career was shaped up by the U.S. and Britain. He is the seventh native Indian (people of Indian origin included, but excluding Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama). He is affiliated to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) of Cambridge,  He is the 14th Nobel Laureate of the LMB and the 29th for the Medical Research Council (MRC) which runs the LMB, according to a report in The Hindu today. Just one institution has won four times more Nobels than a one-billion-strong country. In fact, during my days at Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent), I figured that the company had itself (including when it was a part of AT&T) produced eight Nobel Laureates.

 

Also, barring Rabindranath Tagore and Sir C V Raman, the rest of the Indian Nobel Laureates owe their awards in some measure to their overseas affiliations. 

 

But then India has just about begun to make developmental strides, so we can expect better numbers and, importantly, winners groomed locally, over time. Congratulations Dr Ramakrishnan!

 

 

 

 

The Hindu Plays up National Day Celebrations in Beijing even as India Protests China Issuing Separate Visas to Kashmir Residents

Time for India to have Military Rule to Counter China

Deepavali days are here again with Little India in Singapore gloriously decorated and lit up. Checking out Indian newspapers during this period, particularly on Fridays, is a sure way to dream of the festive charms of Chennai. All Friday newspapers from India sell in Singapore like Tirupati laddus (deliberately avoiding the use of “hot cakes” What hot cakes, I don’t think anybody loves eating cakes straight from the oven – you hardly get it that way anyway in shops.).

So, I can call myself lucky that I was able to get hold of the Friday editions (October 2) of The Hindu, Indian Express and The Times of India. Forget the news content of the newspapers (I get it all online fresher), my interest in the hard copies lies in the colourful advertisements that wow and woo shoppers.

But looking at the front pages of the three newspapers made me push the ads to the backburner. It was a day after China’s National Day celebrations. I see no reason why that should raise a flutter in India. The Hindu had only the previous day carried a report on China’s year-old practice of issuing visas to visitors from Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh on a separate sheet of paper rather than stamping it on the passports.

I was hoping The Hindu will have done a detailed follow-up the next day (Friday) on the issue as it for sure merited that. After all, China's action was a subtle indication that it did not recognise J&K and Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territories!

Instead, it led with a report on the China celebrations from Beijing – filed by N Ram himself supplemented by a few other reports from another journalist of the newspaper, glorifying communist China for its rise as a superpower. Fair enough, since newspapers are expected to play fair and hail those who deserve it irrespective of their political affiliations!

Still, I cannot see why India should care about China’s celebrations when it is undermining its (India's) unity and sovereignty? China is not a country that can be trusted by any means. The way it backstabbed India in 1962 is still fresh in our memory. Then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was heartbroken and never recovered from the blow till his death in 1964. I am not one to harp on the past, but China has still not changed. It continues to supply weapons to Pakistan and is indulging in anti-India activities in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

It is a treacherous country that has no shame stealing military secrets from other countries. Businesses follow the government's lead and steal the patents of other companies. But then we all like to believe that the country is changing.

The world may need China amid today’s recession. But I do not think India needs China – true friendship with them may do us good. But how can we expect friendship from a known backstabber?

Corrupt Indian Leaders Letting Country Down: Let us not sugarcoat our speeches and be diplomatic in our messages. Unfortunately, in the last more than 60 years since Independence, Indian leaders have only been cut-throat rascals who swindled the country and enriched themselves, leaving the bulk of the people in poverty. China used half of that period to make unimaginable inroads into the world stage in every conceivable sphere, including toppling the U.S. and the rest of the world in the Beijing Olympics. Whereas Indians are still content with the very few world champions we have such as Vishwanathan Anand who are where they are only because of their own perseverance with little support from the government.

Our corrupt leaders continue to make millions from Tamil Nadu to Uttar Pradesh and nobody cares! I think we should impose death sentence for those convicted of corruption of any form. India does not care when even chotta Sri Lanka mistreats Indian fishermen, indiscriminately firing at them. India shamelessly listened even when they, flush with glee over having wiped out the LTTE, offered help to fight terrorism in India. Anyone can needle us as we do not show any spine in our reactions. The narrow-mindedness and insularity that exist in India can dangerously lead the country downhill the way the Soviet Union disintegrated. Do we want that?

But then I am digressing again. What I am trying to drive at is that India must act tough with China and not be fooled by any of its friendly traps. If need be, we can snap diplomatic ties with them and bring on military rule in India to counter the threats coming out of China. Democracy has only fostered corruption of unimaginable proportions in the country. So, the sooner we get rid of it the better. But doing away with democracy does not have to mean curbs on free speech. If freedom of expression is ensured at least to some degree (as irresponsible openness has to be kept under check) in a military regime, we will have a great model that will take the country forward.

It is important for India to come out of the Third-World syndrome, learn to get seriously tough where it warrants and emerge as a power that the world will not dare to trifle with!

n  G Joslin Vethakumar

 

The way Vijay TV is going overboard with celebrating film stars Kamalahasan and Rajnikanth makes me hark back to the days of the Cold War. They were times when any visit by the Indian prime minister to the U.S. will be jotted by a return stopover in Moscow just to ensure no feathers are ruffled. Such was our farcical commitment to non-alignment!

So after a month-long daily airing of features on Kamalahasan’s 50 years in cinema, it has now started eulogising Rajnikanth with a series on his holy pilgrimages. To me, Vijay TV is just playing politics – trying to win over the fans of the two megastars by pretending to give equal footage to both. It does make business sense for them, though!

I have respect for both Kamalahasan and Rajnikanth, for their acting talents, and have interviewed both during my days as a journalist. I then had the habit of only interviewing people I like, deservingly so! But making people larger than life with exaggerated tales is not something that goes well with me. Give them what they deserve, but don’t put them to embarrassment by going overboard just to woo audiences!

And isn’t the “Ulaga Nayagan” (world star) title prefixed to Kamalahasan's name a little too much? Any sane person in his shoes will be ashamed to carry that title. I am surprised that the star himself is not feeling that way. If he was, he will have stopped people from dubbing him so. Even if he was a real global star, he will have no need to reinforce it with such titles. That is not the only title that is appended to his name – all references to him are now made as “Ulaganayagan Padmashree Dr Kamalahasan.” His fans and sidekicks seem to be doing a disservice to him. I don’t think such abuse of titles (particularly the Dr bit!) and prefixes happens anywhere else in the world.

He is a fantastic actor by all means and I am myself a big fan. But I strongly feel the titles undermine his achievements and show him in a lesser light.

When will Tamil Nadu come out of the culture of hero worship and when will the Tamils show a sense of balance in the way they glorify people? Will they, at all?

n  G Joslin Vethakumar

 

My book case at home contains more than books. Among its embellishments are little mementoes I had picked up from some of the places I visited, a few photoframes (including one with one of my wedding snaps), some trophies, a carving of The Last Supper I bought in Monterrey (Mexico) a decade ago and various other knick-knacks that make it a mockery of a bookcase -- all shoddily arranged in a shabby room that doubles up as my office when I work from home.

 

It even has a lovely gift from Jerusalem, given to me by one of my former managers who bought it in Bethlehen. It contains a small Cross and four tiny bottles with water from River Jordan, oil from the Holy Sepulchre Church as well as earth and frankincense from the Holy Land. And how can I forget the little "Oscar statuette" that I was presented with in 2007 at Cisco during a group offsite in San Diego. But that was a joke of an award as it only has my name engraved and not that of Cisco or what it was for. There are a million shops in Los Angeles, particularly those along the Walk of Fame, selling them. But an award is an award, a good gesture and some form of recognition from the company, so let me not belittle that.

 

This month, however, I won a Golden Globe at Cisco for my involvement (along with a few others in multiple countries) with a transformational Proposal Central pilot. This is a prestigious award -- given to us for "the best impact by a team". No trophy to go with it, so my bookcase will be spared of another adjunct. There are some rewards with it, the best part being the right to call myself a "Golden Globe winner" in the Cisco staff directory.

 

Let me not harp on it any further and trivialize the achievements of those who have won a real Oscar and a real Golden Globe!

 

 

 

She keeps India often in the news, and she is not Sonia Gandhi. Who else can this honour go to but Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO of Pepsico, who has yet again made it to the top of the Fortune list of the top 50 women in business.

 

An alumni of the Madras Christian College (and of the Indian Institute of Management), Indra is the only Indian in the list. In fact, the list features only two Asian-origin women, the other being Andrea Jung, CEO of Avon Products and Canada-born daughter of Chinese immigrants.

 

Interestingly, Indra is not the highest paid woman, she comes in at number 10. But personal monetary rewards are no measure of a person's success, what matters is how much money she is helping Pepsi add to its kitty.

 

I was hoping Cisco CTO Padmashree Warrior will make it to the list. But it is just about two years since she moved to Cisco from Motorola. It may take time for her to make a difference to the organization.

 

Who else can keep India in the news? If power-crazy Mayawati is not kept under check, whe may do it for all the wrong reasons.

 

The full list can be viewed at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostpowerfulwomen/2009/full_list/

 

 

Every Indian knows it is corruption that is scuttling the nation's growth, not just tarnishing its image in the eyes of the world. But isn't it too defeatist to merely talk about it and do nothing else? Now, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has joined this brigade of idle talkers resigned to living with it as a way of life. He has gone on record as saying that "graft meant infrastructure projects were late, over-budget, and often poor quality."

 

Check out a report in The Telegraph of Britain for more on Dr Singh's perception of corruption -- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/6133572/Corruption-retarding-Indias-growth-says-Indian-PM.html. If neither the establishment nor the judiciary is above board what recourse can people have for justice to prevail? A tinktank official, who is quoted in the piece, puts a part of the blame on India's British legacy. His reasoning was that the British created so many bureaucratic rules that people eventually ended up paying bribes to circumvent them for a faster turnaround. 

 

It has some very interesting reader comments as well, with one of them asking "why isn't he doing anything about it if he is aware of the problem." Very valid question.

 

Why?

 

 

If the Scottish government's decision to free the terminally ill Libyan convicted of bringing the Pan-Am flight down in 1988 was purely based on compassionate grounds I will have no hesitation saying, "Well done, hats off to you." The gesture came two days before the start of the Ramadan month. But, despite his claims of innocence, let us not forget he was jailed for the terrorist act that killed all 270 passengers (mostly American) aboard.

 

I would still have saluted Scotland if only it had been able to get the convict, who was sentenced in 2001, to publicly denounce terrorism and make a passionate call for peace. That will have given a fillip to the fight against terror. But then humanism will have to be unconditional and any tradeoffs may have negated its spirit.

 

Can the world be certain that only compassion was involved in the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who doctors feel may not survive for more than three months? Can there be truth in the talk that Britain may be keen to tap Libya's oil wealth amid an economy in turmoil? Questions and doubts do linger, but it may not be fair to jump to conclusions based on just assumptions.

 

For more on the decision, head to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6062496/Barack-Obama-leads-condemnation-of-Scotland-for-freeing-Lockerbie-bomber.html or http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/8197370.stm 

 

New-Generation Leadership for the Future or will it be Age Discrimination to the Fore?

When it comes to taking controversial, even discriminatory, decisions, you can trust Singapore to deliver them without any fear of repercussions.  Public opinion has hardly mattered here as all major decisions are taken by the leadership cream within the establishment. I wouldn’t want to take issue with that as it has been a model that has not failed to yield good results for Singapore. So what if independent thinking may have become a casualty in the process!

It was nary a surprise, therefore, when last week former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, pointed out that a search was now on for a successor to Mr Lee Hsien Loong, who has been occupying the hot seat since 2004. But don’t read too much into this as the person they pick will have to be in the government for around 10 years before the Premier steps down. So that is still a long way away.

When Mr Goh Chok Tong (now Senior Minister) became the Prime Minister in 1990, critics felt he was being chosen to keep the seat warm until Mr Lee Hsien Loong (son of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, considered the Father of the Nation) is ready to step in. It did turn out to be uncharitable for by the time Mr Goh made way in 2004 for his successor he had held the reins for around 14 years.

Grooming: A significant part of Mr Goh’s announcement was his indication that the person they would be looking for would be in his 30s. He would then be groomed over a period of 10 years before he is made fully fit for the post. That in effect meant all those in the Cabinet who could have been serving the country well during the last 10 years or more would be out of the running. Youth, more than capability and experience, is now a key criterion. 

I would not rush to call it age discrimination. Having a succession plan firmly in place is a healthy practice in the corporate world. Singapore is also run with business-like precision. It is only in true democracies that people get to choose their leaders, though they can also go dangerously wrong particularly in places where illiteracy is rampant.

--G Joslin Vethakumar

 

As a blogger, I have consistently found my posts lack the sparkle that can draw even the most impatient reader. Headlining, after all, is an art that is alien to me. So you will have seen just yawn-inducing headlines here. I don't think I have that imaginative touch in me to bring out the essence of, say, a 1000-word piece, in a punchy heading,

 

When I wrote a cover story for Microsoft Magazine more than a decade ago on how technology was redefining shopping, I headlined it, What's in Store! and was mightily pleased with myself.  The truth was that I was not capable of anything better. I probably did better when I came up with "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" for a review of a tool that featured a database of movies.

 

Catchy headings in newspapers and magazines never fail to leave me in awe. For instance, yesterday's edition of The Telegraph (U.K.) had a brilliant heading for a feature on China blacking out all social networking sites -- The Battle to Scale the Great Firewall of China. That is a creative spark not every journalist has. The piece is well worth a read at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/5976173/The-battle-to-scale-the-Great-Firewall-of-China.html 

 

 

Hype and hyperbole (or, put plainly, nonsense) are disgustingly common in the western corporate world where it pays to babble, waffle and fool staff, customers and analysts. Senior executives who have been helping perpetuate this trend are not a breed standing alone, politicians the world over are just as pompous and insincere.

 

Now, an autonomous body in England has come out with a list of words and phrases (stakeholder engagement and holistic governance, for instance) it wants public entities and leaders in the country to avoid. Hats off to the Local Government Association (LGA) for taking steps to promote simplicity in communication.

 

I wish the message can be relayed to corporate executives as meaningless doublespeak is simply not oratorical eloquence. In a booming economy, we may ignore the nonsense, not when businesses are struggling to stave off bankruptcy. It is a shame that Asian businesses are trying to ape this culture just when the rest of the world is getting tired of it.

 

For more on the LGA advisory, check out http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52H38B20090318

 

 

 

After almost three years of taking triple DMARDs (Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs), I decided to give Remicade a shot this weekend. I was nervously keeping the anti-TNF (tumor necrosis factor) drug at bay for long because of the risk of serious side effects (blood-related disorders, infections and even tuberculosis).

 

But I decided to give in after weighing the benefits against the disadvantages as my joints (knees, spine, hip, toes, etc.) were rapidly degenerating. The top rheumatologists I consulted (Dr Leong Keng Hong in Singapore and Dr B Rajasekar in Chennai) were unanimous that I should go the anti-TNF way. Also, I began to feel that even the DMARDs I was taking (Sulphasalazine, Plaquenil and Methotrescate as well as Arcoxia) could be toxic.

 

Sometime last year, too, I tried to get rid of my B27-related arthritis/ankylosing spondylitis by taking Enbrel (one jab) and Humirah (five doses). Both are anti-TNF drugs administered through injections. But, as I felt there was no improvement, I discontinued them. That may have been a mistake. But the biggest mistake I made was stopping all medication for a few months that caused my arthritis to flare up, this time more severe than ever. I resumed the treatment in April this year. Lesson learnt -- don't pretend to be a half-doctor and take decisions on your own!

 

Remicade is different from Enbrel and Humirah in the way it is administered. Remicade is given through an intravenous infusion while the other two are injections. I got myself admitted yesterday at the Mount Alvernia Hospital (I am becoming a big patron of all private hospitals here!!) for the infusion that took a little more than four hours. But that was preceded by some lab tests. I was also given some steroidal and antihistamine infusions to counter any drug allergies. I was discharged this morning. I had to take three vials of Remicade -- this is decided based on the weight of the patient. Each vial costs a little more than S$1,600, plus hospitalisation charges that can be close to S$2000. The cost of one vial was, however, waived. Quite an expensive affair, nonetheless, as this is a line of treatment I may have to continue for the next several months -- initially every two weeks, and then every four.

 

Biologic drugs such as Remicade work by blocking TNF, a protein involved in causing inflammation. I am hoping that I will be able to stop after a few infusions, depending on how I respond to it. Healthwise, this has been a challenging year for me so far, starting with a gallbladder surgery this February. Thankfully, nothing has been serious enough, touchwood, to keep me bedridden, and that is a blessing!

 

I am neither a big optimist nor a soothsayer. Still, in a post here on May 1, I appear to have very wildly predicted that "the swine flu will soon fade away". How wrong I was can be gauged from the staggering statistics on the spread of the H1N1 virus!

 

The U.S. has more than a million people stricken with the virus and the U.K. almost 4,000 -- serious enough to merit attention despite the wide gulf between the two countries. While it orignated in Mexico, it is being rapidly exported to the world by the U.S., the U.K. and other countries in Europe (as well as Australia), no thanks to their laxity in tackling it. More than 75 countries are now affected, with deaths mostly confined to the West. It now even appears that the world will have to live with the swine flu for long, if its rapid spread is any yardstick.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) was thus right in declaring H1N1 a pandemic. The advanced Western world thus became home to the century's first pandemic. Ironically, this came about even as the racist West believed that such a deadly flu can only happen in Asia and poor countries in the rest of the world!

 

The developed world, with all its misplaced focus on individual freedom, does not have the ability or the inclination to handle such emergencies. They are keen on only evolving processes, not implementing them. Importantly, they are not vigilant in keeping affected people quarantined within their countries. This lack of efficiency and a sense of social responsibility are causing pain to the rest of the world. All cases reported in India so far have been from infected people arriving from the U.S. The virus came to Singapore shores through travellers from the U.S., Europe and Australia. And the first thing that these socially irresponsible people generally do is visit pubs and shopping malls, thereby making it difficult for the authorities to keep its spread under check.

 

Singapore is doing all it can to miniimize the impact -- thermal scanners installed at airports automatically detect those with the flu symptoms without putting passengers into any inconvenience, quarantine centres have been opened to isolate the infected and rigid checks are made at hospitals and pubs. I have not heard about such stringent measures being implemented in the U.S., England or Australia. Singaporeans returning from affected countries are advised to stay at home for a week before they venture out, even if they show no flu symptoms.

 

Durring my visit to Chennai last week, all passengers were made to complete a declaration form and subjected to a manual fever check. By installing a thermal scanner, they could have easily overcome this hassle. No such checks were noticed at any of the medical centres I visited there. If the virus starts to spread in such densely populated countries such as India, the consequences can be dreadful.