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'Salman Khan Is Okay - Docs Cleared All Med Tests'

Salman fans can breathe easy. The actor, who is in the US for a crucial health check-up, has been given an all-clear by the doctors. It seems he will not have to undergo another surgery for his condition after all. He had had a surgery two years ago. 
    
It was in June 2011 that Sallu was detected with neuralgia. Since then he has been on heavy medication to manage the debilitating pain. But owing to his packed schedule, Sallu could never devote the kind of time his condition required. This check-up too was due much earlier, but Salman could not free himself of his various commitments until now. He shot a small schedule in Dubai for Mental, which was slated to release on Eid this year. But the film’s delayed start gave Salman some room to focus on his health once and for all. 

Salman and his trusted lieutenant Shera flew down to the US amidst apprehensions that he may be asked to undergo a surgery again. According to sources close to the star, he had rented an apartment in Los Angeles, even though he was required to be present in the hospital for several hours for four days. Doctors conducted various tests and finally declared that his condition had not worsened in any manner. Said the source, “Had his condition deteriorated, he would have definitely needed a surgery. His family heaved a sigh of relief.” 
    
When contacted, Salman’s father, Salim Khan said, “Salman is fit and fine now. One more check-up will be required, either after six months or a year. After that, he may not need any more treatment at all. This is simply because his ailment has not aggravated.” According to Salim, Salman returns to Mumbai on Sunday or on Monday. 

WHAT’S ON SALLU’S PLATE 

• Sohail Khan’s Mental (second schedule in Goa) 
• Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kick 
• Ramesh Taurani’s next film
• It is not clear if he will host Bigg Boss this season as well

Special Report: Personal Laws: A Muslim 'Reality Check'

By M H Ahssan / INN Bureau

Fragmentation of religious authority, greater debate and dissent within communities, and increasing literacy and awareness among women have transformed the landscape of personal laws and made the old debate over a uniform civil code largely irrelevant. 

In July 2013, Mumbai’s first Sharia Court was set up. Contrary to the images this might convey, this particular Sharia court is for women, will be run by women and was set up by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Aandolan (BMMA).

BJP To Bulldoze Advani, Make Modi PM Announcement?

By Sanjay Singh / Delhi

Things have become very exciting in the BJP. Faced with LK Advani’s refusal to budge from his position on Narendra Modi’s immediate coronation as prime ministerial candidate, some very swift and strong moves are being made by hardcore protagonists of the Gujarat chief minister on two fronts. 

Focus: Real Businesses Grow On Surge In Fake Certificates

Background verification agencies have their hands full with false addresses, phony employment letters and inflated salary slips.

An Air India pilot suspended recently for producing a bo gus Class 12 certificate, Goa minister Sudin Dhavalikar's graduate degree being questioned, and former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar's arrest in an alleged fake degree case... these aren't isolated cases.

According to a new report by HireRight, a US-based provider of employment background checks, 23% of more than 2 lakh inspections done in India from January 2014 to April 2015 yielded discrepancies.

“There are thousands of fake universities and bogus institutes in India.This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to forgery,“ says Kamesh Kiran, who heads IBC India, a verification company in Bengaluru which handles 7,000 checks a month for IT, pharma and construction companies. They spot a 30% discrepancy in educational qualifications.

Two Firms Invested In Tehelka Were Named In Coal Scam

By Bhupender Singh | Delhi

INVESTIGATION Even as Tarun Tejpal remains in custody in Goa over rape charges, fresh revelations of financial misdoings continue to dog Tehelka magazine. INN Live investigation revealed that two firms which invested a total of Rs 28.35 crore in Anant Media are linked to a Jindal group company mentioned in the CBI FIR in the coal blocks allocation scam. 

Investigations revealed, the Enlightened Consultancy Services invested Rs 16.75 crore and Weldon Polymers Private Ltd Rs 11.60 crore in Anant Media. Not only did both companies initiate their investments on the same day, but they also both purchased Anant Media shares -- of Rs 10 face value -- at a whopping Rs 10,623, thus valuing the company with losses of over 21 crore at Rs 93.1crore. What's more, both these firms later sold back the same shares back to the company at Rs 10. The Tehelka magazine management then allegedly reissued these same shares again at a huge premium.

Lives sacrificed: Women and health in South Asia

By Deepti Priya Mehrotra

A new World Bank report looks at the state of reproductive health of poor women in five countries -- Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- and makes a case for decentralised planning, delivery and expansion of health services, with a clear focus on enhancing inclusion

‘Sparing Lives: Better Reproductive Health for Poor Women in South Asia’, by Meera Chatterjee, Ruth Levine, Nirmala Murthy and Shreelata Rao-Seshadri, the World Bank, MacMillan, 2008

This World Bank report, released on March 5, 2009, investigates the state of reproductive health of poor women in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It also makes a case for increasingly decentralised planning, delivery and expansion of health services, with a clear focus on enhancing inclusion.

The report highlights a number of significant concerns. Sri Lanka, despite ongoing conflict, fares remarkably better than the other four countries in terms of maternal mortality, pregnancy and delivery care, infant weight and death rates, contraceptive acceptance and fertility rates. This is attributable to a high commitment to health on the part of successive governments. With decentralised planning the cornerstone of health delivery, services are provided at all levels, as an integrated package. The report notes that Sri Lanka’s relative success is “not because it spends more per capita, but because it uses resources more efficiently and equitably… Low unit costs in Sri Lanka contribute to high reproductive health access…”

Gopalakrishnan, a representative from the prime minister’s office, India, noted that the findings of the report are “disconcerting”; he reiterated the “urgency of concerns” to be addressed. Enormous disparities exist in India throughout the realm of maternal health and services delivery. For instance, while some antenatal care and tetanus toxoid reached 77-78% of women in 2005-06, only half of the poorest women received care as compared to the richest. Scheduled caste and scheduled tribe women have far lower maternal health service coverage levels than other women. While overall fertility reduction and contraceptive use have improved, the improvement is not as much as is desired. Between 1998-99 and 2005-06, fertility declined from 2.8 to 2.7 births per woman, the greatest change occurring among 15-19-year-olds. Kerala, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab have achieved replacement-level fertility, while Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa will contribute over 50% of the country’s increase in population over the coming decade. As for contraceptive use, only 48.5% of couples used modern methods of contraception (in 2005-06), one-fifth of these being temporary methods. Terminal methods, ie sterilisation, continue to be dominant. The average age for female sterilisation is amongst the lowest in the world (below 25 years). The poorest women in India are four times more likely than the richest women to have an ‘unmet need’ for contraception, underlining the urgency of ensuring wider access to temporary contraceptive methods. The gap between the poor and the rich in contraceptive use is much less in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as compared to India, Nepal and Pakistan.

The average risk of maternal death in these five South Asian countries (1 in 43) is almost a hundred times greater than that of a woman in the industrialised countries (1 in 4,000). Maternal mortality rates in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan are still two to four times higher than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015. While the lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy for a woman in Sri Lanka is 1 in 430, in Bangladesh it is 1 in 59, in India 1 in 48, in Pakistan 1 in 31, and in Nepal 1 in 24. India needs to reduce its maternal mortality rate by two-thirds to meet the MDG -- from the current estimate of 301 to 100 (by the year 2015).

Malnutrition contributes to maternal mortality, and infant and child deaths. Over two-fifths of all children under five in the region are malnourished, the figure even in Sri Lanka being as high as 22%. While 34.3% of women are acutely undernourished in Bangladesh, in India nearly half (47%) of mothers aged 15-19 years are undernourished. Compared to the richest quintile of urban women in India, the poorest urban quintile is 4.8 times more likely to be undernourished, and the poorest rural quintile, 5.6 times more likely. Over 45% of rural children under five years of age are undernourished, and almost one-third of urban children: a total of about 50 million undernourished young children in India.

The five countries together have a huge population of poor people: approximately 500 million. About four-fifths of the population of Bangladesh, India and Nepal live on less than 2 dollars a day, and two-fifths in Sri Lanka. Governments are certainly not directing sufficient resources into reproductive health services for the poor. Integrated health services and nutrition are critically needed and ought to be very high on the priority agendas of all the nations. Noting that poverty and poor reproductive health form a vicious cycle, the report emphasises the need for a renewed focus on adolescent health and nutrition, and accessible contraception, pregnancy and childbirth services. It also acknowledges that gender discrimination exists in society as well as in the health services sector, and that needs to be tackled.

While the report provides useful information on poor women’s reproductive health, it does not attempt correlations with macro factors like food security, unemployment, access to potable water, political participation and so on. Such correlations are needed, to arrive at a more comprehensive analysis of causes and policy implications. Several elements required to help South Asian poor women to climb out of the abyss may still be missing from the jigsaw.

During the video conference at the simultaneous release of the report in the five countries, Dr Mohammad Abdul Qayyum, director general of family planning, Bangladesh, gave voice to a woman-friendly policy understanding: “We want to provide and strengthen safe birth practices wherever the woman wants to be.” He noted that maximum births could take place at home, and spelt out Bangladesh’s commitment to community clinics, where referrals for high-risk and emergency services could be made available. Indu Capoor, a women’s health professional and director, CHETNA (Centre for Holistic Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness, Ahmedabad) pointed out that rejection of home births and traditional birth attendants, to be replaced wholesale by institutional births and ‘trained’ attendants, is a deeply flawed and highly questionable policy for South Asian countries.

Pakistan, India and Nepal would do well to heed the practical wisdom inherent in Bangladesh’s policy choice. This debate highlights the need for policymakers to listen far more to grassroots health activists who may have different points of view on how to handle issues. As Gouri Choudhury, director, Action India, remarked: “We have been saying much of this for the past 20 years. What is new?… The health volunteers appointed by the government are called ASHA now, but they are still underpaid and overburdened… This is not decentralised service delivery!”

The India You Don’t Know

By M H Ahssan

Travellers in India usually have their itinerary all mapped out—it’s generally the tried and tested routes. The Golden Triangle (Delhi-Agra-Jaipur) or Goa. And since unstable Kashmir is out, Kerala is in. That is an Indian holiday in a nutshell. There are a few who do special interest tours.

Lakshadweep and Andamans for the diving, Kipling Country for jungle safaris, the Buddhist pilgrim trail, the heritage train rides. But beyond these busy pockets, there is a vast treasure trove of secret places.

Talk to any Indian about a favourite childhood memory and he or she will wax poetic about their “native place.” Ponds they used to swim in, fruit eaten straight off the tree, family feasts, temple festivals. They may also speak of memorable holidays to special destinations, often very close to home but still unexplored, preserved as if in amber. Here are seven spots off the tourist map but well worth seeking out.

Lucknow, Uttar PradeshFor Mumbai-based model Ashutosh Singh, Lucknow is home. “Whenever I return, it’s as if I’ve never been away. There is an old world courtesy unique to my town.” He says that the frantic development that characterizes other Indian towns hasn’t altered Lucknow’s essential structure. The Old City still preserves the fading glories of this capital of the Nawabs of Awadh.

Towering gates, domes and arches define the cityscape. Even the Charbagh railway station looks like something out of the Arabian Nights. There are also charming havelis with intimate courtyards and interconnected rooms, just like the one where Ashutosh’s own family still stays. In the evenings people would stroll out unhurriedly to socialize over Lucknow’s famous chaat, sweets or paan.

Many of Lucknow’s iconic landmarks have made their presence felt in films like Umrao Jaan and Shatranj ke Khilari:

The Bara and Chota Imambaras, Rumi Darwaza, the labyrinthine Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Chattar Manzil and Jama Masjid. The Bara Imambara complex, which also houses the famous maze, is essentially a Shia Muslim shrine. This grand project was undertaken by 18th-century Nawab Asaf ud Daula to generate employment during a time of famine. While the common people worked during the day, the equally impoverished but unskilled nobility were secretly hired to destroy what was constructed during the night, so that the task would continue till the crisis was over. He was the general architect of much of what we see today. “The magnificent Lucknow University buildings are an architectural marvel, with a vast campus,” says Ashutosh, “I’m proud to have studied there.”

Delhi-based writer and filmmaker Vandana Natu Ghana fell in love with Lucknow while she was a student there. She recommends the old markets of Chowk and Aminabad for delicate shadow embroidery (chikan), rich zardozi and badla work in silver and gold threads. This bustling area also houses the legendary Tunde ke Kebab shop, over a century old. “You can base yourself in Lucknow and do some fascinating day trips out of the city. Barabanki, with its ancient Mahabharat connections, and Malihabad, famous for its mango orchards, are redolent of a bygone era and only 25 kilometres away from the city centre,” she suggests.

There is also the village of Kakori, which has given its name to silken smooth kebabs, created to indulge a toothless nawab. Lucknow is also very much a gourmet destination. Vandana, who has an Army background, advises that I not miss the British Residency, said to be haunted by ghosts of the 1857 Mutiny and siege, and the long drive through the cantonment area to the War Memorial, fringed by laburnum and gulmohar trees. “In summer, the road becomes a carpet of red and yellow flowers. People tend to visit Delhi, Agra and Varanasi and bypass Lucknow altogether. They don’t realize what they’re missing,” she sighs.

Kasauli and other cantonment townsI have always liked cantonments. They stave off rampant development, preserve heritage structures and are often in beautiful locations. If you’re interested in old churches, military graveyards and history, you will definitely have a sense of stepping back in time.

Married to officers of the Indian Army’s Gurkha Regiment, Naji Sudarshan and Daphne Chauhan live in Delhi, but have had homes in cantonment towns all over the country. “It is a world all its own,” says Naji. “We are a stone’s throw away from chaotic towns and crowded metros, but the instant you enter Army territory, everything is disciplined and beautifully maintained.” A cantonment town is a time machine. And still properly British. You need a dinner jacket to dine at clubs where the menus have been the same for generations. Gardeners maintain seasonal flowerbeds with military precision and since wooded areas are protected, you find an astounding variety of birdlife.

Self-contained cantonment towns like Ranikhet, Lansdowne and Deolali have a quaint character all their own. Foreigners are not permitted to visit Chakrata in Uttarakhand, which is a restricted access area while Mhow, near Indore, is actually an acronym for Military Headquarters of War. There are artillery and combat schools, sanatoriums, military colleges and regimental headquarters scattered through all of these.

Army families keep getting posted to far-flung stations, but everything remains reassuringly familiar within the cantonment. “So while you get to discover a different place every time you are transferred, the set-up never really changes. Cocooned within the Army, you couldn’t be more secure,” adds Naji.

Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh is one of Naji’s favourites, a flower basket of a hill station with its typical upper and lower mall roads, a delightful bazaar and Victorian cottages with roses around the door. It is also across the hill from Subathu, where the Gurkha regiment has its headquarters. Daphne returned recently to Wellington, home of the Madras Regimental Centre in the Nilgiri Hills, where they had been posted 20 years ago. “Nothing has changed. It is still the same sleepy town, with perfect weather. Yet it is close enough to the social whirl of Ooty,” says Daphne. “A good place to base yourself for treks and tea gardens. Not many hotels, but there are home stays and farms in Wellington as well as in nearby Coonoor.”

Ashtamudi, KeralaAshtamudi is a sprawling expanse of water, the second largest and deepest wetland ecosystem in Kerala.

Like an octopus, it is eight-armed (ashtamudi literally means eight locks of hair). Vembanad (which includes Kumarakom) is larger and much promoted by Kerala Tourism, but lesser known Ashtamudi has much to offer. All the canals and creeks of these backwaters converge at Neendakara, a hub of the state’s fishing industry.

For Naresh Narendran, a rubber businessman in nearby Kollam (formerly Quilon), Ashtamudi is home territory. “Unlike the other backwaters, you see dense stands of coconut trees, rather than the usual scene of rice paddies,” he says. “There are also sand bars in the estuary which fishermen use. From a distance, it looks like the man is actually walking on water.”

I remember visiting an uncle whose backyard extended to the water’s edge. We could buy karimeen (pearl spot fish) and river mussels straight off the fishing boats. For fresh coconut water or toddy, a man would be immediately despatched up a coconut palm. Much of what we ate was picked from the kitchen garden. Naresh himself is proud of his own “little farm” not far from here, where he experiments with varieties of banana, yam, fruit, and vegetables. This is quintessential, picture-postcard Kerala with palm-fringed lagoons and dense tropical vistas in a hundred shades of green. “You could rent a boat and go around,” suggests Naresh. “But there are commuter ferry services to Alleppey at a fraction of the cost, which will give you much the same views.”

The much-photographed Chinese-style fishing nets of Cochin are seen around Ashtamudi as well. You could use the ferries to visit neighbouring islands, villages and lesser-known towns in and around the backwaters, much as the locals do. There are temples, sacred groves and churches to discover. Water birds like cormorants and herons abound. “I love photographing the backwaters in its many moods. In the monsoon it is quite spectacular,” says Naresh. “A few resorts are coming up here but it is still largely unspoilt.”

Kollam itself is a historic port town worth exploring. The coir and cashew industries made it prosperous but it was well known on ancient trade routes. Marco Polo came here, as did Ibn Battuta, the famed Islamic scholar and traveller. Not far from Kollam town is Thangassery, a little Anglo-Indian enclave that was once settled by both Dutch and Portuguese colonizers. It has a layout reminiscent of towns in Goa, beaches and a stately lighthouse. But the Anglo Indian community which gave it much of its character has largely emigrated.

Drought-led migration makes girls prey to trafficking, pushes Andhra Pradesh's Kadiri towards HIV/AIDS

Dr Mano Ranjan has been working at the Institute of Infectious Diseases situated on the Anantapur-Kadiri Road in Andhra Pradesh since 2009. This is the premier institute for the entire Rayalaseema region (southern Andhra Pradesh) for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Dr Ranjan gets 25 new HIV/AIDS patients every day. "It is a ticking time bomb," he says.

Thirty percent of the cases are from hamlets in and around Kadiri, unarguably the HIV/AIDS capital of Andhra Pradesh. The hospital has 26,000 plus registered cases, 8,000 of whom are widows. It is shocking that most of the victims are in the age group of 25 to 40. Another 3,000 cases are children born most often to an HIV-positive parent.

'BAYYARAM MINING' LEASE IS A 'PRESTIGE ISSUE' TO AP CM

By Shreya Reddy / Hyderabad

By scrapping the Bayyaram mining leases in Khammam district and announcing a decision to hand them over to the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy queered the pitch for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

In fact, the TDP, which has been crying hoarse over the allocation of Bayyaram mining leases for quite sometime, was caught napping when the State Government announced its decision. Aside from this, the State Government announced that it would insist the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), the public sector company that runs the Vizag Steel Plant, to establish a benification plant and also a steel plant in Khammam district.

Intelligence Alert On 'Terror Plot' To Target 'IT Companies'

INN News Desk

The Central agencies responsible for securing the country’s virtual space recently managed to intercept communication from a group of cyber criminals, who were plotting an attack on key Indian information infrastructure in August.

And the alert warned that the non-state actors based in Pakistan had roped in cyber criminals from across the globe to target vulnerable Indian networks.

Incidentally,  the hacking of the DRDO  website in March and the defacing of the 13 websites of the Goa government in July had been attributed to this group.

Newscop and the Next India Premier

By M H Ahssan

After over-heated summer weeks of campaigning, long on personal attacks and short on substance, guessing who India's next prime minister will be is about as easy as solving the decade-long puzzle on the identity of HNN's essayist Newscop.

My long-time suspicion is that Newscop is an HNN staffer, churning out blood pressure-tickling articles while sipping coconut juice in a sunny beach in coastal AP. But varied guesses about India's next prime minister could be as off the mark, or as accurate, as any Newscop identity guess. The latter is due to be revealed on Friday, April 17.

When the month-long voting process that started in India on Thursday ends, on May 16, counting will start and results released. Frenetic political dramas are sure to follow before the 18th prime minister of India is revealed.

I have told amazed local media colleagues, the ones who still think I am sane, that the next premier could be Lalu Prasad Yadav, India's maverick railway minister, a kingmaker in the last elections and a parliamentary funny man.

Never underestimate the shrewd court jester. During the bitter political fallout last year over India's nuclear deal with the United States, Yadav managed to keep cordial relations with both his warring coalition partners, the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). In one photograph taken during the crisis, he was seen with his hands on the shoulders of both a Congress and a CPI-M leader. All were laughing.

Such savvy to keep squabbling factions in good humor would prove devastatingly effective after the election results are announced, and India's political theater goes into hyperdrive over the formation of coalition marriages.

Besides, Yadav has a pan-India fan base. "Lalu Yadav would easily work himself into power," said a chuckling R S Patil, a guard at the Bank of India branch near Churchgate station, Mumbai. "He is a very street smart fellow."

While Patil told Asia Times Online that he would take time out to vote on April 30, the voting day for Mumbai, the general electoral mood in India's financial capital was as varied as the "mixed vegetable curry" coalition likely to come to power, as sales executive John Lobo termed it.

A Christian from the neighboring Portuguese-speaking state of Goa, Lobo said he may not exercise his voting rights, as an expression of disgust at the current crop of politicians.

However, Lobo's colleague Ravi Shinde, an office assistant and a resident of Raigad district, said he would take leave and travel the 100 kilometers to his village and vote on April 30.

Mumbai has expressed a strong anti-incumbent sentiment at street level. "I have long been a Congress party supporter, but [Prime Minister] Manmohan Singh has doing nothing for us poor people," said Darshan Das, a middle-aged tea vendor near Eros Theater.

Das says he earns about 6,000 rupees (US$120) a month; the only income he has to support his wife and four children. "From this 6,000 income, I spend 1,000 rupees monthly as hafta (bribes) to local policemen and municipality officials to be allowed to sell tea here," he says. "Things don't change much for us, whichever government is elected."

"It's difficult to predict who the next prime minister will be, but whoever comes to power will be of no use unless they help people like us," said Ganga Ram, a member of Mumbai's dabbawallahs (lunch-box carriers). In 2001, the world famous home-to-office hot lunch delivery system was awarded a Forbes magazine rating of six-sigma, equal to a 99.9999% accuracy rate in delivery. (See India's lessons in a lunch box, Asia Times Online, Sep 8, 2006) Ram, a resident of suburban Ghatkopar, said he will vote.

In South Mumbai constituency, the area of the November 26 terrorist attacks, interest in elections is much higher than last year, said voter Anil Patkar. "I expect voter turnout percentage here will be the highest ever, at over 50%," he said. The turnout for the 2008 US presidential election was 56.8%, the highest since the 60.8% turnout of 1968 when Richard Nixon was voted into power.

Guessing who will form the next Indian government is big business for bookies, an outlawed but thriving tribe. They are currently offering odds on the Congress party grabbing around 150 seats and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagging 120. A coalition needs the support of a minimum of 272 members in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the directly-elected house of Parliament, to form a government.

But India's electorate has always proved an enigmatic nut to crack, with both bookies and pollsters usually left wiping egg off their faces after the election results are announced.

In 2004, the Mumbai-dominated bookie tribe illegally raked in an estimated US$5 billion in punters' money after predicting that the ruling BJP would win 175 seats and the Congress 150. But the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress won 150 seats, up from 114 seats in the 1999 general elections, and formed a coalition government. The BJP crashed down to 137 seats, from 182 seats in 1999.

The two leading prime ministerial contenders in 2009, the 77-year old economist Manmohan Singh and the 81-year old lawyer LK Advani were both born in land that is now Pakistan, and formerly undivided India. Singh was born in Chakwal district, some 90 kilometers south of Islamabad, while Advani was born in the southern port city of Karachi.

Both could be runners-up this year, as opinion polls have shown the electorate would prefer a younger prime minister.

Either way, the prime minister-elect won't make too much of a difference. In India, politicians are like the noisy, visible surf of ocean waves. It's not the fleeting, fickle surf, but the deep, unseen, silent, strong, millennia-old undercurrents that actually define and direct the direction ahead this nation takes. India works despite its politicians, not because of them.

Manmohan Singh lasted the distance of his full five-year term, and won some respect, because he is not a politician. But after starting to talk like a politician during this campaign, voters could give him the usual nasty surprise they gift wrap for egoistic leaders who think only they know best what is best for the country.

For now, the next prime minister of India, the world's 12th largest and Asia's third-largest economy, appears as difficult but less popular a guess worldwide than the identity of Spengler. Advani produces 1.9 million Google search results, Manmohan Singh fetches 2.8 million searches. And Spengler? 2.9 million.

How ill is Mrs Gandhi?

By M H Ahssan

The news is good. The operation was a success. She is back in India and has begun to defuse the life-threatening crisis within Congress and government at a time when what she really needs is some rest. India doesn't know what exactly ails its most powerful citizen.

The one unanswered question, which continues to fuel speculation ranging from the ignorant to the bizarre, is: why did the authorities keep details of Sonia Gandhi's medical condition such a tightly wrapped secret? Some word has begun to trickle down since Sonia has returned. She has confided to a select few Congress leaders that she had first stage cancer, for which she went through a seven-hour-long surgical procedure. "In June, when Congressmen claimed that she had gone abroad to tend to her ailing mother, she had gone for her own treatment," a Congress leader told India Today. "The good news is that the illness is not life-threatening. However, it will be at least six months before she will be able to handle the normal workload," the source said.

India has substituted news with plenty of conjecture. Since August 4, when bbc and Agence France-Presse broke the news of Sonia Gandhi's surgery, Delhi's politically connected physicians have been in demand. Some have been toeing the Congress line that it's a private matter, some reprimanding nosy reporters, some citing the Hippocratic Oath while most are denying any knowledge. Various theories have been doing the rounds in a season of enforced silence-that it could be gastrointestinal or gynaecological cancer.

At the centre of all this is the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, US, where Sonia reportedly had her surgery. According to some doctors, speaking in strict confidentiality, the seven-hour-long surgery indicates a rare and difficult cancer. They said the 64-year-old Congress president was initially diagnosed with an "unspecified mass" in her pancreas. The tests indicated the probability of the rare neuroendocrine tumour of the pancreas (pNET). The more common pancreatic cancers, adenocarcinoma, are virulent and have a survival rate of about two per cent. But pNET is more slow-spreading and treatable. "The long ot time could be because pNET is so rare. It affects less than one person in 100,000 in the US," the doctors told Newsindia.

The operation could have taken long, says a doctor who refuses to be identified, because, post-operation, the biopsy revealed that it wasn't probably a cancer at all. "It was most likely an unusual disorder, pancreatic tuberculosis, which very often mimics pNET," he said. The symptoms for pancreatic tb and cancer can be surprisingly similar, making diagnosis virtually impossible: from fever and fatigue to weight loss to upper abdominal pain radiating to the back.

Radiological imaging techniques, ultrasonography, CT scan and other tests usually fail to make a clear distinction. "It's a very lucky and extremely rare misdiagnosis but not totally unheard of," says the doctor. At the world's top cancer facility, a patient with an unspecified mass can get a biopsy, an ultrasound for size and surgical procedure, all in a day. The doctors took time to detect it correctly and put Sonia on heavy-duty anti-tb therapy (reportedly for the next six months). "She should be fine after that," he says.

Beyond pNET and pancreatic tuberculosis is another theory. It stems from her physician of choice in the US. Internationally-known cancer specialist, Dr Dattatreyudu Nori, is professor and executive vice chair of radiation oncology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City hospital. Nori is an acclaimed expert in women's cancer. He has been named as one of the top doctors in the US for the treatment of women by one of the most popular women's magazines, The Ladies Home Journal. Nori was on vacation in Iceland at that time, but was apparently called back urgently and returned to New York to coordinate the entire procedure for Sonia. Nori has neither confirmed nor denied that he was treating her.

There is no final official word on the Congress President's health but what can be confirmed is that the Congress party seems to have become suicidal. The most obvious manifestation of it is the sight of a hapless prime minister reduced to a bystander while the turf war between two of his senior Cabinet colleagues, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P. Chidambaram, takes a heavy toll on governance.

Sonia remains the absolute authority where all arguments stop. The PM has fallen from grace, while Rahul has failed to rise to the occasion. According to a party official who met Sonia recently, "she is not happy with the handling of the 2G letter conflict by the prime minister." He was referring to a March 25, 2011, note written by the finance ministry to the PMO which stated that Chidambaram could have prevented the 2G scam by insisting on an auction.

Mukherjee is blaming the PMO for giving such a detailed response to an otherwise general RTI inquiry, as well as for demanding such a note in the first place. In a four-page letter written to the Prime Minister, he has said that it was at the behest of the then Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar that such a note was prepared. According to finance ministry sources, the letter states "the finance ministry sent a 12-paragraph note apprising the cabinet secretary of the facts but this was sent back with paragraphs added." Whether he wanted it or not, the Prime Minster has become party to the deepening crisis.

Though Mukherjee rushed to New York on September 25 to meet Manmohan, who was attending the UN General Assembly, and Chidambaram had been in touch with the Prime Minister on the phone, Sonia still had to step in for damage control. On her return home on September 8 from the medical treatment in the US, there was hardly any political news to cheer her up. She has questioned her colleagues about the fallout of the Anna Hazare fiasco. Saddled with a Prime Minister who lacks political authority and a son whose disinterest is only matched by his diffidence, an ailing Sonia does not have the luxury of a quiet recuperation.

There has been speculation ever since she left for treatment that she would appoint Rahul as Congress working president. That has not happened. The main reason for this is Rahul himself. He is not sure of himself, and now it looks like even the party is coming to terms with the reality of a reluctant prince. Soon after the 2G letter crisis broke, Rahul flew to Srinagar where, for two days, he dabbled in Youth Congress matters and breakfasted with his pal, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Just as he refused to play an active role during the Anna Hazare agitation he has gone out of his way to distance himself from this crisis too.

The four-member core group that Sonia had appointed to run the party when she left for her treatment on August 4 has already been disbanded. It held no structured meetings during the 36 days she was away. This was again an indication of Rahul's reluctance to take charge. When the Hazare agitation was at its peak in August, Rahul led a delegation of MPs to the Prime Minister to talk about the land acquisition bill. Impatient with his disconnect, the MPs surrounded him at 7 Race Course Road after the meeting with Manmohan and pleaded with him to step in. They complained about the Government's mishandling of the Hazare campaign. Though Rahul spoke in Parliament the next day, he did not offer any resolution or display leadership.

What aggravates Sonia's agony is the fact that, set against an heir apparent who is a permanent work in progress is a prime minister who has lost his elan. When Manmohan complained that the Opposition was trying to destabilise his government, Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy asked, "Does he mean opposition within or outside the Congress?"

The dominant feeling within the Cabinet is that there is a growing need for a political Prime Minister. "All the crises have been political, not economic. We don't need an economist, we need a politician," says a Congress Cabinet minister. There are also few takers for Manmohan's economic policies. "The two arms of the Prime Minister are the pmo and the Planning Commission. Both are out of sync with the party," says the Cabinet minister.

He rattles off a list of Congress Cabinet ministers-Kamal Nath, Jairam Ramesh and M. Veerappa Moily-who are upset with Planning Commission chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia. "To solve the problems of the rural poor, the Planning Commission has hired a team of the urban rich," adds a party general secretary. "Once Pulok Chatterji joins the PMO, then the party will have its man in place there. Right now, there is no connect between the party and the Prime Minister's Office," he said. Added to this leadership vacuum is the mystery about Sonia's illness.

Since the party has not yet been officially briefed about it, the field has been left open to conspiracy theorists. "Even public personalities are entitled to privacy in so far as their personal life is concerned," says Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari. Sonia has never functioned as a 'visible' leader; yet never was the need for her party to get a glimpse of its president greater.

Her spin doctors organised a well-choreographed meeting of the Central Election Committee on September 15, ostensibly to discuss candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. It provided an ideal showcase of a leader in control. When the Prime Minister drove up to 10 Janpath, she was at the door to receive him and see him off. "She looked at the candidate list and her immediate reaction was why there were so few Congressmen on it," said a senior Congress leader, pointing out that most of the candidates were former bsp and sp politicians. "Rahul then said he would talk to the Youth Congress to suggest some names," added the Congress leader. What he didn't voice was the relief that his party president seemed 'okay'. Later, Congress General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told the media that "she looked normal... but it will take her a little time to fully recover".

Until the Pranab vs Chidambaram letter bomb landed in her in-tray, Sonia was content with routine party work such as nominating pcc teams for Goa and Maharashtra and taking a decision on whether the Congress should go it alone in the Tamil Nadu local elections. She has also begun meeting Cabinet ministers and party officials, managing four-five meetings daily.

"She is watching a lot more television than she does normally and is worried about party turf wars," says a Congress leader. Considering the malady afflicting the Government, it could be a long while before the Congress president sees something she likes on TV.

DEADLY 'PARTY DRUGS' IS NEW CRAZE IN DELHI

By Kajol Singh / New Delhi

India's capital hits a new high as seizure of party drugs such as ecstasy and speed shows a fivefold increase. Delhi's party circuit is perched high on cloud amphetamine. The Capital has emerged as a major supplier of pseudoephedrine, the key raw material for manufacturing Amphetamine Type Stimulant ( ATS), whose variants are popularly known as ecstasy, speed, base and ice in party drug circles.

An Open Letter: Why Indian Male 'Masturbate' In Public?

By Sarah Williams

A FOREIGNER'S VERSION: A few days ago I was sitting in a bus stop in Mumbai, India. The local guy that I had paid no particular attention to moved closer. From the corner of my eye, to my horror, I realised that he had pulled out his penis and was masturbating, staring intently at me. I felt sick.

As much as I hate to admit it, this isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. In fact, chances are, if you’ve ever been to India, you’ll have bumped into at least one traveller who has experienced this sort of behaviour, or heard of someone else who it has happened to. I’ve spent countless hours with other travellers picking apart why men do it; why they seem to think it’s okay, why dignity seems to disappear when there’s foreign female flesh on show.

The Doctor Only Knows Economics

This could be the UPA’s worst cut to its beloved aam admi. Healthcare has virtually been handed over to privateers. Govt seems to have abandoned healthcare to the private sector.

Diagnosing An Ailing Republic

• 70 per cent of India still lives in the villages, where only two per cent of qualified allopathic doctors are available
• Due to lack of access to medical care, rural India relies on homoeopathy, Ayurveda, nature cure, and village doctors
• While the world trend is to move towards public health systems, India is moving in the opposite direction: 80 per cent of healthcare is now in private sector
• India faces a shortage of 65 lakh allied health workers. This is apart from the nurse-doctor shortage.
• According to World Health Statistics,  2011, the density of doctors in India is 6 for a population of 10,000, while that of nurses and midwives is 13 per 10,000
• India has a doctor: population ratio of 0.5: 1000 in comparison to 0.3 in Thailand, 0.4 in Sri Lanka, 1.6 in China, 5.4 in the UK, and 5.5 in the United States of America
• Fifty-six per cent of all newborn deaths occur in five states: UP, Rajasthan, Orissa, MP and Andhra Pradesh
• Forty-nine per cent of pregnant women still do not have three ante-natal visits to a doctor during pregnancy
• An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 child deaths occur annually due to measles, a treatable disease
• Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in the country, does not have a single speciality hospital for cancer
• The top three causes of death in India are malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhea, all treatable
• The WHO ranked India’s public healthcare system 112th on a roster of 190 countries
• Post-independence India’s most noteworthy achievement in the public health arena has been the eradication of polio and smallpox
• Affair of the states
• Best Public Health Kerala, Tamil Nadu,  Maharashtra, West Bengal
• Worst Public Health Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa

India is taking firm steps to a certain health disaster. All of 80 per cent of healthcare is now privatised and caters to a minuscule, privileged section. The metros are better off: they have at least a few excellent public health facilities,  crowded though they might be. Tier II and III towns mostly have no public healthcare to speak of. As the government sector retreats, the private booms. In villages, if you are poor and sick, no one really cares, even if the government pretends to. 

You go to the untrained village “doctor”; you pray, you get better perhaps; all too often, you die of something curable. “India is the only country in the world that’s trying to have a health transition on the basis of a private healthcare that does not exist,” Amartya Sen said recently in Calcutta. “It doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. We have an out-of-the-pocket system, occasionally supplemented by government hospitals, but the whole trend in the world is towards public health systems. Even the US has come partly under the so-called Obamacare.”

Sadly, even the few initiatives the Indian state takes are badly implemented. Hear the story of Suresh, 45, who lost his younger sister to cancer, eight months ago. He’s a guard at the guesthouse of a pharmaceutical company in Mumbai and could not afford her treatment, so he sold some ancestral farmland in Gujarat. That money covered but a few months of bills from a private hospital. He then turned to a government hospital, but it didn’t have cancer care. It didn’t help in any way for Suresh that he worked for a pharmaceutical company: his job didn’t come with medical benefits. “We brought her back home, hoping that if we saved on the hospital bills, we would be able to buy her medication. Finally, the money I had was too little to provide her basic help. Maybe if I had been able to buy her medicines, she would have been alive today.”

But the state could have ensured that Suresh’s sister lived had he been able to utilise the ambitious health insurance scheme announced in Maharashtra in 1997. The Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY) is on paper supposed to provide for 972 surgeries, therapies or procedures, along with 121 follow-up packages in 30 specialised categories. It provides each family coverage of up to Rs 1.5 lakh in hospitalisation charges at empanelled hospitals. It even allows for treatment at private hospitals. But poor implementation has ensured Suresh and hundreds of families like his do not know of such a scheme. This is true of other schemes across the country too.

Meanwhile, health statistics are terrifying. More than 40,000 people die every year of mosquito-borne diseases, which are easily preventable; a maternity death takes place every 10 minutes; every year, 1.8 million children (below 5 years of age) die of preventable diseases. “We are the only country in the world with such a huge percentage of privatised healthcare. Recent estimates suggest that approximately 39 million people are being pushed into poverty because of high out-of-pocket expenses on healthcare. In 1993-94, the figure was 26 million people,” says Dr Shakhtivel Selvaraj, a health economist.

So the state’s pretence of reaching out to the poor is really quite a farce. Consider what’s been happening between the Planning Commission and health ministry. In November, the battle between then health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the Planning Commission came to light: Azad had pressed for increased spending on the public sector while the commission was intent on increasing private participation. This was a telling comment on the priorities of the UPA government. But with the 2014 elections in view, the government would like to present “health reforms” as a political tool. A framework for “universal health for all” is expected by April this year.

According to the draft of the 12th Plan, the government will increase spending on health from 1.2 per cent of the GDP to 1.9 per cent, with greater emphasis on public-private partnership. While the expert group asked for scaling up public funding from the current 1.2 per cent of GDP to roughly 2.5 per cent by the 12th Plan-end (2017-18) and to roughly 3 per cent by the 13th Plan-end (2023-24), the government only relented a bit—enough to give it room to announce more populous aam admi schemes. D. Raja of the CPI believes that “through PPP (public-private-partnership), floated in the 12th Plan, the government is working as facilitator for private sector”, something that goes against the constitutional mandate of a welfare state. 

Former health secretary Sujata Rao says the state “cannot co-opt the private sector to provide healthcare for which government is paying money without framing stringent rules and norms.” More than 70 per cent of expenditure on health in the past five years has come from households. In its nine years in power, the UPA has overseen the shrinking of the public sector and the boom in the private. 

All the while, it has paid lip service to aam admi causes—even as it pushes people from the margins into the wilderness. In those five years, the well-to-do have obtained better healthcare than ever before. Both the Congress and the BJP have said in their party manifestos that they want to make India a “health tourism” destination. That has already happened. Would the UPA, champion of the aam admi’s interests, pat itself on the back for that? 

Meanwhile, most private facilities ignore a Supreme Court directive to reserve a certain percentage of their beds and treatment for the poor because they were given land at concessional rates.

Barely 100 km from the national capital, the Kosi Kalan district of Uttar Pradesh, near Mathura, presents a pathetic picture of community health care. Four months ago, the primary health centre, which caters to more than 50,000 patients with two trained nurses and two doctors, was upgraded into a community health centre with a new building. However, doctors haven’t been posted at the new centre. Says Rajkumar, a doctor at the primary health centre, “We got the new building about four months ago. We are waiting for administrative sanctions”.

It’s a familiar tale of rural India. But what is also significant is that in the post-liberalisation era, the government health sector has virtually vanished from Tier II and III urban centres. Subedar Gupta, 32-year-old commercial vehicle driver from Gurgaon, has discovered that the government sector is an empty shell. It’s the private sector that has fleeced him. His wife Chanda Devi has been complaining of severe bodyache, itching and weakness for the last five years and no one knows why. Gupta spent about Rs 30,000 last month at private hospitals. He is now broke. “They ask us for same tests—blood test, X-rays and ecg. She is continuously on medicines. They are sucking all the money out of us.”

Millions of Indians living in small towns go through the same agony--not knowing where to turn to in the absence of a good health system. Because of that, thousands travel to Delhi’s overburdened AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital, which are staffed with excellent doctors. The rest just pay for a private system designed to extract the maximum from each patient. “Public health is a big question in small cities. They have government hospitals, which are not well-equipped—in terms of infrastructure or adequate numbers of doctors and other staff.  There is also a shortage of woman doctors,” says Dr Rajesh Shukla, a consultant who has evaluated icds programmes in rural areas and studied medical care in small towns.

A large number of swanky hospitals and clinics have come up in urban India. But that does not ensure good care. There is also the issue of all this being loaded in favour of a profit-seeking system. Take the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojna, a government-supported health insurance scheme that rides on the private sector to provide medical care and surgical procedures at predetermined rates. Experts point to the dangers of induced demand and the prescription of unnecessary procedures to claim insurance benefits. Besides, the technology at private centres is often used to fleece patients rather than help them.

Dr Subhash Salunke, former director-general of health services, Goa, and currently director of the Public Health Federation of India, says the private sector is very scattered and unregulated, leading to lot of malpractices. This could have been checked to some extent had rules of the Clinical Establishment Act, 2010, been framed and implemented. Two years after the legislation was passed by Parliament, it hasn’t been implemented. The problem lies with the “stiff resistance from the private sector to the laying down of guidelines”.

The health sector is also crippled by a shortage of doctors and nurses (see graphic). So when the government says it is serious about training more doctors and nurses, by setting up six new AIIMSes, it makes for sound planning. But politics quickly shows up: one of the AIIMSes is planned in Sonia Gandhi’s constituency, Rae Bareli. Many doctors trained in excellent government medical colleges swiftly move to the private sector; they are even reluctant to take up rural jobs or postings. 

“Of the 1,400 doctors appointed after a proper selection process, only 900 joined the service,” disclosed a spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh health directorate. Because of the shortage of doctors in government hospitals, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) had started to recruit those trained in the Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and homoeopathic streams, but the process was stalled by a Rs 5,000 crore scam.

So the poor continue to suffer. In a general ward of Krishnanagar Hospital in Nandia District, West Bengal, members of a patient’s family say that not a single doctor checked their ward for 24 hours after he was admitted with a cerebral condition. The doctor assigned to the hospital, who was in his chambers some 10 km away, had this to say when tracked down by Outlook, “I’m the only doctor for close to 500 patients. Is it possible for me to visit each and every patient? You have to understand my constraints. There is very little monetary incentive for doctors working in the rural areas. These are punishment postings. No one wants to come here. They want to work with rich patients and earn big money.”

As he spoke, there were close to 100 patients waiting in the visiting room to see him. They were all from the villages and small towns in Nandia district. Krishnanagar Hospital is the main district hospital and patients from all over Nadia are referred to this hospital. In Uttar Pradesh, modern private health services have yet to reach beyond a dozen key cities. The rest of the state has to depend on these 12 cities, a handful of which have facilities for tertiary care. 

Some facilities are available only in Lucknow, where the government has concentrated all the healthcare while the rest of the sprawling state—75 districts—goes without even secondary care. According to the NRHM’s fourth common review mission report, of the 515 community health centres in Uttar Pradesh, 308 were below norms laid down in the Indian Public Health Standards.

Even in states that are economically better off, such as Andhra Pradesh, it is an abject tale. Right from Seetampeta in north Srikakulam district to Utnoor in Adilabad, the public healthcare system is in a shambles. Adivasis simply have no access to potable drinking water and succumb easily to totally preventable diseases. If it’s gastroenteritis in Adilabad, it’s malaria in Paderu Agency of Visakhapatnam district. 

Anti-larval spraying operations are late and haphazard. Community health workers are badly trained. Human rights teams which visit these areas say the medicines provided are sometimes past the expiry date. “Deaths due to malaria are sought to be passed off as due to other diseases like cancer, heart stroke, old age or TB,” says V.S. Krishna of the Human Rights Foundation. 

Once touted as a model state for implementation of health insurance, Andhra Pradesh today faces a problem where the scheme is being misused by the rich. A qualified doctor himself, the late YSR, former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, launched the Rajiv Aarogyasri Scheme in 2006, providing medical cover of up to Rs 2 lakh for bpl families. Since corporate hospitals handle a bulk of the procedures, the scheme is misused. Says a cardiac surgeon at a leading Hyderabad hospital, “The rich come and seek heart procedures under Aarogyasri, casually whipping out white cards meant for bpl families. There are no checks.”

The ailments of the poor often have nothing to do with the agendas of rich and powerful pharma companies. Are there lessons India can learn from the world? Experts say that the US has one of the worst public healthcare systems in the developed world. But in most countries, in Latin America or Europe, universal healthcare been achieved through governments. 

In Asia, Sri Lanka and Thailand can teach India some lessons on the health front. So India may be a powerful nation simply by dint of its size and market. But it is also a ‘sick’ nation, where there’s no help for the poor when they fall sick. It’s a country where a poor man can die on the pavement outside a gleaming state-of-the-art hospital with the best medical technology in the world.

The 'International #LeftHandersDay': 'Let's Make The Way For Southpaws'!

BY M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

What is common between Amitabh Bachchan, Hugh Jackman, Kapil Sharma and Sunny Leone? Of course they are actors, popular, affluent and have a tremendous fan following. But the fact that they are left-handy is what binds these Bollywood and Hollywood hearththrobs in the most unique way.

Hottest Microverticals: The Magnificent Seven

By M H Ahssan

As ad hoc tactics of a micro vertical seem to be working in more cases than not, Dataquest presents a list of the hottest micro verticals that IT vendors need to seriously start focusing on.

Between 2009-10 to 2016-17, Indias domestic air passengers number is going to swell from 105 mn to 321 mn. During the same time international air passengers number is expected to go up from 40 mn to 101 mn. Similar kind of growth is expected in cargo movement too, according to Airports Authority of India. Consequently, there has been a tremendous focus in development and modernization of airports. The 11th plan (2007-2012) itself estimated an investment of Rs 30,968 crore in development of airports, with as much as Rs 21,630 core coming from the private sector.

However, going by the recent experience of modernization of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the actual cost is significantly higher than what was estimated. In Delhi alone, DIAL, the GMR-promoted company that is modernizing the airport, has done significant upward revision to the final cost, taking it up by almost 42% to Rs 12,700 crore. Same has happened with Mumbai airport with final cost rising to Rs 9,802 crore from Rs 5,826 crore or 68%. With greenfield airports planned at Goa, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Greater Noida and Kanpur, and plans for thirty-five non-metro airports being modernized, the investment in this segment is going to be huge.

But unlike the earlier phase of infrastructure development, where it was all brick and mortar, the new infrastructure development is happening with keeping the customer experience in mind. And hence IT has become an integral part of the modernization. New airports are expected to spend anywhere between 2-3.5% of the total investment in installing/upgrading IT systems.

Not surprisingly, airports feature on top in our list of seven micro verticals to watch out for the IT industry.

So, what does that mean? Does it mean that these are the sectors that would spend the highest amount on IT? Does it mean that these segments would record the highest growth in IT spending?

Strictly, the answer is neither. And to some extent, the answer is a combination of both.

These seven micro verticals, our editors believe, are the areas where most IT vendors should focus their market development activities. So, they may not be the highly mature segments like PSU banks or existing telecom operators who are already the cash cows. At the same time, they are not so small that they will probably grow in the next six to seven years.

These are the segments that would increasingly spend significant amounts on IT in the next two to four years. All the three italics are important, we believe, for the IT vendors to develop specific market development strategies.

So, according to Dataquest, beyond business as usual, if there has to be significant marketing/market development activities by IT companies, then it should be in these micro verticals.

That, in short, is what these seven micro verticals stand for. But that too must come with a few qualifiers. This does not mean that the ease of market development in each of these are similar. This also does not mean that each of these segments, by themselves, would be very heterogeneous. Take cooperative banks, for example. Some of them have deployed core banking solutions much before many large PSU banks did. Some others do not even have basic branch computerization.

And one disclosure: one of the micro verticals is actually not, in the strict sense of the word: greenfield telecom operators. It is just a subset of a vertical, not a micro vertical. But we believe from market development perspective, the IT vendors would do better to treat it as a micro vertical.

Why & How We Did It
One of the most common complaints that we hear from the sales guys in many IT vendors is that a vertical is too heterogeneous to develop a selling strategy for it. And we discoveredquite accidentallythat most vendors who have done well in a segment have, in a tactical way, taken a micro vertical approach. In some cases, it is organization-wide. In some cases, some smart middle level sales managers have done that and succeeded. We formed that into a hypothesis and tested it by talking to both vendors and users. In more cases than not, the hypothesis was proved to be true.

That is when we decided that a micro vertical approach is a tactics that could be turned into a strategy. And that is when the idea of this story was born.

The next challenge was to identify the micro verticals. This is where we followed an informal process of just creating a shortlist of more than fifteen micro verticals which came from our panel discussions, informal discussions, as well as by following the general macroeconomic indicators and government policies. For example, if infrastructure is a thrust of the government, there has to be growth in that sector. But does rapid growth and higher spending automatically lead to higher IT investments? Not always.

That is when we decided to follow a formal filtering process. We identified four important parameters to judge the hottest micro verticals.

The growth potential of the segment: This was the most important parameter. The assumption here was most businesses today consider IT to be strategic and the growth of business and investment means growth of IT. We assigned the highest weightage to this parameter.

The importance of IT to business: While all businesses today consider IT as strategic, some of them are far more dependent on IT than others. Some may run without significant IT investment. For example, even in one of our identified micro verticalshospitalsIT is still not that strategic, as compared to say, telecom, which runs on IT. We assigned the second highest weightage to this parameter.

Size of the segment: This was more of a filter than a parameter. If there is a completely new segment with lots of IT deployment potential but is too small to make an impact, does it make sense to invest marketing time and effort on that at this time? Probably not. That was the reason behind introducing this filter.

Applicability of generic IT solutions: This was another parameter that we decided to introduce after much debate. Strictly speaking, we could have done without this. But since we wanted our story to appeal to a larger section of vendors, we wanted to exclude micro verticals with closed/dedicated solutions. The reason is not to undermine their importance but treat them separately as stories.

Introduction of this filter resulted in one immediate casualtyfilm productionthat is included in the table as the eighth micro vertical. This, naturally, had the lowest weightage.

Then we assigned scores to each of the short-listed micro verticals. This required some primary and secondary research. Based on the score and weightage, we arrived on the seven micro verticals to watch out for.

We also present, the individual ratings of each micro vertical.