Photo of Venezuelan flag in smoke by ··· Mango Verde con Sal ··· and used under a Creative Commons license.

The international and Venezuelan public opinion still wonders if Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's intentions of war are serious, while they explore the real possibilities of Venezuela getting into an armed conflict for which the nation does not seem prepared. Meanwhile, violent incidents along the border raise tensions and puts a veil on a situation, making it difficult for a reconciliation between the two countries anytime soon. However, the most expanded opinion in the blogosphere makes it clear that a war in ths region would be a conflict among people with a very close historical background and a very deep cultural attachment.

Daniel, through his blog Venezuela News and Views quotes a very controversial Venezuelan ex-president and gives his point of view:

… Translating this communique and publishing me puts me on record as someone that will not go to war against Colombia. If Colombia were to attack is a different matter but I would need proof of it since, courtesy to the FARC and even the ELN, Chavez could create a pretext to make it look like Colombia attacked.(…)

In other words, unless proven that indeed the US and Colombia are preparing an invasion to Venezuela, which odds for me are about <0.01% , I am in open refusal and thus a traitor by chavista canon. Not to mention that I am a pacifist, a conscience objector, and cannot justify any war unless overt aggression is clearly proved. And even then I would be unable to hold a gun and shoot, and would be of any use only at some hospital or such service(…)

Gandica, from the blog Enigma Press [es] gives an original idea:

Ahora bien esta es mi posición: Si estalla la guerra entre Venezuela-Colombia invito a la comunidad virtual de blogs de Venezuela a salir con la bandera colombiana. Y a toda la tribu electrónica colombiana a salir con la bandera de Venezuela. Y combatiremos -en esta guerra entre Venezuela y Colombia- a punta de balas de aguardiente y balas de ron en una zona temporal autónoma bajo los explosivos tonos del vallenato y nuestros joropos llaneros. Y después del combate, ebrios de felicidad, nos abrazaremos y reiremos como nunca antes. Que los políticos de Venezuela y Colombia y sus poderosos intereses y los perros de la guerra-Venezuela-Colombia se despedacen entre ellos.

Facebook has also been a tool to express the disapproval on this growing conflict. The group “Paz entre Colombia y Venezuela (Peace between Colombia and Venezuela)” looks for people online to join and discuss.

This is their main objective:

Este grupo no es para discutir si Chavez es bueno o malo o si Uribe hace las cosas bien o no, es solo para que, independientemente de la ideología política de cada uno de los miembros de este grupo nos unamos para RECHAZAR ROTUNDAMENTE UNA POSIBLE GUERRA ENTRE LOS PUEBLOS HERMANOS!.

Photo by Rudy Girón of Antigue Daily Photo and used under a Creative Commons license.

In Guatemala, the Multi-Annual Campaign (extended from 2008 to 2015) of the Regional Chapter, “JOIN together to put an End to Violence against Women” was recently launched, and Radio Feminista is reporting on the event at the collaborative space Fin a la Violencia (End to Violence). In addition, the organization Take Back the Tech is promoting a 16-day blogathon by taking over the blogosphere to discuss topics related to violence against women and ways to prevent it through the use of technology. Anyone can join the network and blog about the subject, from any place, in any language.

Honduras

When a crisis arises across the world, it often leaves women more vulnerable as a target for violence. For example, the blog Género con Clase [es] from Honduras republishes and article written by Tacuazina Morales, who writes that there was an increase of violence and brutality against women just after the coup. This was due in part to the “state of non-protection that victims found themselves and the weakening of the institutions responsible for the protection of the human rights of the women.” According to Feministas en Resistencia, there were approximately 400 cases of violence against women during the demostrations against the coup, including 23 sexual assaults, some of which had the involvement of state security forces.

Guatemala

In neighboring Guatemala, impunity, which is the non-prosecution or punishment of perpetrators, is the most serious consequence of this phenomenon. Up to 97% of the cases of violence against Guatemalan women are not prosecuted according to the blog Género con Clase [es]. Journalist Montserrat Boix features several organizations working on the issue in the country, and also highlights the recent Law Against Femicide passed in 2009 [es].

Guatemalan blogger Ixmucane of Cine Sobre Todo [es] writes about migrant women, who are especially vulnerable to violence:

Unas de las situaciones en las que las mujeres están más indefensas es en la migración, porque están lejos del círculo familiar que las proteje, no conocen las leyes y muchas veces tampoco el idioma. Insisto que cuando hablo de migración, hablo de la migración dentro del país como hacia el extranjero. Y lo peor es que no se quiere defraudar a la familia que se queda, ya que ellos dependen muchas veces económicamente de ellas.

In the Catholic Church, a novena is a devotion consisting of prayer typically said on nine successive days, asking to obtain special graces, so Julio Serrano of the blog Fellinada [es] wrote a series of nine articles or “a novena” to unveil the complexities of violence against women. He also asks for the grace to replace violence with words of love: he used as his prayers, nine real stories of different kinds of violence against women and he ends with these thoughts:

Finalmente, no es un golpe bajo hablar del amor en este día, es una postura radical, política, amar es un acto social. Desde mi masculinidad y reivindicando a la mujer en mí, y a la mujer en el otro, y a las mujeres cercanas y lejanas, a mi mamá, a mi novia, a mis amigas, a mis hermanos, a mi papá, a mis amigos, y a aquellas tres hermanas y a lo que representan para nosotros hoy, para ustedes estas palabras llenas de amor”

Photo by Rudy Girón of Antigua Daily Photo and used under a Creative Commons license

Rudy Girón of the blog Antigua Daily Photo made a statement about why we should reject violence as something normal, and why we should take that as a starting point to be part of the solution to solve the problem of violence against women:

I do not want to hear gun shots as normal. I refuse to take violent acts as normal. I do not want to be desensitized towards all the manifestations of violence. I do not want to see naked guns on the streets; at the entrance of banks; with every delivery truck; at shops and every tiendita (store) in the country. I do not want to be part of the problem. I will not yield to words that belittle women or other people. I will not. I want to be part of the solution.

The world has changed again, bringing more complex problems to the forefront to be solved, but because of the internet there are also more voices to join the conversation who add their ideas for solutions. Even the most marginalized in society, poor, indigenous women are fighting for their rights as described by the blog of Guatemala Solidarity so it is time to say no to violence and say yes to a more equal society.

Local pediatricians are using the iPhone to connect with experts in Bangalore for screening and diagnosis of a potentially blinding condition in newly born infants, ROP (retinopathy of prematurity), so they can be treated within 48 hours. Already 1600 infants have been screened and 160 have been treated successfully.

Cut across to North-East India's Tripura Vision Centre project which is effectively utilizing ICTs to reach rural masses with quality eye care services through tele-ophthalmology.

e-Health and more specifically telemedicine, promises to revolutionize rural health care in India soon. It is a welcome development, given the inadequacies of health care in rural areas.

The ambitious aim of India’s first National Health Policy [NHP], framed in 1983, was to achieve the goal of Health for All, by 2000 AD, through the provision of comprehensive primary health care services. Yet, given the country’s vast geographical spread, huge population, inadequate rural infrastructure and paucity of health care personnel, trying to make health care accessible to all has presented seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Consider these daunting statistics:

• Over 72%  (that would be over 620 million) of India’s population lives in its 638,588 villages.
• Government spending on health care is a mere 0.9% of GDP (2006 data) while the WHO recommended figure is around 5%. Of this, very little reaches the rural millions.
• India has about 5.97 physicians and 7.9 nurses per 10,000 population while the global norm is 22.5. Of these, 75% of medical specialists live and work in urban areas. There is a huge shortfall of medical personnel in rural areas.
• The number of hospital beds in rural areas is only about 0.19 per 1000 patients (Urban India=2.2, World average = 3.96, and developed countries =7.2)
• 66% of rural Indians do not have access to critical medicine

In an article in PLos Medicine, Sanjit Bagchi, a medical practitioner and medical journalist based in Calcutta, India, writes:

The poor infrastructure of rural health centers makes it impossible to retain doctors in villages, who feel that they become professionally isolated and outdated if stationed in remote areas.

In addition, poor Indian villagers spend most of their out-of-pocket health expenses on travel to the specialty hospitals in the city and for staying in the city along with their escorts. A recent study conducted by the Indian Institute of Public Opinion found that 89% of rural Indian patients have to travel about 8 km to access basic medical treatment, and the rest have to travel even farther.

Keenly aware of the problem at hand, the GOI, in partnership with both public sector as well as private sector organizations, has been trying to promote and implement telemedicine and e-health projects across various states since 1999.

The basic telemedicine model as described by DIT's K.K.Ghosh in his presentation “Telemedicine: DIT intiative” [ppt] is as follows:

India saw telemedicine in action on a large-scale for the first time in 2001 after the earthquake in Gujarat, when the Ahmadabad-based Online Telemedicine Research Institute established a communication system from Bhuj, one of the worst hit places and hence pretty inaccessible. Soon they had a disaster management system up and running that allowed for the electronic transfer of medical needs, data etc., and enabled medical specialists to provide consultations from far away places through video-conferencing.

Other government and private players in the telemedicine space in India, especially in connection with the semi-urban, rural poor/ isolated communities and tribes can be found in this 2008 report from ehealth-connection.org. They include:

• Department of Information Technology (DIT) & Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), which falls under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. DIT has been carrying out telemedicine pilot projects across various states such as West Bengal, Tripura, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.
• ISRO, offering connectivity backbone through satcom applications such as  GRAMSAT
• The Ministry of Health & Family welfare and its National Rural Telemedicine Network working under the wings of the National Rural Health Mission
• Private hospitals such as Apollo (Ex: The Aragonda project)

Sanjit Bagchi points out:

The efficacy of telemedicine has already been shown through the network established by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which has connected 22 super-specialty hospitals with 78 rural and remote hospitals across the country through its geo-stationary satellites. This network has enabled thousands of patients in remote places such as Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Lakshadweep Islands, and tribal areas of the central and northeastern regions of India to gain access to consultations with experts in super-specialty medical institutions. ISRO has also provided connectivity for mobile telemedicine units in villages, particularly in the areas of community health and ophthalmology

In the following video, Mr. Chaturvedi, Director of The National Rural Health Mission in India, speaks about the ‘over-arching' program, launched in 2005.

On why telemedicine is good for India, Dr. K. Ganapathy, President of the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation had this to say:

The distribution of specialists in India is indeed lopsided. There are more neurologists and neurosurgeons in Chennai, than in all the states of North eastern India put together… The increasing availability of excellent telecommunications, infrastructure and video conferencing equipment will help provide a physician where there was none before.

(…)

This also ensures maximal utilisation of suburban hospitals. The general practitioner in the rural/suburban area often feels that he would loose his patient to the city consultant. With Telemedicine the community doctor continues to primarily treat the patient under a specialist’s umbrella. With modern software/ hardware at either end 90% of the normal interaction can be accomplished through Telemedicine.

The journey of telemedicine in India is however, not without challenges. Sanjit Bagchi writes:

“There are inevitable difficulties associated with the introduction of new systems and technologies,” according to Sathyamurthy (Programme Director, Telemedicine, ISRO). “There are some who needlessly fear that they will lose their jobs. Although the systems are user-friendly, there are others who are affected by the fear of the unknown in handling computers and other equipment. There is a feeling that the initial investment is high and hence financially not viable.” In addition, there may be technical hitches, such as low bandwidth and lack of interoperability standards for software.

Sanjay Prakash Sood of the Centre for Electronics Design & Technology of India mentions some other challenges on the road to e-health such as lack of health infrastructure and services, shortage of computer-savvy health care personnel, and poor quality of communication services in many of the cities.

Toms K. Thomas, Senior Manager at ESAF India in his presentation“ICT & Rural Healthcare: Tele-Clinics in Chhatarpurin Madhya Pradesh (India)” points out that:

There is a need for public sector to be an enabler who invests in infrastructure –Living condition of the poor, Power, Road , Transport -ENABLING ICT TO OPERATE

He also talks about the basic infrastructure required for a model ICT enabled District Public Health System (DPHS)

The Indian government slogan “Health for all by 2000AD” may in the end have been an over-ambitious dream that has fallen by the wayside. It still remains to be seen, whether or not today's promise of health care delivery to India's rural millions via ICT will succeed in transforming tomorrow's reality.

26/11. Image by Flickr user -g-r-a-c-e-. Used under a Creative Commons License

One year ago, Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital came under a well-coordinated terrorist attack that lasted for 3 days. Downtown Mumbai, or “town” as it is popularly known was the target of 10 young men who reportedly arrived by boats from Pakistan and attacked the railway station, the main artery for commuters and a series of luxury hotels, a popular bar and a Jewish home. At least 200 people died in the attack and at least 308 people were injured. All but one young Pakistani attackers survived. That lone survivor Kasab is in India and has been the primary source of information about the attack. Nobody has claimed the body of the 9 young men, who launched the attack and paralysed Mumbai.

Only one word, fear! Collage by Flickr user Keerthi. Used under a Creative Commons License

For three days people around the world witnessed the brutal carnage unfold on their television sets. In hindsight it appears that the 10 young men were receiving instructions from a source in Pakistan on how to execute the attack.

Earlier today on the eve of the first anniversary of 26/11 the Government of Pakistan announced that it has charged seven suspects for organizing the attack. The seven arrested men have not pleaded guilty to the charge according to reports.

Madhavi at The Trajectory blog writes that Pakistan's actions comes after a year of “vehement denial” of the attacks. She continues:

“The most high profile name among those charged is Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, head of the banned militant group Laskar-e-Taiba.”

Madhavi's post has an interesting twist in the end when she asks:

“Pakistan has handed India an anniversary gift for 26/11 in the form of Lakhvi & company’s verdict; the people of India are still hoping to receive forgotten anniversary gifts. March 13th 1993, December 13th 2001, July 11th 2006, November 26th 2008…how many more strikes do we need before even a single mastermind of these terrorist attacks is punished by the Government of India?”

Nita at A Wide Angle View of India wonders why are the foot soldiers (the Mumbai police) being blamed for doing an effective job in staving off the attack? It is not the foot soldiers that need to be blamed, but the top politicians and security folks of Mumbai. She writes:

“So many died in vain, but not a single person has taken responsibility for the carnage. We need to mourn the dead, but we also need to ask for the answers. It is the top cops and the politicians who are to blame. For the lack of coordination and action. It is really pathetic and in really bad taste to see television channels blast the foot soldiers. Try and shame those poor unequipped men who had rifles that were rusted, men who ran helter skelter because they had no leader to direct them. Men who weren’t even sure where the terrorists were, how many there were, what they were up to. […]

The foot soldiers in Mumbai had nothing. If some of them ran, let us not blame them.”

While there were lots of articles written and many recommendations made in the immediate aftermath of 26/11 not much progress has happened, writes Filter Coffee. He writes:

“Sadly, barring a few cosmetic rearrangements, not much has changed in India, and no one, least of all Mumbaikars seem to care.”

Nyaypati Gautam of India Story appears to echo the feelings of Filter Coffee about the lack of change in the past year. But, he wonders what it is that he can do to bring about some change? He writes:

“We continue to be as apathetic as before. If any terror strike were to happen today I fear that the same things would get re-enacted. I hope I have got it wrong but I have a dirty feeling that I am not. It is so frustrating. What can I do to channelise this anger in a meaningful way?”

Many people used Twitter to share news and express their opinions. Here are a few examples of those messages:

RodrigoRMorais: USA Today is saying “Mumbai commemorates one-year anniversary of terror attacks”. What is there to commemorate about?

aniljayakumar: A minute for Mumbai………….

NitinNDTV: all of us will forever remember 26/11,but let's not forget victims of earlier attacks & the brave men who continue to die in defending India

madhavgk: Politicians abused after 26/11 last year… politicians abused after 26/11 this year… nothing changes in Indian politics!

nsohanlal: 26/11 Jingoism on twitter today… Alas will be forgotten as a mundane Monday come Sunday!

Photo by goricvet

Planetrees, or platanus, planted at the end of the 19th century, were cut down in the public garden named after Amir Temur (Tamerlane) in Tashkent last week. As officials say, the felling was carried out according to the plan of sanitary actions to be held in the city. However, it was visible that the trees were in good condition and well-attended.

Moreover, two old buildings located next to the public garden are being demolished. The first one is the recently renovated hotel “Poytakht” (“Capital” in Uzbek), which was built in the middle of the last century. The second one is the former Russian Orthodox Church that was erected for the Tashkent Teachers Seminary in 1898. A new administrative building is planned to be constructed there.

Joendax writes (rus):

I never worried about tress so much before. But on that day and several days after, I couldn’t believe it’s true. When I recall these memories I start crying, because I can not change anything.

How this can be explained? Many consider that the main reason of these actions is the new Forum Palace, built next to the public garden earlier this year. This was the subject of wide speculation among Uzbekistan bloggers.

So UNKNOWN wrote:

[…] there was a command on urgent dismantling of the central and the oldest telephone station in Tashkent, built in 1932. This was a surprise for the most of its workers and subscribers. At the same time they demolished the central bus station located near the telephone station. A new Forum Palace is planned to be built on this territory.

However, the Palace still provokes many questions among the public, especially concerning the expediency of such spending, the use of foreign labor force on the construction site against the background of wide unemployment in the country and other issues, including the ban on taking pictures of the building.

Now the Palace’s victims are old trees in front of it.

Some suppose that the monument to Amir Temur, located in the middle of the public garden, was the main reason for elimination of trees:

nashingyou comments with a bitter sarcasm (rus):

[…] Tashkent must always be young and fresh! What does it need the old tall and thick trees for? What does it need the old architectural monuments for? This is the past! For example, the public garden has been recently exterminated, so now tourists can see the horse of Amir Temur from afar.

On November 21 young activists held a protest against this vandalism.

They laid flowers and candles to the public garden’s fence, next to the Forum Palace. The action was to be held inside the garden, but entrance was closed by the police, while bulldozers were working there. Shortly after the action began, the police came to blew out candles and threw away flowers.

Blogger roost reports (rus):

Protest near the Amir Temur Square was held on Saturday. On the one hand, it was good, because it brought together a sufficient number of people. […] On the other hand, it was not successful, because most candles stood there only for a minute or so. As far as I know, nobody was detained.