The Hindu Business Line : How about free health check-up for every Indian?

Story so far: Cricket season casts its long shadow at the workplace, in the form of erratic attendance, and sleepy staff. To encourage active workout, rather than passively watch games, the company decides to organise a mini sports event.

I visit Indira, a friend, who rues that her son is so crazy about cricket that his studies have taken a backseat. Cricket obsession can affect one's productivity, I explain to her. I wonder if some sobering up would happen all round, after our dejected team returns from the West Indies.

Episode 165

Cricket can get heady. It was on that note I had wrapped up the last episode. "Of course cricket obsession will certainly affect one's productivity," writes V. Ramasamy from Noida. "It seems that this fact is very much realised by our Indian cricket team. Else, they would not have got themselves out of the World Cup at this early stage." I thought only the viewers were suffering from an overdose!

"For a long time now, cricket had been the game adored in India, may be because of our British connections," says Krithivasan. "Over the years the game has become larger than life and the hold it has on people has to be seen to be believed. Earlier, when we had the five-day test matches, practically the entire week was lost.

"Thanks to the new form of ODI, that impact has been reduced. But with tournaments such as the World Cup, three nation series, etc., almost a month is gone. To that extent, yes, that kind of criminal waste of time needs to be curtailed. Students certainly need to concentrate on their studies; other things can always wait." Wish your advice found receptive ears among students.

"Of all the sports being played in the world arena, it is cricket that has brought focus, both wanted and `unwanted', and professionalism into the way any sport is managed in the country. I am not trying to project cricket as the game. We need to realise that if today Indian hockey and other sporting actions are filled with innovative format, it is because of cricket's positive influence on the minds of sponsors who are ready to commit resources for the good of the game," reads a mail of Sriram Kannan.

"As people say `too much of anything is dangerous'. It is important, therefore, for parents to be practical and friendly during a child's education. Being authoritative can lead to further disconnect from studies. Hence parents should try to support the child in this important phase and act like a friend.

"Most often this always yields good results. Rather than blame the sport, today it is cricket tomorrow it may be baseball or hockey, it is better we nurture and develop the ward's strengths to help him decide the best path he can take." Valuable counsel, Sriram.

Clean water

Evans Mensah, an MBA student of Howard University, Washington, DC, writes, presumably in response to an earlier episode. "I am doing a research on companies initiating clean water project in the US. I currently have Watt water/Nanotech. Any idea will help. My focus is on California, Arizona, Louisiana and Washington DC," reads the mail. Guess you can get inputs from IIT, Madras, where they are working on applying nanotechnology for water purification.

Rural health

Recently, I attended a meeting that lauded how the city ranks high in cleanliness, judged by almost a dozen parameters such as purity of drinking water, garbage disposal system, clean roads, air pollution, dustbin in public places, public toilets, greenery and plantations, public transport cleanliness, and so on.

Interestingly, the company that had initiated the survey also spoke about its rural health and hygiene educational programme, aimed at instructing people about basic hygienic habits, including washing hands with soap. There are many `invisible germs', so it is a myth to think that `visible clean' is `safe clean', said an expert. "In India, this is important, because diarrhoea, caused by invisible germs, is the second largest cause of death among children below the age of five."

How rarely we urbanites think of rural healthcare, I thought to myself. So, without wasting time, I decided to visit a village the same weekend. A small clinic was operational in a thatched hut, to cater to the needs of a few hundred families in the village. I went in and introduced myself to the doctor there.

"My name is Karan," he said, cheerfully, with an X-ray print on his hands. He was in the process of explaining to a woman patient how her health was in a far better shape than a few months ago. Quite reassuring, I thought.

"Shouldn't we make rural service mandatory for medicos?" I asked Karan. He said, "More important than that is the need for diagnostic facilities in villages." He went on to patiently elucidate why we need state-of-the-art health facilities within easy access for the villagers. "In the India I dream of every one would undergo a free check-up every year. It would cover basic things like eye-test, blood test, and so on, apart from ECG, BP check, and testing for diabetes or heart conditions.

"Just think of how productive we would be as a nation when people can take appropriate measures early on, based on diagnostics. Also, when people know they are free from their imagined fears of illness, there would be greater happiness around... "

Karan was passionately describing his dream country, even as I wondered if we could get enough corporates to pitch in for the cause. Send in your thoughts by Friday.

SWATI_CA@HOTMAIL.COM

Blog at: http://Swati-CA.blogspot.com