Does underreporting cases of ailments, especially during outbreaks, reduce perception of panic among general public? Or does it rob the public from accessing vital information, which would eventually guide them towards an informed choice, like taking precautions?
Such questions are surely hard to answer in a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
However, health officials seem to have decided to ‘streamline’ information on swine flu cases and fatalities by delaying official announcements on these issues.
Instead of concentrating more on fighting the ailments at the more basic level by providing better health care facilities, doctors, who till recently were freely giving opinions on swine flu, are now bound by a common code of silence.
Information sharing is now centralised and rationed and only a mandated senior doctor can provide information. Such is the code that fatalities are announced a couple of days after of the demise of swine flu patients!
Poetic justice, finally
Though the Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) 2015 began on a good note, with an opening address by lyricist Javed Akhtar, it left a handful of reporters sour.
A separate interaction was scheduled half-an-hour before the event, at a sepa-rate room below the lobby.
Unaware of this, some reporters were strolling around the lobby looking for Mr. Akhtar.
When the lyricist finally emerged, these unfortunate scribes were shocked to know that the interaction was already over. All they could do was to note down his address at the opening ceremony. However, their anger at not being able to talk to Mr. Akhtar subsided the next day at the festival’s venue, as the lyricist gave them ample time and answered each question after he was done signing autographs.
Meter down
With the advent of app-based taxi services, the city’s policemen have landed new means for making money. Akin to passport verification, where a policeman conducting physical verification could pocket at least a couple of hundred rupees without even asking for it, word has it that cab drivers undergoing the verification process are being forced to grease palms. Cursory chats with four drivers working for a popular taxi service revealed that the issue of a conduct certificate from the local police station, made mandatory by some taxi companies for recruitment, can be inordinately delayed, or even denied, if a driver refuses to pay up.
I’ve a script, Mahesh
Don’t be surprised if popular Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt’s next flick is based on a Hyderabadi’s book. At the recently-held Hyderabad Literary Festival, a doctor-cum-author gate-crashed a press conference of the film-maker. He then introduced himself and confidently walked up to the director and presented the book. The author then explained that his was a book on medical malpractices and requested him to read it out aloud. Then came the stunner: the doctor asked Mr. Bhatt to make a film based on the book if it interested him. A cool Bhatt replied that if the book could make good commercial cinema, he was game. Watch out.
Babus unplugged
It is not often that bureaucrats trained to be diplomatic and politically-correct indulge in candid talk. But at a function organised by the Society to Save Rocks here, Principal Secretary-Tourism B.P. Acharya and former IAS officer Narendra Luther outdid each other.
Technically, the latter was the super-senior of Mr. Acharya, who surprised the audience comprising dedicated rock-lovers by agreeing that administ-rative callousness had led to the destruction of several rock formations in and around the city. Mr. Luther had earlier said it was sad that at a forthcoming invitation lecture he was to deliver at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, he would be forced to lie. Mr. Acharya said a diplomat was an officer paid to lie abroad, leading to peals of laughter in the hall!
Reporting by M. Sai Gopal, Yunus Y. Lasania, Rohit P.S., Rahul Devulapalli, Suresh Krishamoorthy
