The topic never quite got me around to understanding what was really meant till the day am back to Chennai today speaking to one of my Uncle's who have been most instrumental in plugging my life together. Not just my life, he was a professor for physics in St.Stephens (New Delhi), the various students who have passed from under him to achieve not just distinctions but true glory. meeting him at this fragile moment where everybody is reminiscing of the beautiful past days made a tear come to my soulless eyes..
A person who commands respect not just from his peers but from any person even remotely linked with him. A person who I have never seen in the past 22 years as immobile just sitting on the couch for the last few weeks cause of damn 'Cancer'; the pain just won’t let him lie and sleep. And when he put this in his will to add this as law to put mercy killings as legal had his students from top niches of legal department come forth and explain. The actual law followed in the country says that "in case of mercy killing the family of the person is found guilty, for them the feeling is that the person was forced to take the decision".
The government just makes it hard. But for once i agree with them; even though this being a heartless statement for someone who saw the pain in his eyes for the 3+ hours spent with him today am just sorry!!!
There is nothing wrong in legalizing mercy killing. But in a country like ours where every law is misused, chances are that a law legalizing mercy killing will be highly misused. There can be any a loopholes in such a law. Also many a innocent lives would be taken in the name of mercy killing. Mercy killing should be legalized in our country like Netherlands because it would only prevent a person suffering any further. Persons leading a vegetable existence cause misery to their families too. In terms of medicine, mercy killing should be allowed when a person is already brain dead or heart dead and in both the instances the person would only mean a liability to his family bearing the bills of a hospital for an uncertain period of time. Mercy killing should not be legalized because no one has the right to take some ones life. Secondly everyone is born with his share of suffering and euthanasia will only increase it rather than reducing it. people who are suffering from any incurable disease should be allowed to die their natural death rather than mercy killing.
Death is not the solution for any misery or suffering in life, but the attitude, self belief & confidence towards life is the answer for every difficulty. The question here is "whether mercy killing should be legalized", a person should look within himself before answering the above question & ask his own heart-"what is life & what does it mean to him & what he wants from his life". And a real answer of a human heart should be "challenges and difficulties as these things do not let you down but make you competent enough to rise up to the occasion when it calls for."
The legalization for mercy killing is in itself a negative approach towards life, which should not be encouraged, this will lead to a scenario where in any person who is unable or not willing to fight with the conditions & challenges of life would ask for mercy killing. Legally speaking it is true that right to life do not include right to death as per article 21 of the constitution of India, as every right should be looked in a prospective manner & not in a retrospective manner & here the legalization of the mercy killing asks for the same. A person on life support would have died had they not been put on life support, so removing it would simply cause a death that would have happened anyway. If anything, putting someone on life support prolongs their life, so that you can find a way to cure them or to fix whatever is wrong with them. If you can't, and if they're stuck on life support, without brain function, the most humane thing to do is to take them off life support. Of course, it helps when people have living wills and designate loved ones to take such decisions for them, in the event that something like that does happen, and doctors should defer to the patients' wishes in that respect, but as a principle, agree with it. That being said, for terminal illnesses like extremely advanced cancer,the patient has the right to ask for a quick death. A doctor's responsibility is, ultimately, to alleviate a patient's pain. If the patient is alert and knows the consequences of the action, then the doctor should be allowed to give him or her quick death. The only problem is drawing a line between killing a patient who can be cured and killing a patient who would have suffered greatly before dying.
Some people say, "There is a hope if one keeps his or her life going," but you should know there is a case where living itself is torture. In short, we have the right of deciding whether we should live or die, and mercy killing is also one of the ways to carry out our decision. Governments should not prohibit mercy killing. That we give quiet death to a person who holds unbearable suffering and begs for his or her peaceful death is also one form of mercy. A person has to be able to make a conscious decision - that would eliminate others making that decision for you and the lines being blurred.
There here are people who are unable to make a conscious decision for themselves as they may have deteriorated due to brain cancer or something just as horrible. In this case the decision should be made by a group of people, including those closest to the person - not just a few so called experts. But if a person's quality of life has deteriorated and they are in pain and they have to be constantly medicated to relieve that pain and suffering then say Yes.
When a person is terminally ill , mercy killing is one of the best solution that scientists have found out. There are several reasons for this. One that such a patient need not be in a position to explain his/her agony. And the predicament of having to deal with it is rather unwarranted in an age when we are moving towards designing genes for the unborn. I believe that this agony can be averted by using mercy killing. The treatment of a terminally ill patient is rather traumatizing on the emotional as well as financial fronts. I know our society doesn’t see an ill family member as a burden. But practically speaking things are the other way round. And if the patient himself feels so is it any unfair to provide him a solution of mercy killing? There are negative sides also. For example Mercy killing can be misused by people with intentions of inheriting family properties but in all those cases the ethics and the doctor's consent should have a major role to play. The solution to this lies in empowering the doctors to say Yes or No to the practice for a person.
My views:
Mercy Killing is a strange concept. Though it goes against the natural laws still some countries have legalized it.
There are, though, some problems in legalizing things like these. For example -
1. The Constitution of India gives every one Right to life and liberty u/a 21. Now, this means the state only guarantees this right. They are not giving the right because the right has been given to us by nature or God. If they haven't given us the right, they can't take it. So this triggers an academic debate. State is the protector of the right given by nature. How can state direct us to take our lives?
2. In Indian Penal Code, attempt to suicide is an offence and is actually punishable with jail term (I don't recall the section now). If that be so, in case the right is granted to us and someone tries to kill himself he can be booked under IPC and will have to face prison time. Even though no one can be compelled to give incriminating evidence against himself his act and intention will be sufficient evidence to establish the case.
So, we have to amend our Constitution and IPC first and then perhaps we can take this discussing further. Also, if go and start amending the Constitution there comes another problem. The problem is - 'Keshvananda Bharti v Union of India" or the "Basic Structure Case". It can be a very strong argument that Art. 21 is basic structure of Constitution and it can't be tampered with. If that be accepted we can never introduce Mercy Killing in India.
These are some of the academic questions. There are some other practical considerations in a country like India. Power like this will most certainly be misused by people. And there are enough smart lawyers in India to turn Mercy Killing into a defense for Culpable Homicide and Murder.
So, I think before introducing the concept of Mercy Killing - a big debate needs to be started - academic as well as practical.
But in my humble opinion, Mercy Killing should be kept away from our Country.
India as a whole has a weak medical system. Majority of patients die due to negligence and god knows what all reasons. It would be sensible on our part to not compare ourselves with Switzerland and Netherlands cause the amount of funds being diverted to medical grounds in these two countries is beyond us. Practically there is no such thing as 'drawing the line' in our country, although that is exactly how things are being worked out in other nations. Legalizing it is not going to anything but a Legal Excuse, for criminals to get rid of witnesses, for doctors to discharge themselves of negligence and many more things. So until our system is through fighting with the most basic things needed to make a country progress we should keep away from such sensitive issues because India has bigger problems than things like euthanasia.
Fight against what nature gives you??
Don't think this will apply when it’s accompanied by intense pain, debilitation, burden on family and other such factors which make life hell for a person. There is a dentist's gas which when taken in high enough doses kills you in very good manner. As in the person who's inhaled the gas feels very good and high.let us consider a hypothetical case in which Miss X is suffering from aids. It is a suffering endured by nature. The medication is very expensive and unaffordable. Now all she can do is wait for a lingering death which is coming slowly but steadily. I think a better option for her would be voluntary death or mercy killing instead of suffering natural sufferings..
A person thinks of suicide when he loses all his hope to live. We can consider mercy killing also as a particular case of suicidal tendency. Take a hypothetical case of a person 'A' who is affected by a disease which resulted in paralysis of the whole body. Now he has lost his hope to live and requests for a mercy killing. But his state of mind of not to live can be changed by proper counseling or proper care done by his relatives etc
Its a term or a procedure that is availed to the kin of the suffering member to use it.And never has merciful killing been done immediately and the doctors wait on months together with the patients and until and unless the situation beyond a miracle things are administered this way...
Now the second situation is put in where the patients suffering are quite unbearable and no hope at all but to receive a painful and suffering death. I mean the patient is already suffering hell and is waiting for death and believe hope at this point is just too silly and immature until and unless you are the person suffering or the doctor working on that person; Miracles don’t happen; Metaphysics exists but only to explain the past and not the future or the present.
I don’t think that any person in this world has committed that much sin to have such a painful death? Cancer unlike heart attack is suffering from the beginning and it is really quintessential to administer and consider this option of merciful killing when the situation goes beyond repair or imagination.
In my view as a modern cosmopolitan I would like to conclude that the act of merciful killing is for the very essence to end suffering and is very merciful and should be administered with great caution and only when all the options of certain existence or survival is all but lost
Most of us confort ourselves in our own ways. Like when I enter my room I throw the bag at one corner and sit in the sofa with one leg over the arm of the chair. Others have different ways of comforting themselves. Now if we have a design that’s something like white sofas n glass tables all around with all precious items we wouldn’t be free to move about at all. We would have to do everything carefully And formally. Changing our lifestyle itself. So is not important for us to take into aspect the dimension of designing for comfort , lifestyle n other stuff along with the planning n aesthetics.
Life style is a very important issue that has to, has to, be considered. One of my teacher in coll, in one of my earlier semester, was talking about design of the bath room.A person might have a bath standing up, or sitting down or even lying down, coming to think of it.So unless we design it perfectly for them, it'll always be a compromise. we have to Justify our use of our design ideas in their life. if they accept, then we go ahead. If not, we either think of something else, or try more to convince them.
In this world as we are ready to accept the differences, we can’t go away from the reality. Terrorism and Fanatics are reality and you can’t ignore them. You can’t have dream of challenge-free Global world/lifestyle. Your lifestyle is a reflection of your personality, and your personality is the reflection of society around you. It's all interconnected and any vision of Global lifestyle is imperfect without considering those aspect of society.Hypothetically you can have nice dream of Global world/lifestyle. But reality is different. And our problem is we got to stay with the reality. We dont have another choice!!!
We need to have,
- american liberty
- german efficiency
- indian spiritiualism
- french food
- british nothing
- brazilian carnivals
- italian arts
Lifestyle diseases
I've lately been finding quite a few people with lifestyle diseases like hypertension (BP), increased blood sugar, back & neck problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc. Especially, we seem to be susceptible to most if not all of these due to the nature of the jobs we do. Are you seeing this pattern?6 pack was also a life style disease! You've to starve, live and work out in near death conditions to get that. But in general what you said is true, we've a lot of those people and the tomorrow’s kids will have a lot of corporal tunnel related issues, thanks to Wifi, Xbox, iphone and facebook games.I have terrible back and neck pain.I think it's lack of physical activity[ jogging, skipping, walking] which is the main problem. 
Only good thing is I have a good control over my food habits. I have a pretty good breakfast oatmeal+1 and a half walnuts, 3 almonds, 2 dry-figs. Lunch is usually light; say 2 chapattis or some pasta or some rasam/curd/sambar+rice and dinner is usually curd rice. I love sprouts and I am made to eat fruits. So that is pretty good, I believe. To Blood problems and sugar problems, many in my family are victims. The increasing diseases is freaky. People literally drop dead.The traditional TamBrahm diet is rice based, no doubt. Eating this is fine if it is also accompanied by the kind of physical work that our elders did. Earlier, idli/dosi/ adai maavu used to be ground in old machine which is now replaced by grinders. All the various spices were ground in a old machine named ammi kallu, which is now replaced by mixie. My very orthodox grandmother ground all the flour at home in a machine. Washing of clothes is now done by a washing machine. I remember, as long as my grandmother was alive, food was cooked only on fuel , certainly a lot more tedious to get going compared to lighting a gas stove, by just the click of a gas lighter. In earlier times, no servants could enter the kitchen and so at the end of the day, the women of the house had to clean the kitchen . All these involved hard physical work. In addition, red or unpolished rice was eaten everyday and only when some guests were expected, white or polished rice was served. Now it is difficult to get unpolished rice which is so much healthier than polished white rice. With changing times, we must also change our eating habits if we want to remain fit by including more chapattis and salads in our diet. We can certainly cut down on fast foods.
Some of the traditional custom like having nellikai pachidi and aathi keerai on dwadashi is now considered to be nutritionally very superior!! Earlier, people walked everywhere. If the distance was long, they would take a bus. Now, even for going short distances, people use their 2 wheelers. No wonder, there is an increase in life style diseases. We have largely brought it on ourselves.Its really pathetic when you see people spending their hard earned money to doctors for curing diseases."Earn early, retire early" has become mantra of today's lifestyle. But, is there quality in lifestyle we are living?spouses have become more of a competitor to another partner rather than complimenting him/her. I dont think food has a major effect on carrying lifestyle disease. Even the best of fitness freak gets these disease because of stress.
One of my company's marketing manager got heart attack and died at an age of 31 (he was so healthy till the last day before he collapsed).Pressure is it really worth getting paid for handling pressure situations? Are we not compromising health for the sake of money?women are hard core materialistic as opposed to men who are loving, giving and so self sacrificing that it makes me want to die of shame .what has materialistic got to do with lifestyle diseases..
Yogas are a great stress buster and veggie is good. but hey most women in India suffer from osteoporosis, slip disc and other bone related issues due to poor calcium intake . vegetarian food unfortunately isn’t the best source of calcium) and protein too (plant protein, except for mushrooms isn’t easily digested by the body as its cellulose bound and isn’t easily digested. so it should be a balance of both.
I’m surprised that women are more prone to lifestyle diseases. over the years the number of women holding stable jobs and earning well has increased greatly. on the other hand they still have to go around with their 'age old responsibilities' like children, cooking, household maintenance and so on.I prefer A life style in which religions do not interfere with governance or culture or any other public sphere but is restricted to a personal communication between individual and God without the mediation of middlemen.
A hobby is essential for relaxation and change in one’s life. In reality a hobby is a change of work which is done for the main purpose of refreshing oneself. It is an interesting pursuit for the sake of getting pleasure in one’s leisure time. Hobby is the pleasant use of the spare time at our disposal. We pursuit it to our amusement and recreation. There is no motive of profits involved in it. Rathar than sports many hobbies are there.
I heard the news, in IAS Exam final interview, “what is your hobby?’ is one of the main questions. Hobby reflects the inner mind of one person. There are different hobbies which different persons pursue. Some like to spend their spare time in reading their favorite books. Some people like to spend their free time in gardening.
Photography is also popular hobby for certain persons. But it is quite an expensive hobby and everyone may not be able to afford it. Fishing and swimming are also good hobbies.
Certain persons also make it their hobby to collect the autographs of eminent persons. I have collected autographs from many musicians. Playing musical instruments is one of the mind blowing hobby.
My favorite’s hobby is gardening. We have a small place attached to our house for gardening. I have developed this open space into a beautiful garden. I am always devoting my free time for the upkeep of my beautiful garden which is very dear to me. I get a sense of joy and pride when I visit my garden in my free time. Using vegetables from my garden for cooking give me great satisfaction.
My hobby is giving me immense pleasure. Whenever I am much tired of my routine work, I just go to my garden and lie there on the green grass in the midst of blooming flowers. The sweet fragrance of the flowers fills my nostrils and feels very active and smart again. My hobby provides me not only pleasure but also a good amount of physical exercise. Hobbies give joy and fun. Hobbies give another dimension of life.
Good manners are the real test of a gentleman. A man is honored in society only if he possesses good manners.
Good manners should be taught from childhood. Children should be taught to respect their parents, teachers and elders. Helping tendency and team spirit are learning qualities in each one's childhood.
Good manners are seen in small acts of life. We should always talk politely to others. We should always say ‘please’ when asking for a thing. We should always say ‘thank you’ after getting thing from another person.
A person of good manners is always honest. He dose not cheat anybody. A person of good manners always speaks the truth he never tells a lie. Every body trusts him.
A person of good manners is always dressed nicely. He wears clean and simple clothes. He is dressed according to the need of time. He behaves the icon of success.
A person of good manners is always punctual. He is never late for his duty. Everyone should always try to have good manners in their life.
Women in ancient India were held in high respect. With the course of time, the status of woman got lowered. Muscle and money power started dominating the societies. And as men fought the wars and ran the ventures of industrial production, they started considering themselves superior to woman.
After the development of science and technology, the practice of female foeticide on a large scale also started. This eventually led to a slump in the female sex ratio. According to the census of 2001, the sex ratio in India is 927 females to 1,000 males. Dowry has become widespread and the birth of a girl child became inauspicious. In several parts of India, women are seen as an economic liability, even with the contribution of women in numerous ways to our economy and society. Early marriages, rape, molestation, sexual harassment, forced prostitution, eve teasing, etc are a common issue today. The crime rate against women is mounting at a startling rate.
This essay depicts how women are being exploited and how their needs are being repressed in our primarily orthodox society. It also shows how it can avoided, so that women can live freely, walk freely and talk freely.
Women & Education:
Education is one of the powerful tools in the liberation and the empowerment of women. It is the single utmost factor which can amazingly improve the position of women in any society.
The 2001 Census report shows that the literacy rate among Indian women is only 54 percent. It is almost demoralizing to observe that the literacy rate of Indian women is even much poorer to the national average of 65.38. The expansion of education for women in rural areas is very sluggish. This clearly means that still large number of women of our country is illiterate, backward, weak and exploited. In addition education is also not available to all equally which can be seen by the Gender inequality in education. The literacy rate for the women is just 54% against 76% of men according to the 2001 Census.
The phenomenon involving Women education is multi dimensional. Not one factor or cause can be held accountable for the low literacy rate of Indian women. It is related with the combination of many factors including social, economic, demographic, administrative, cultural, educational, political, etc.
Some of the important factors that can be credited for the current situation are:
- Female age at marriage: There is high connection of the female literacy rate with that of the female age during her marriage. The female age at marriage of 18 (lately 21 years) as approved by various legislations are not at all followed in India. It is very much neglected by the parents with low literacy background. This intolerable practice dejects the female children to continue their education, as they go into family life at an early age.
- Lower Enrolment in Schools: The low enrolment of girls in schools is one of the fundamental factors that stand as the tentative block for empowerment of Indian women. According to the latest statistics, two out of every ten girls in the 6 to 11 age group are yet to be enrolled in schools.
- High dropout rate of girls from schools: The occurrences of dropouts among girls mainly in slums, rural, and tribal areas are quite high. According to the latest statistics, occurrence of dropout among the girls is almost twice as that of the boys in India.
- Poor School Environment for girls: Broadly, the school environment for girls in India is really not encouraging. There are still hundreds of schools with poor essential amenities such as drinking water, improper building and inadequate number of teachers particularly the female teachers who are preferred by many parents for the safety of their girl children.
- Poverty, Bonded Labour and Child Labour Practices: This is a very discouraging factor that stands as barrier for girl’s education in rural areas and also for the underprivileged families consisting of the washer men, the agricultural labour, the tribes and the scheduled caste people. According to UN, India, with more than 50 million child labourers, is the most child labour populous nation in the globe. In most cases girl children are favored for high productivity and low cost.
- Poor Political Will and Passion: Government officers, policy makers, and politicians of our country have neither political will nor passion for the empowerment of women.
- Dowry as barrier: In many families, particularly the poor think that if their daughters are educated more, then they have to gather more property to offer as dowry at the time of marriage, so they favor to stop their children with average education.
Trafficking and Commercial sexual exploitation:
India is a source, destination and transit country for women being trafficked for the use of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Women are being held in debt bondage and are very vulnerable to forced labor working in rice mills, brick kilns, and agriculture and in embroidery factories. Girls and women are trafficked inside the country for the purpose of forced marriage and commercial sexual exploitation. They are also being used as armed combatants by some terrorist groups.
India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, while the Indian women are being trafficked to the Middle East for the same purpose.
Government and NGO reports approximates that there are some hundreds of thousands to millions of women and girls being prostituted in India, most of whom are victims of trafficking. The bulk of the women being prostituted and trafficked within India are from lower (scheduled) castes and are brought into the sex trade as young as 13 years.
Exploitation of women through media:
The exploitation of women in the media has become so familiar, particularly in advertising, which most people fail to even notice it or get annoyed anymore. Women’s body is continually used to sell cars, cigarettes, liquors, male perfume and other male recognized products, as well as newspapers, magazines and television programs. In today’s society, people come across television ads such as Slice featuring Katrina Kaif, in which women are being offered in provocative manner. The camera will habitually zoom in on body parts. Society is still very much dominated by men who manage what people see. As a consequence, women are increasingly shown as sex symbols, so the media company can turn to profit. The Internet also has grown to be one of the biggest exploiters of women.
Trading on the female body - Exploitation of women for egg:
Poor women from around the globe are being seriously recruited to donate their eggs to fertility clinics and also for the cloning research. Miserably, egg donation has less to do with self-sacrifice and more to do with the exploitation of women, mainly young women and poor women who usually face large debts. Egg donation puts women’s health and her safety at risk. Trade in human egg cells is ultimately an assault on the pride of women.
Avoiding the exploitation of women:
Today modern women are so smart and self-sufficient that they can be easily called superwomen, as she copes with many fronts single handedly. Women are now intensely motivated and are showing their worth not only in the home, but also in their personal careers, and education in the society. In order to improve their status, women themselves should come forward and unite. They should draw encouragement from women like Indira Gandhi, the first woman Prime Minister of India, Kiran Bedi, India's first woman IPS officer; Pratibha patil, the first woman President of India and many others.
Adding onto that, as the social evils like dowry, child marriage, caste system and other practices deprive rights of education for children belonging to poor and underprivileged families, they should be abolished through well designed packages of mass awareness programs and social welfare measures with full support of political parties, NGOs, government agencies and public.
Indian Government should also address the fundamental issue of gender inequality and the structure that allows those most marginalized in society, mainly lower caste women and girls to be exploited for commercial sex. GoI should put programs in place to provide practical alternatives to prostitution and provide micro financing, so that they have other options to provide for themselves and their families.
A nation's progress and prosperity can be evaluated by the way it treats its women. Men must recognize and admit the fact that women are equal partners in life.
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