Educate students about the pandemic
It is understood that medical students in the country will now have to learn about pandemic management along with its social, legal and other aspects in the MBBS course. The document containing details of the module to be adopted by colleges has reportedly been put up together by a team of experts and the academic cell of the Medical Council of India (MCI).
The pandemic management module is designed to ensure that MBBS students acquire competence in handling not only the illness but also the social, legal and other issues arising from such disease outbreak. According to several medical experts the COVID-19 pandemic is here to stay. It becomes of utmost importance to learn to live with the virus in a world of “new normal”. Hence as and when the schools reopen, it would be desirable to introduce a lesson for the school students, and even college students, dealing in various safety aspects to be followed. Students should be acquainted with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). They should also be made aware of how the virus spreads, the symptoms associated with the disease, the safety precautions to be taken and when to seek treatment for the disease. School students should be trained to live in a world of “new normal”. This will go a long way in even educating the elders in the family through the student community.
Adelmo Fernandes,
Vasco
Grand Onam is ‘shattered’
For the people of Malayalees the celebration of Onam will be limited inside the homes. There will be no public celebration of the festivals in this year.
The festival Onam commemorates the return of mythical demon king Mahabali to see his beloved subjects at the beginning of ‘Chingam’, the first month of the Malayalam calendar, which falls on August 31. The mythical ruler is traditionally welcomed with a carpet of flowers, popularly known as pookalam, in front of houses, and ‘Onam Sadyas’ (feasts) and the festival is celebrated with great joy and enthusiasm by people across communities.
As a precautionary measure Kerala government instructing its people that the floral carpet to be made with locally available flowers due to the risk the spread of Covid-19 from flowers brought from other regions. Because there are people who trivialise the current Covid-19 situation.
K.G.Vilop, Chodan
Green Revolution
Fr George Quadros has brought in a green revolution in Goa by pioneering mechanized transplanting of rice reducing the cost of transplanting drastically as compared to manual labour, thus making rice cultivating economically viable. He takes the burden off your shoulders, he germinates the rice seed of your choice at his nursery at Loutolim, brings it to the transplanting site in his own vehicle along with his well-trained personnel, even if it rains cats and dogs.
If you are lucky you see the man himself at the wheel, taking the corners of your field like a Formula 1 driver, transplanting 1 acre of your field in a jiffy (about 1 hour),’By George he’s done it ‘’. Drops his hat and off to a new location, a green evangelist who only converts brown to green stalling landfills and illegal conversion.
The name ‘George’ is associated with St. George the dragon slayer and in Greek mythology to patronizing farming. Here in the village of Chinchinim we have a special bond with Fr. George for diligently serving us, for the last 4 seasons.
Come September! and we have a bountiful harvest of golden sheaves of rice paddy swaying in the autumn cool breeze, a bonanza for his sweat and hard work, a man for all seasons, an example for all of us to follow. Wish him good health and blessings.
Agnelo Furtado,
Chinchinim
Call for help of common man!
Day by day Covid management in Goa seems to be going downhill rapidly.
In Margao, municipal councillors/police/administrative services staff have no intimation about cases around them. So called cooperative housing societies show no cooperation in sharing information about anyone being positive and under home isolation within the society.
After the person comes back from COVID care centre, as an afterthought we come to know that our neighbour was positive and that we should have taken precautions/ gotten ourselves tested too!
Macho people roam around without masks or around their chin blissfully unawares that they can be super spreaders. Social distancing, what is that? Fish markets, vegetable stalls, pharmacies, food stalls, people are sticking to each other like there is no tomorrow.
Nodal officers are invisible / not reachable / not responding to queries.
RIP Goa.
I. M. Madgaonkar,
Margao
Congress needs a change in guard
The recent rebellion by some 20-odd senior Congressmen does not augur too well for the grand old party with national elections which are due in 2024.
First the young turks like Jyotiraditya Scindia followed by Sachin Pilot revolted. Scindia left and found greener pastures in the BJP. Pilot somehow did not bite the bait and unconditionally remained with the party. This party requires drastic changes to be made in its top hierarchy if they are to mount a serious challenge to the might of BJP and Modi at the next hustings.
The false notion that only a Gandhi can hold the party together has to be confined to the pages of history. There are manyinstances of non-Gandhi family members holding the top position of the party and even winning elections for the party e.g S. Nigalingappa, Jagjivan Ram, Brahmananda Reddy, P.V Narisima Rao, Sitaram Kesri etc.
There are some brilliant and loyal hands in the party who can take over the mettle of leadership whenever the situation warrants and make the party a force to reckon with and bring it back to its former glory.
Lucas Dsouza,
Verna
The poverty and our moral responsibility
The contiguous disease COVID-19, which has been spreading rapidly across the country, has severely impacted a large segment of the unorganized sector – the daily wage workers, the construction labourers, farmers and so on, who do not have the necessary resources to survive. They rely on their daily wages to put food on the table. These individuals from under-served communities are on the brink of starvation. They suffer from various problems such as lack of access to food. Many of them have mostly exhausted their monthly ration supplies and most of them do not have access to avail rations due to lack of awareness. Lakhs of the students rely on midday meals which have also stopped since all schools have shut down.
The governments have been making efforts to provide with ration and food supplies to them, but it is extremely limited and insufficient. It is government’s responsibility to ensure them to get their needs and the once able should take this time as a great opportunity to serve and help the poor and needy people.
M N Musaeed, Mumbai
