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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Jul 16, 2016, 07:35 AM IST
Hurt eyes in the Valley
The security forces’ crackdown in the Valley in the wake of the agitations against the encounter of terrorist Burhan Wani has led to severe consequences. Several protesters have suffered pellet injuries in their eyes, which have led to partial or complete blindness. Pellet guns inflict non-fatal injuries but the after-effects can be dangerous especially if they pierce the soft tissues in the eyes. Once the gun is fired, the pellets containing lead particles scatter in every possible direction. Some of them end up entering the eye, doing irretrievable damage. At this rate of assault — the Valley seems to be forever on the boil — a significant section of the populace may end up paying a steep price. The three-member team of ophthalmologists from AIIMs, which is treating pellet injuries at the Sri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital in Srinagar, has urged the government to refrain from using such weapons purely out of concern for the patients. The doctors have already performed at least a hundred eye surgeries till Thursday, but there is very little that they can do in the face of an aggravating crisis. Patients keep pouring in and the state’s medical infrastructure is in tatters. The government is caught in an unenviable position, wedged between a humanitarian crisis and a deteriorating law-and-order situation.
Help for house helps
Kuwait has earned the distinction of becoming the first Gulf country to set minimum wages for domestic helps most of who come from various Asian countries. The minimum age has been set at 60 dinars ($200) a month, according to the country’s Interior Ministry. In 2015, Kuwait’s parliament approved a law that gave domestic workers a raft of rights, including a weekly day off, 30 days of annual paid leave and a 12-hour working day with rest. The country has a population of 3.7 million, which is served by a whopping 6,60000 people who work as domestic workers. Those who come to work in Kuwaiti homes from Asia and Africa are extremely poor and often the sole bread-earners in their families. Their economic conditions have made them easy prey to all kinds of torture and abuse. Now with Kuwait leading the way on reforms, one can hope that other Gulf countries will follow suit.
Regulating organ donations
The Maharashtra government can be deemed a failure when it comes to taking on the organ trafficking transplant racket in the state. Yet, it has also failed to come up with humane laws that could facilitate organ donations to help patients in dire need. The menace is endemic and the corruption — driving the network of clandestine operators, including people from the medical fraternity and touts — deep-rooted. The alleged kidney racket busted at Powai’s prestigious Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital is just one such case, out of possibly hundreds of cases in the entire state that never come to the police’s notice. The people associated with such rackets know the system only too well to subvert it. At the receiving end are the donors — who mostly come from extremely poor families — and the recipients. Since the entire system works in a clandestine manner, it becomes easy to fleece the recipient and exploit the donor. Let’s face it: There are people who are willing to shell out money for an organ, and there are those who are ready to donate for a price. By pushing this transaction underground, the government has given a free rein to touts and doctors plying this trade. The state has to devise a system in which neither party is exploited. It has to set up organ banks to connect donors with recipients.
