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CONTENTS voiceTHE CONTENTS OF FOD Editorial 5 Editor and Publisher Rajinder Johar The Inclusive School 6 Amit Kaushik Sub-editors Preeti Johar R.K. Laxman: The Self-drawn Man 10 Rubina Mohan Preeti Johar Members You 12 Mrinalini Dayal A poem contributed by Sheila Chaman Rachna Yadav R.S. Bhandari In Search of the Female Viagra 15 Swaran Gambhir Prof. Stanley Ducharme Karnataka Chapter Livelihood Options... 17 418, Ist Main, Ist Block, Raman Bhatia R.T. Nagar, Bangalore-560032 Tel: 080-23330200, 23535787 The Palm Lines 19 Fax : 6615101 A poem by Harshita Tripathi E-mail: [email protected] Coordinator : Ali Khwaja Medical Tourism: Their Health, Our Wealth 20 Rajinder Johar Editorial and FOD Registered Offce B-1/500, Janakpuri, The True Bodyguard 22 New Delhi-110058, India Harshita Tripathi Tel: 91-11-25597328, 51570140 E-mail: [email protected] A Story of Dedication and Success 23 [email protected] Dr. S.R. Mittal Web: www.familyofdisabled.org Accepting Yourself 25 Printed by Reema Bansal Graphic Syndicate Questions and Answers 27 A-31, Naraina Industrial Area New Delhi-110 027 Helpline 28 Tel: 011-30968355 News 29 Cover Page : R.K. Laxman receiving Padma Vibhushan from President A.P.J. How fish tame kids and convicts? 39 Abdul Kalam and Common Man, the legendary protagonist of Laxman’s Books and Films 42 cartoons Classifieds 44 Believe it or Not! and Health Capsules… courtesy ‘The Times of India’ Looking Back 45 The views and opinions expressed in this issue are of authors themselves. Our sincere thanks to the members, volunteers, supporters and well wishers of FOD for their continuing precious assistance in running its existing projects and launching the new ones. 5 The VOICE of FOD F Jan-June 2005 OD ven though cure for spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease through stem cell therapy is in experi- mental stage the world over, many stem cell clinics assuring quick relief, have cropped up in Delhi. ESince there is no law regulating stem cell therapy, there is no check on them. These clinics charge exorbitant sum of around Rs 2 lakh for two to four shots of stem cells. Risk involved is entirely of the patients’ and one is made to sign a heap of papers including the consent form. Not only the results are uncertain, whether the injections being given contain required stem cells is also doubtful. Indian Council of Medical Research submitted its guidelines for stem cell research and regulation with the government in 2003, which have not yet been notified or made mandatory. These clinics get big success stories inserted in major national dailies which only further their cause in pocketing fat fee from the vulnerable and desperate patients, who, in quest to recover from their malady go to any extent––even selling their land, property and valuables, some go to money lenders. Such treatment shops never fail to take advantage of Indian public’s weakness of rushing to any sort of new therapy introduced, without bothering to know the basics leave alone the intricate details. Remember, how three decades ago, patients flocked to clinics offering treatment through acupuncture when it first came to India. Same thing is now happening in the case of stem cell therapy. The patients care least about knowing the credentials of the treating doctors. The much publicised so called successful case has been that of a 39-yr-old woman who supposedly started walking after sixteen years as a result of stem cell therapy given by a private clinic in Gautam Nagar, South Delhi. On March 23, a full front-page success story, continuing to inner pages, was splashed prominently in one of the major newspapers. However, the patient died after a few weeks due to some unknown cause. The clinic claims that it has around 24 patients registered, waiting for stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy has to be administered by a specialist in the field. It can result into serious consequences if done by technically incompetent person. It would be doing a great service to the patients and their carers, if media, especially the print, refrain from publishing such charlatanic stories- singing paeans about the work done at the mushrooming stem cell therapy centres, whose sole objective is to lure the gullible patients and make quick moolah. It is quite quixotic that on one hand we are offering world – class treatment to patients from developed countries, and on the other hand we are exploiting our own poor and ignorant patients. The government need not remain a silent spectator but must act swiftly. Surely, Hippocrates must be turning in his grave seeing his oath being thrown out of the window by his descendants. Arpita Ghosh extended her valued help in bringing out this issue of The Voice... Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Jose Ortega Y Gasset 6 The VOICE of FOD F Jan-June 2005 OD Sarva Shikha Abhiyan, launched in 2001, promises to ensure that every child with special needs, irrespective of kind, category and degree of disability is provided education in an appropriate environment. A number of international studies have shown that children with disabilities do better when included in general schools instead of special ones. Amit Kaushik, director (Elementary Education) in the ministry of HRD, government of India, stressing the need of inclusive schools, emphasises to work out the logistics in Indian perspective. “Disability is natural. We must stop believing that disabilities keep a person from doing something. Because that’s not true… Having a disability doesn’t stop me from doing anything.” Benjamin Snow, Grade 8, Woodland Park, Colorado, USA, in an essay entitled “Attitudes About People with Disabilities” He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in. Edwin Markham nclusive education became the magic mantra for the world after the 1992 World Conference on ISpecial Needs Education in Salamanca, where 92 countries adopted the now famous Salamanca Statement. However, in India, the concept of inclusion was articulated as far back as in 1944, when the Central Advisory Board of Education published the Sergeant Report, which stated that ‘handicapped’ children should be sent to special schools only when the nature and extent of their problems made it necessary. This was followed by the Kothari Commission Report of 1964- 66, which recommended that integrated programmes of education should be taken up in order to bring as many children as possible into schools. integrating them with society at large. IEDC, which Notwithstanding these policy pronouncements though, continues even today, provides a variety of interventions the general policy till the 1970s remained one of including preschool training, allowances for textbooks segregation, with most educators believing that children and stationery, uniforms, transport, counselling, special with special needs could not participate in regular activities teachers and the like. of the school. The attitude was largely one of charity rather than human rights, with many Christian missionaries Similar initiatives were taken up by others, such as the and others starting special schools for the disabled people NCERT-UNICEF Project Integrated Education for from the late nineteenth century onwards, mostly out of Disabled (PIED), started in 1987, or the inclusive compassion and sympathy. In the 1970s however, education interventions under the District Primary government of India launched a centrally sponsored Education Programme (DPEP). At the peak of the latter scheme called Integrated Education for Disabled Children programme, almost 70% of the more than eight lakh (IEDC), which aimed to provide opportunities for identified children with special needs had been enrolled learning to children with disabilities in regular schools, in various schools. 20 million children are yet out of school, in spite of government’s project of primary education for all. 7 The VOICE of FOD F Jan-June 2005 OD This focus on inclusion has been carried forward under on the basis of the number of children with special needs Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) also, the government in that district, actual application of these funds would of India’s comprehensive programme for achieving depend upon the specific needs of each child. Thus, universal elementary education, which was launched in while the expenditure on some children may only be a 2001. Since then, the Constitution (86th Amendment) few rupees to take care of simple requirements such as Act 2002 has also been passed by Parliament, making spectacles, on others it may be in thousands for such free and compulsory education for all children in the age needs as home based education or caregivers. group of 6-14 years a fundamental right under Article 21-A of the Constitution. A committee of the Central It is important however, to bear in mind that even today, Advisory Board of Education (CABE) is currently after so many years of implementing programmes of the engaged in drafting the enforcing legislation for this sort described above, and with far greater public constitutional amendment, and it is expected that suitable awareness about the issue, there is still a tendency to provisions for the education of children with special needs plan on the basis of what might be called the medical would find an appropriate place in the final draft. Clearly, model. While physical disabilities tend to be addressed this fundamental right cannot be operationalised in its by educational planners, administrators and teachers intended spirit unless ALL children, including children relatively quickly, more difficult problems such as learning with special needs are assured opportunities to complete disabilities, autism and severe mental illnesses are often elementary education. overlooked, except in a very small number of cases.

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