Oesophageal Cancer Common Among Northeast Women

Guwahati, Aug 26 : Oesophageal cancer is common among women nowadays due to changes in lifestyle and high consumption of tobacco and betel nut.

According to population-based cancer registries, in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills district, 30.2 per cent of the women are suffering from oesophageal cancer, while about 19.8 per cent of the population in the entire state is prone to this type of cancer.

In Assam's Kamrup (Metro) district, around 18.3 per cent of the women suffer from oesophageal cancer. In Cachar district, around 8.3 per cent women are suffer from this cancer while in Dibrugarh district, the figure is around 7.8 per cent.

In Mizoram capital Aizawl, around 7 per cent women suffer from the disease.

Jagannath Sarma, head of the pathology department at the B Barooah Cancer Hospital and Research Institute in the city, said, "The number of men suffering from oesophageal cancer is more than three times the number of women. But, this type of cancer is becoming increasingly common among women these days. East Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya, besides Kamrup (Metro), Cachar and Dibrugarh districts in Assam have the highest number of oesophageal cancer cases among women in the entire northeast."

The symptoms of oesophageal cancer are difficulty or pain while swallowing, pain in the throat or back, severe weight loss, chronic cough and vomiting and coughing of blood.

He said very often there are no symptoms of oesophageal cancer at an early stage. Symptoms do not generally appear until the disease is in a more advanced stage. Moreover, there is no routine screening examination. "Using any form of tobacco raises the risk of oesophageal cancer. The longer tobacco is used, the greater the risk. Women in this part of the country consume tobacco as well as betelnut in copious quantities. In men, the disease is common due to tobacco and alcohol abuse. A diet low in fruits and vegetables, besides deficiency of certain vitamins and minerals in the body, can increase the risk of this disease," he said.

East Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya and Kamrup (Metro), Cachar and Dibrugarh districts in Assam have the highest cases of oesophageal cancer among women in the northeast.

Stop Debating Mumbai’s Reputation and Get To The Real Issue: Cities Don’t Rape Women, Men Do

By Smriti Lamech

Is any woman in India safe? Reuters/Amit Dave

 

“Is Mumbai going the Delhi way?” a poll by a newspaper asks. Insensitive? Flippant? Divisive? All that and more—with absolutely no thought to nuance, opening no new discourse, asking the wrong questions, and trivializing the issue.

The posturing, the silly games of one-upmanship played across cities—mine is safer, mine is better—lull us into a false sense of security. Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez would not have been stabbed to death two years ago for standing up to hooligans who were harassing the young women they were out with, if Mumbai was particularly safe. Cities don’t rape, men do. Bombay might seem safer by default because it is so crowded that you rarely find a secluded corner to conduct a rape. In the case making headlines now, the suspects in the gang rape of a photojournalist found an empty mill and they used it. Violence comes in many forms and to the most unexpected places; last year Mumbai had the case of a Spanish tourist raped in her own bed by a thief who shimmied up through the window. And being a stranger in any part of the world, not knowing how to play by their rules, leaves you most vulnerable. That partly explains why a recent CNN report went viral as Michaela Cross, a US student at the University of Chicago, who spoke out about her sexual harassment in India.

We all have stories: I was new to Bombay and waiting to board a local train. I didn’t know where the ladies coach stopped and happened to be near the door of the general compartment when the train pulled in. The crowd pushed me in with one mind and then molested me for what felt like a lifetime. I fell out a few stations later, in tears, my clothes in tatters. A few days later, my cab was followed home from Churchgate station by another cab with a man reaching in to grab me—I made the cabbie drive straight to the police station. Some weeks later on an early morning, a pujari, mind you, a man of God, followed and propositioned me on a relatively empty stretch of road.

It wasn’t the city I was in, it wasn’t my clothes (I was in an office uniform), it wasn’t the color of my skin. It was opportunity. Given the right time and place, no woman in India is safe. 

Smriti Lamech is a writer in Gurgaon, India.

Silchar Tense After Overnight Violence, 50 Injured

By Alok Pandey
Guwahati, Aug 26 : Fifty people, including 20 policemen, have reportedly been injured after violence near Assam's Silchar town late on Sunday night.

According to the police, the violence broke out in Rangpur town over a local issue. About 2500 people, mostly youth, came out on the street and started obstructing the traffic, cops said, adding that they even tried to set some vehicles on fire.

By the time police arrived at the scene, the flare-up had become ugly. The mob also clashed with the police in which Superintendent of Police Diganta Bora, who was present at the scene, got injured. The police then had to resort to lathi-charge to control the situation.

Twenty people have been detained and the police are monitoring the situation closely. The troops of the Central Reserve Police Force are patrolling the streets and the Army is on standby, but no curfew has been imposed so far.

No Encounter Killing in Mizoram in 16 Years

By Gangadhar S Patil

New Delhi , Aug 26 : Sixteen years and there have been no encounter killings in five states. The Goa, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh state police have not killed a single person in an encounter since 1997, according to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) records.

As per NHRC statistics, 2,103 people were killed in encounters by various state police between 1997 and 2013.

Uttar Pradesh with 952 (50%) encounter killings tops the list followed by Assam and Maharashtra with 256 and 126 killings respectively. Interestingly, the Gujarat police  criticised for fake encounters reported only 16 such killings in this period.

Expressing doubt over the zero figure for Nagaland, former IPS officer and ex-directorate general of the BSF, Prakash Singh, said every encounter has political and societal sanction and therefore, the police cannot be blamed for it.

“Failure of the criminal justice system is a major reason for increasing encounter cases,” said Singh, who has been fighting for police reforms.

Rights activists, too, are surprised with the NHRC statistics about Nagaland and Mizoram. “It is hard to believe that there was no encounter killing in these states considering the insurgency and political situation,” said Devika Prasad, senior programme officer at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, a Delhi-based NGO. “There is clearly massive under-reporting (about such cases) from Manipur, Nagaland, J&K, Chhattisgarh and Orissa as all of them are conflict states.”

The NHRC in March 1997 issued guidelines directing all state government police to inform it about encounter deaths within 24 hours. This was done to ensure checks on fake encounters. The commission is of the view that these statistics are necessary for effective protection of human rights.

However, according to a December 2003 letter written by the commission to chief ministers, many states have failed to adhere to the directions. “In the past six years, the commission finds that most of the states are not following the guidelines issued by it,” the letter said.

Some states do not inform the commission about the encounter killings on the pretext that there is no such specific direction, it added.

Conversation on Northeast Held in Delhi

The Thumb Print Conversations, New Delhi

New Delhi, Aug 26 : 'The Thumb Print Conversation’ organised by the web magazine The Thumb Print in New Delhi on Sunday elicited a wide response from a cross section of society, including journalists and academics.

The punch to the evening was provided by the stimulating conversation that stirred up many ideas and threads to the intriguing topic ‘Where is Northeast India, in India?’

The Thumb Print brought together some seasoned journalists as well as young minds to deliberate on the topic. The evening was moderated by Sanjoy Hazarika, journalist, author and director of Centre for North East Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia, who began with the idea of the ‘other’. Hazarika went on to say that this idea of the ‘other’ exists within the North-East as well, the result of distrust among the various ethnic groups.

Jyoti Malhotra, writer and journalist, toyed with the idea whether it was possible to have many more political identities in the North-East for the people to find their aspirations. Later in the discussion, it was felt that this may not smoothen the frictions since the North-East houses more than 220 ethnic groups.

Sanjoy Hazarika’s light-hearted take on considering New Delhi itself as the North-East, found some positive echoes. Elucidating on this, on a lighter note, he said when Punjabi grocers in a particular area in the North campus managed to pick the Meitei language or the many youths from the region managed to find employment as guards from the last ten years, and publishing houses like Zubaan began translating some good women writers, the scenario has changed.

Senjam Rajsekhar of Vedanta Group felt there was a discernible change in New Delhi in the past decade, with people from the North-East having done exceedingly well in their chosen professions in the national capital.

Achan Mungelang, formerly with Euro Burma Office, now independent researcher from Ukhrul, a Naga minority in Manipur, where their concerns are not entertained, also believed that New Delhi gives the opportunity to raise a voice at least.

Binalakshmi Nepram, a social activist credited with mapping of conflicts in the NorthEast owing to narcotics and small arms, felt there still exists apathy and indifference to the predicaments faced by the North-East people in Delhi.

Citing the reactions in the capital and the police’s indifference to the mysterious death of young Reingamphy, she said it is a long way ahead but one positive outcome was the coming together of almost 300 people of the North-East to protest against this insensitivity.

Joydeep Gupta of The Third Pole felt people of the region should also take into consideration the judicious use of the vast natural resources for sustainable growth; that they should negotiate with the Centre for optimising the returns. He also brought in an interesting thought of the ‘Nation State’ idea losing its hold with the complex issues faced in the present world and not aiding in any way to take us forward.

The founder member and president of South Asia Women in Media, Pamela Philipose felt it was essential to acknowledge the idea of multi-identity and then to begin a process of negotiation. In this, she said, the media should involve itself in knowledge creation which could further serve as a channel for facilitating connects between the people.

Media analyst Sevanti Ninan urged The Thumb Print to see if it can share its stories with similar other portals, so that it has a wider reach and it does not remain a niche website.

Teresa Rehman, managing editor of The Thumb Print magazine said that what started as a necessity to find space for the voluminous expression of the region, which was not possible in the mainstream media, had completed a year now, “hoping to be a scaffold to leave an imprint.”

NE Eyes 15% Silk Production Share

 
By Roopak Goswami

Guwahati, Aug 26 : The Northeast’s contribution to raw silk produced in the country is projected to reach 15 per cent by the end of the Twelfth Plan — up from 14 per cent clocked at the end of the last five-year plan.

The region’s contribution has been steadily increasing since the Ninth Plan, during which it contributed nine per cent of the country’s total production.

“We have been providing all support and this will continue through the entire plan period. We expect to see the share of the Northeast going up to 15 per cent by the end of this period. It could be even more,” Central Silk Board joint secretary Sarat Deori said. “The Northeast’s contribution in the vanya (wild) silk sector of the country is significant.”

Four varieties of silk are produced in the region — mulberry, eri, muga and oak tussar. Sericulture is practised in 81 of the 84 districts in the eight states (including Sikkim) of the region. The region produced 100 per cent of the muga, 99 per cent eri and 100 per cent oak tussar silk in the Eleventh Plan.

A board official said the region’s advantage was that most silk farmers were traditional weavers — a strength when it comes to value addition and additional income generation. Altogether 3,37,106 families are involved in sericulture in the region.

The financial allocation for the region has also been showing a rising curve since the Ninth Plan when it got 19 per cent of the central funds. During the Eleventh Plan, the silk board, under the ministry of textiles, had released Rs 229.05 crore and the tentative allocation for the Twelfth Plan is Rs 266 crore — 30 per cent of the country’s total allocation.

While Meghalaya was the second largest contributor from the region after Assam during the last five-year plan, Manipur is expected to bag second position in the current plan period because of its ambitious mulberry silk production target.

Moreover, the share of mulberry silk production of the region is expected to double, reaching two per cent of the country’s total production by the end of the current plan.

The region’s targeted production in the Twelfth Plan is 4,836 metric tonnes, of which Assam’s target contribution is 2,630 metric tonnes, followed by Manipur at 750 metric tonnes. In the Eleventh Plan, the region produced 3,305 metric tonnes and Assam 2,112 metric tonnes with the BTAD contributing 374MT.

The contribution of the Bodo belt towards Assam’s silk production was roughly 30 per cent in the last plan, and a number of steps are being taken to increase this share. Four new model farms for silk production are being set up in in the BTAD.

One Million Cockroaches Flee China Farm

The cockroaches fled the facility in Dafeng, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, for surrounding cornfields earlier this month after an "unknown perpetrator" destroyed the plastic greenhouse where they were raised, the Modern Express newspaper said.

Disease control authorities have sent five investigators to the area to come up with a plan to stamp out the insects.

Farm owner Wang Pengsheng invested more than 100,000 yuan ($16,000) in 102 kilograms of Periplaneta americana eggs after spending six months developing a business plan, the report Friday said.

The cockroach is generally considered a pest, but believers in traditional Chinese medicine—which uses both plants and animals, including endangered species—say extracts from it can treat diseases including cancer, reduce inflammation and improve immunity.

By the time the greenhouse was damaged, more than 1.5 million cockroaches had hatched and were being fed food including "fruits and biscuits" every day, Wang was quoted as saying.

He had expected to make around 1,000 yuan profit for every kilogram of cockroaches sold, according to the report, but was now facing losses of hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Source: phys.org

The Middle East Explained In One Excellent Letter To The Editor

The letter ran in Thursday’s Financial Times.