Indian Railways - " To Stop Train Pull Chain" no more to exist

The Indian Railway Ministry decided to do away with "To stop train pull chain" notice from all the coaches. Officials have initiated the work in removing the chains from all trains.

The ubiquitous 'To stop train pull chain' sign in trains across the country could soon be phased out. The Indian Railway Ministry has reportedly decided to do away with the age-old system of chains for the use of emergency breaks in trains.

An official said railways had incurred a loss of Rs 3,000 crore because trains ran late with the indiscriminate chain-pulling for no good reason. The Union Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Sinha has previously said that chain pulling was a big menace in UP and Bihar which resulted in frequent delays in trains.

At Izzatnagar in Bareilly, the work of removing the chains from trains has already begun. Officials say that as an alternative arrangement, the mobile phone number of the driver and assistant driver could be displayed in coaches, so passengers can call in case of an emergency.

Rajendra Singh, public relations officer of the North Eastern Railways, Izzatnagar division, said, "The alarm chains will no longer be installed in new coaches being manufactured at rail coach factories across the country. The Railway Board has already issued a notification requiring that the chains not be installed. Maintenance workshops have already started removing the alarm chains from existing coaches. At Izzatnagar railway workshop, technicians have already started removing the alarm chain from coaches coming in for maintenance."

There won't be anymore chains in the new coaches that are being manufactured as the official notification has been sent to the rail coach factories. The mobile numbers of the driver and the assistant driver will be displayed instead of the chains and further an employee will be present with a walkie talkie in every three coaches who can assist the passengers in case of emergency.

The decision will see the ministry removing the existing chains from the coaches, reports the Times of India.

Also, one employee carrying a walkie-talkie would be present for every three coaches in each train, reports the New Indian Express.

The emergency brake, popularly known as chain, in the compartments of the train, is meant to be used only during an emergency or danger.
 
However, people travelling in the express and non-stop trains which does not have a scheduled stop at the Non-stop station, pull the chain and bring train to a grinding halt to avail a stop.

The perpetrators resort to the nasty trick when the train is about to approach the station or is at a distance of a kilometre) The ‘chain pulling’ instances, off late have increased creating lot of troubles to the railway authorities and to the passengers.

Though it appears to be minor incident, it has far reaching consequence. The chain pulling, known as Inter-Chain Communication (ICC) incidents not only affect the timings of the host train but also adversely affects the trains travelling on the route and their schedule.

How it works ?

The chain system is interconnected to all the coaches of the train. Hence, when a chain is pulled in one coach, the brake system in the coaches jams to bring the train to an immediate halt. In this period, the train is not under the control of driver. One of the difficult task for guards or drivers is to identified the coach, where the chain has been pulled.

The train can only move if the chain is restored back to its original position. The entire process consumes 15 to 25 minutes resulting in delay in the arrival and departure schedule of the train.

Some of the trains travel as far as 1,500 km to 2,000 km. ICC incidents in these trains can affect a whole lot trains, the railway staff said.

The ICC incidents are common in the non-stop trains travelling on the Jolarapet-Bangalore route. As many as two to three incidents are reported every week on from the trains, RPF officials said.

Every day prior to the arrival of the non stop trains, the RPF staff along with technical staff guard up to one kilometer stretch from the Station to avoid ICC incidents. In spite of this, it is difficult to stop the incidents, they added.

The instances are high in trains like - Shatabdi (no 12028), Bhuvaneshwar Express (12846), Tata (12890), Darbanga (12578), Duranto (12246), Bhagalpur (12253), Kochivelu (16315), Shatabdi (12008), Dibrugarh (15901) and Hatiya (12835).

Recurrence

The recurrence is even higher in trains like Bhuvaneshwar, Darbanga, Bhagalpur, Dibrugarh and Hatiya, Railway officials added.

The passengers who try to flee after pulling the chain are apprehended and the person who actually pulled the chain is levied a fine of Rs 1,000. The instances have increased in the past six months and more than six people have been fined for the act, Protection Force official said.

Some of the main reason for the occurrence of ICC incidents is lack of proper train facility and stop facility. Further, it is compounded by the ignorance and lack of awareness among the people. It was also found that many people were not even aware of the railway rules, an official added.

Recently, 60 people were apprehended for the ICC incident on Bhagalpur-Yashwantpur train. During the interrogation, the person responsible for the incident was identified and fine was levied, sources in railway said.

World's first skull Transplant Operation

Opening a new frontier in transplant surgery, Texas doctors say, that they have done the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant to help a man who suffered a large head wound from cancer treatment.

The recipient - Jim Boysen, a 55-year-old software developer from Austin, Texas - expects to leave the hospital Thursday with a new kidney and pancreas along with the scalp and skull grafts. He said he was stunned at how well doctors matched him to a donor with similar skin and hair coloring which involved two operations that spanned over 24 hours.

MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital doctors announced Thursday that they performed the 15-hour-long surgery on May 22 at Houston Methodist.

"I feel much better than I did two weeks ago, believe it or not," Boysen said at a news conference Thursday.

"It's kind of shocking, really, how good they got it. I will have way more hair than when I was 21," Boysen joked in an interview with The Associated Press.

In this photo taken on Wednesday, June 3, 2015, James Boysen is interviewed in his hospital bed at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston. Texas doctors say he received the world's first skull and scalp transplant from a human donor to help heal a large head wound from cancer treatment.

"This was a very complex surgery because we had to transplant the tissues utilizing microsurgery," Dr. Michael Klebuc, the surgeon who led the Houston Methodist Hospital plastic surgery team, said in a statement. "Imagine connecting blood vessels 1/16 of an inch under a microscope with tiny stitches about half the diameter of a human hair being done with tools that one would use to make a fine Swiss watch."

Last year, doctors in the Netherlands said they replaced most of a woman's skull with a 3-D printed plastic one. The Texas operation is thought to be the first skull-scalp transplant from a human donor, as opposed to an artificial implant or a simple bone graft.

Boysen had a kidney-pancreas transplant in 1992 to treat diabetes he has had since age 5 and has been on drugs to prevent organ rejection. The immune suppression drugs raise the risk of cancer, and he developed a rare type called leiomyosarcoma (pronounced lee-oh-my-oh-sar-KOHM-ah).

It can affect many types of smooth muscles but in his case, it was the ones under the scalp that make your hair stand on end when something gives you the creeps.

Radiation therapy for the cancer destroyed part of his head, immune suppression drugs kept his body from repairing the damage, and his transplanted organs were starting to fail -- "a perfect storm that made the wound not heal," Boysen said.

Yet doctors could not perform a new kidney-pancreas transplant as long as he had an open wound. That's when Dr. Jesse Selber, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at MD Anderson, thought of giving him a new partial skull and scalp at the same time as new organs as a solution to all of his problems.

Houston Methodist, which has transplant expertise, partnered on the venture. It took 18 months for the organ-procurement organization, LifeGift, to find the right donor, who provided all organs for Boysen and was not identified.

Boysen's wound extended through his skull to his brain, Selber said.

In a 15-hour operation by about a dozen doctors and 40 other health workers, Boysen was given a cap-shaped, 10-by-10-inch skull graft, and a 15-inch-wide scalp graft starting above his forehead, extending across the top of his head and over its crown. It ends an inch above one ear and 2 inches above the other.

Any surgery around the brain is difficult, and this one required delicate work to remove and replace a large part of the skull and re-establish a blood supply to keep the transplant viable.

"We had to connect small blood vessels about one-sixteenth of an inch thick. It's done under an operating microscope with little stitches about half the thickness of a human hair, using tools like a jeweler would use to make a fine Swiss watch," said Dr. Michael Klebuc, who led the Houston Methodist plastic surgery team.

The pancreas and kidney were transplanted after the head surgery was done.

"It's a very ingenious solution" to the patient's problems, said one independent expert, Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a reconstructive surgeon at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His hospital has done seven face transplants and three double-hand transplants and has plans to do arm and leg ones in the future.

Boysen said he already has sensation in the new scalp.

"That kind of shocked the doctor. He was doing a test yesterday and I said, `Ouch I feel that.' He kind of jumped back," Boysen said.

The new scalp also was sweating in the hot room - another surprise so soon after the operation, he said.

"I'm still kind of in awe of it," Boysen said Thursday at a news conference at Houston Methodist. He will remain in Houston for two to three weeks for follow-up. He will need to keep his head covered because sunlight increases the chance of rejection, his doctors said.

"I'm glad the donor family had the generosity and insight to approve us doing this ... to get through their grief and approve the donation of this tissue besides the organs," said Dr. A. Osama Gaber, transplant chief at Houston Methodist.

Over the last decade, transplants once considered impossible have become a reality. More than two dozen face transplants have been done since the first one in France in 2005; the first one in the U.S. was done in Cleveland in 2008.

More than 70 hand transplants have been done around the world.

Last October, a Swedish woman became the first in the world to give birth after a womb transplant.

A host of patients have received transplants or implants of 3-D printed body parts, ranging from blood vessels to windpipes.

" OUTLIERS " by MALCOLM GLADWELL

Outliers is a great story about success. The book which is written by Malcolm Gladwell gives many examples about how people have become successful in their life. Some of the stories you may not know, but some you do and they will get the reader thinking. Every chapter is different but it ties everything together in how an individual can become successful.

This book really got me thinking about how I can change a little bit to be a success in the things I do. I can use this book in helping me become a better student and also life tasks. If an adult reads this they can use it to think about there careers and even there parenting, This book is great to get the reader thinking. The book can change you and the world to become better. I recommend this book to everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell excels at pinpointing a social phenomenon, be it cultural epidemics (The Tipping Point) or snap judgements (Blink); putting forth his thesis; and illustrating his proof through a series of short, engaging, self-encapsulated histories. In Outliers, he examines the phenomenon of high achievement, fantasic stories of success often attributed to the tenacity, hard work, and innate individual talent.

Gladwell doesn't discount the necessity of innate ability, and he points to hard work as a crucial factor for success in any endeavor. But he finds in these success stories that factors such as timing, circumstance, and cultural heritage play an oft-overlooked yet critical role. Outliers is Malcolm Gladwell's ode to these unsung heros.

In the first part of the book, Gladwell profiles high achievers and the historical conditions surrounding their successes, illustrating anecdotally how they prove what Gladwell calls the 10,000 Hour Rule, that mastery at anything - music, programming, sports, chess - is dependent upon 10,000 hours of practice, roughly three hours a day over the course of ten years.. In his illustrations, Gladwell shows how these individuals were provided with unique opportunities to log these critical practice hours.

In 1968, when Bill Gates was 13 years old, his school, Lakeside Academy in Seattle, Washington, acquired a computer, a terminal on which Gates could program non-stop for the next few years, a once in a lifetime opportunity to practice something that would have unforseen value.

At the age of 16, Gates learned that a mainframe computer was available for free in the middle of the night at the nearby University of Washington. Unbeknown to his parents, the young Gates snuck out each night to write code between 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Good fortune played an critical role in Bill Gates' success by allowing him significant programming practice time that very few others his age had during a critical juncture in computer history.

In Part II of Outliers, Gladwell shifts his focus from circumstantial good fortune and serendipitous timing to the cultural legacies we inherit from our forbears. Key among the illustrations in this section is that of agrarian Chinese from Southern China, who for thousands of years engineered, built, and toiled in rice paddies. The work is famously grueling as well as surprisingly complex, and Gladwell contrasts Chinese commitment in this rigor to the lassitude of peasant farmers in Europe, pointing to the differences in the different systems that evolved around the two forms of work. Through a string of narrative that also references studies of mathematical learning, Gladwell leads us deftly to very plausible explanations for the truth inherent in cultural stereotypes about Asians in academia.

Malcolm Gladwell is a gifted story-teller, and his ability to present his ideas within compelling narrative form is half of what makes his work so engaging and popular. The other half of course is his ability to ask questions, synthesize ideas, and make connections where others fail to see them, or where those who do lack the narrative ability to serve them up irresistibly as Gladwell is known to do.

The Story of Success is the third non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how The Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world, how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours.

The publication debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, holding the position on the former for eleven consecutive weeks. Generally well received by critics, Outliers was considered more personal than Gladwell's other works, and some reviews commented on how much Outliers felt like an autobiography. Reviews praised the connection that Gladwell draws between his own background and the rest of the publication to conclude the book. Reviewers also appreciated the questions posed by Outliers, finding it important to determine how much individual potential is ignored by society. However, the lessons learned were considered anticlimactic and dispiriting. The writing style, deemed easy to understand, was criticized for oversimplifying complex social phenomena.

There is a story that is usually told about extremely successful people, a story that focuses on intelligence and ambition. Gladwell argues that the true story of success is very different, and that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them-at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth date. And in revealing that hidden logic, Gladwell presents a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential.

In The Tipping Point Gladwell changed the way we understand the world. In Blink he changed the way we think about thinking. In OUTLIERS he transforms the way we understand success.
 
10,000 Hours of Practice

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success. This article will review a few examples from Gladwell’s research, and conclude with some thoughts for moving forward.
 
Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.
 
Natural Talent: Not Important

One fascinating point of the study: No “naturally gifted” performers emerged. If natural talent had played a role, we would expect some of the “naturals” to float to the top of the elite level with fewer practice hours than everyone else. But the data showed otherwise. The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.
 
Sneaking Out to Write Code

You already know how Microsoft was founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen dropped out of college to form the company in 1975. It’s that simple: Drop out of college, start a company, and become a billionaire, right? Wrong.

Further study reveals that Gates and Allen had thousands of hours of programming practice prior to founding Microsoft. First, the two co-founders met at Lakeside, an elite private school in the Seattle area. The school raised three thousand dollars to purchase a computer terminal for the school’s computer club in 1968.

A computer terminal at a university was rare in 1968. Gates had access to a terminal in eighth grade. Gates and Allen quickly became addicted to programming.

The Gates family lived near the University of Washington. As a teenager, Gates fed his programming addiction by sneaking out of his parents’ home after bedtime to use the University’s computer. Gates and Allen acquired their 10,000 hours through this and other clever teenage schemes. When the time came to launch Microsoft in 1975, the two were ready.
 
Practice Makes Improvement

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

The group was underpaid. The acoustics were terrible. The audiences were unappreciative. So what did the Beatles get out of the Hamburg experience? Hours of playing time. Non-stop hours of playing time that forced them to get better.

As the Beatles grew in skill, audiences demanded more performances – more playing time. By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.
 
Falling in Love With Practice

The elite don’t just work harder than everybody else. At some point the elites fall in love with practice to the point where they want to do little else.

The elite software developer is the programmer who spends all day pounding code at work, and after leaving work she writes open source software on her own time.

The elite football player is the guy who spends all day on the practice field with his teammates, and after practice he goes home to watch game films.

The elite physician listens to medical podcasts in the car during a long commute.

The elites are in love with what they do, and at some point it no longer feels like work.
 
What’s Next?

Now that we’ve reviewed the trends uncovered by Gladwell’s research, what can we do about it? All of us want to be great at something. Now that we know how other achievers have gotten there, what can we do to join their ranks?

One approach: We could choose a field and practice for 10,000 hours. If we are currently working in our target profession, forty hours per week over five years would give us ten thousand hours.

Or… We can look at the question in reverse. Where have we already logged 10,000 hours of practice? What is it that we do really well? What tasks do we perform so well that people ask: How did you do that? Sometimes when we fall in love with practice we don’t even recognize it!

If you’re running a company, what does your company do better than anybody else? What is it that the individual members of your company do better than anybody? How do you create an environment that gives everyone on your team the opportunity to practice?
 
Conclusion

Business is tough, especially now. Yet even in the midst of a challenging economy, there are individuals and companies that prosper beyond all expectations. Practice plays a major role in success.
 
Suggested Reading

Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Through interviews and statistical analysis, Gladwell determines why some people and organizations achieve success far beyond their peers.

Intelligency as Highest I.Q !

The simple answer to this question is genetics + environment. Every human is born with intrinsic intellectual ability that governs their ability to learn, their curiosity/aptitude for specific subjects, and emotional intelligence that governs the actions a person will take to turn raw ability into productive capacity. From my experience almost all humans can succeed in one intellectual pursuit or another based on their raw ability and determination, but only a small percentage of people have a proclivity for fields like engineering and computer science that require knowledge + innate creative ability.

Variations in the human genome cause certain humans to have a "better" hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, etc that give that individual intellectual advantages. However, it is ALWAYS up to that individual to make the most out of their gifts.

Mankind's rich history has demonstrated, if nothing else, that the human brain is malleable, and that all of us have the capacity for greatness in some form or another. So, while genetic factors predispose some people to greatness, determination and will power are the most important determinants of a human's long-term intellectual capacity. Hope this helps!

The term IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, generally describes a score on a test that rates the subject's cognitive ability as compared to the general population. IQ tests use a standardized scale with 100 as the median score. On most tests, a score between 90 and 110, or the median plus or minus 10, indicates average intelligence. A score above 130 indicates exceptional intelligence and a score below 70 may indicate mental retardation. Like their predecessors, modern tests do take in to account the age of a child when determining an IQ score. Children are graded relative to the population at their developmental level.

What is this cognitive ability being measured? Simply put, IQ tests are designed to measure your general ability to solve problems and understand concepts. This includes reasoning ability, problem-solving ability, ability to perceive relationships between things and ability to store and retrieve information. IQ tests measure this general intellectual ability in a number of different ways. They may test:
 
Spatial Ability            : the ability to visualize manipulation of shapes 
Mathematical Ability: the ability to solve problems and use logic 
Language Ability      : This could include the ability to complete sentences or recognize words when letters have been rearranged or removed.
Memory Ability          : the ability to recall things presented either visually or aurally

Questions in each of these categories test for a specific cognitive ability, but many psychologists hold that they also indicate general intellectual ability. Most people perform better on one type of question than on others, but experts have determined that for the most part people who excel in one category do similarly well in the other categories, and if someone does poorly in any one category, he also does poorly in the others. Based on this, these experts theorize there is one general element of intellectual ability that determines other specific cognitive abilities. Ideally, an IQ test measures this general factor of intelligence, abbreviated as g. The best tests, therefore, feature questions from many categories of intellectual ability so that the test isn't weighted toward one specific skill.

Because IQ tests measure your ability to understand ideas and not the quantity of your knowledge, learning new information does not automatically increase your IQ. Learning may exercise your mind, however, which could help you to develop greater cognitive skills, but scientists do not fully understand this relationship. The connection between learning and mental ability is still largely unknown, as are the workings of the brain and the nature of intellectual ability. Intellectual ability does seem to depend more on genetic factors than on environmental factors, but most experts agree that environment plays some significant role in its development.

But can you increase your IQ score? There is some evidence that children develop higher intellectual ability if they receive better nurturing and diet as babies, and a higher degree of intellectual stimulation in preschool tends to boost children's IQ scores for a few years of elementary school but does not permanently increase IQ scores. For the most part, adult IQ scores don't significantly increase over time. There is evidence that maintaining an intellectually stimulating atmosphere (by learning new skills or solving puzzles, for example) boosts some cognitive ability, similar to the way maintaining an exercise regimen boosts physical ability, but these changes aren't permanent and do not have much effect on IQ scores.

So your IQ score is relatively stable, no matter what education you acquire. This does not mean that you can't increase your intelligence. IQ tests are only one imperfect method of measuring certain aspects of intellectual ability. A lot of critics point out that IQ tests don't measure creativity, social skills, wisdom, acquired abilities or a host of other things we consider to be aspects of intelligence. The value of IQ tests is that they measure general cognitive ability, which has been proven to be a fairly accurate indicator of intellectual potential. There is a high positive correlation between IQ and success in school and the work place, but there are many, many cases where IQ and success do not coincide.

Aruna Shanbaug - Sad story of a Nurse

Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug (1 June 1948 – 18 May 2015), a young, beautiful, high-spirited, strong- willed girl who hailed from a small village called Haldipur in Honnavar taluk of north Coastal Karnataka (in southern state of Karnataka) alternatively spelled Shanbhag, was an Indian nurse who was at the centre of attention in a court case on euthanasia being in a vegetative state as a result of sexual assault who died from pneumonia on 18 May 2015 after being in a persistent vegetative state for nearly 42 years.

 

Just like those thousands, she reached Bombay (now Mumbai) with dreams in her eyes, she left her home at a tender age of 18. Her goals were set, she knew what she wanted in her life.

Aruna completed a nursing course in Bombay on her own without anybody’s support. She landed herself a job as a junior nurse in the famous King Edward Memorial Hospital. She was a strict disciplinarian, authoritative, highly responsible and efficient, amongst the best nurses of the hospital. She had a promising carrier ahead and was loved and liked by all.

While working as a nurse in King Edward Memorial Hospital, Aruna fell in love with Dr. Sundeep Sardesai. Both of them admitted the love to each other and soon got engaged. They had even fixed a date for their marriage. That’s when everything seemed very perfect for Aruna.

In November 27, 1973, while working as a junior nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Shanbaug was brutal sexually assaulted by Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, a sweeper ( Ward boy ) on contract at the King Edward Memorial Hospital. Walmiki was motivated partly by resentment for being ordered about and castigated by Aruna. He attacked her while she was changing clothes in the hospital basement.

Walmiki choked her with a dog chain and paralyzed her. Hospital staff found her unconscious 11 hours after attack the dog's chain around her neck had cut by the asphyxiation cut off oxygen supply to her brain, resulting in brain stem contusion injury and cervical cord injury apart from leaving her cortically blind. But she did not die in fact she suffered bravely (and is still suffering) but the damage is irreversible both physically and mentally. Sohanlal did not only snatch her dignity but snatched her whole life, she is bed-ridden, completely dependent on the nurses of the hospital in which she once served other patients.

Walmiki was caught and convicted, and served two concurrent seven-year sentences for assault and robbery but not for rape or sexual molestation (which could have got him a ten-year sentence by itself). Sohanlal got released after 7 years of imprisonment but Aruna still traumatised

Following the attack, nurses in Mumbai went on strike demanding improved conditions for Aruna and better working conditions for themselves. They even succeeded as a police case was registered as a case of robbery and attempted murder. To avoid the social rejection of the victim, and her impending marriage, the original crime of anal rape was concealed by the doctors under the instructions of the Dean of KEM, Dr. Deshpande, perhaps

Aruna is in Permanent Vegetative State (PVS). Her pain is incurable and condition irreversible. She is locked up in her own body to wait for a slow, painful death. Unfortunately, Aruna’s family abandoned her after the hospital started insisting that they should take her home. But the fellow nurses at the KEM hospital in Mumbai had her kept her alive for 42 years. Their love and care for Aruna are highly appreciable.

For Aruna her home became the same hospital where she used to serve whole heartedly. She occupies the same room outside ward 4 of the hospital since 38years.

In 2010, Pinki Virani, Aruna’s friend and activist-journalist filed a petition for euthanasia for Aruna Shanbaug. The Supreme Court praised Ms Virani’s concern, but ruled that her relationship with the patient does not give her right to petition on Ms Shanbaug’s behalf for a mercy killing. The only party that can appeal for euthanasia for Ms. Shanbaug was the staff of KEM Hospital which has nursed her since 38 years. Aruna‘s case is a landmark, while rejecting Virani’s plea for Aruna Shanbaug’s euthanasia, the court laid out guidelines for passive euthanasia. Virani didn’t have anymore to say than a sheer grief over her friend’s pathetic state.

On 24 January 2011, after she had been in this state for 37 years, the Supreme Court of India responded to the plea for euthanasia filed by Aruna's friend, journalist Pinki Virani, by setting up a medical panel to examine her. The court rejected the petition on 7 March 2011. However, in its landmark opinion, it allowed passive euthanasia in India. Pinky Virani has authored a moving book on Aruna Shanbaug titled 'Aruna's Story'.

Rejecting the request for mercy killing, Justice Markandey Katju wrote in his May 2011 judgement "It would be incorrect to say that Smt Aruna Shanbaug is an appropriate case for coma. It appears that for a crucial, critical period her brain was deprived of oxygen supply and this has resulted in her present state similar to that of Cerebral Palsy in the newborn child. It is a condition where brain looses it's coordinatory, sensory as well as motor functions and this includes loss of speech and perception. This has resulted into a state which in a layman's words "Aruna lives in her own world for last 37 years".

She is lying in a bed in a single room for 33 years. She has not been able to stand or walk, nor have we attempted to do that of late because we fear that she is fragile and would break her bones if she falls. Her extremities and fingers have developed contractures and subsequent to non-use; there is wasting of her body muscles. Her eyes are open and she blinks frequently; however, these movements are not pertaining to a specific purpose or as a response to a question. At times she is quiet and at times she shouts or shrieks.

However, I must say that her shouts and shrieks are completely oblivious to anybody's presence in her room. It is not true that she shouts after seeing a man. I do not think Aruna can distinguish between a man and a woman, nor can she even distinguish between ordinate and inordinate object. We play devotional songs rendered by Sadguru Wamanrao Pai continuously in her room and she lies down on her bed listening to them. She expresses her displeasure by grimaces and shouts if the tape recorder is switched off. All these years she was never fed by tube and whenever a nurse used to take food to her lips, she used to swallow it. It is only since September 2010 she developed Malaria and her oral intake dropped.

In order to take care of her calorie make need, nurses cadre resorted to naso-gastric tube feed and now she is used to NG feeding. However, if small morsels are held near her lips, Aruna accepts them gladly. It appears that she relishes fish and occasionally smiles when she is given non-vegetarian food. However, I am honest in admitting that her smiles are not purposeful and it would be improper to interpret them as a signal of gratification. I must put on record that in the world history of medicine there would not be another single case where such a person is cared and nurtured in bed for 33 long years and has not developed a single bed sore. This speaks of volumes of excellence of nursing care that KEM Nursing staff has given to her.

This care is given not as a part of duty but as a part of feeling of oneness. With every new batch of entrants, the student nurses are introduced to her and they are told that she was one of us and she continues to be one of us and then they whole-heartedly take care of Aruna.

In my opinion, this one is finest example of love, professionalism, dedication and commitment to one of our professional colleagues who is ailing and cannot support herself. Not once, in this long sojourn of 33 years, anybody has thought of putting an end to her so called vegetative existence. There have been several Deans and Doctors of KEM Hospital who have cared her in succession. Right from illustrious Dr CK Deshpande in whose tenure the incidence happened in 1973, Dr GB Parulkar, Dr Smt Pragna M Pai, Dr RJ Shirahatti, Dr Smt NA Kshirsagar, Dr ME Yeolekar and now myself Dr Sanjay N Oak, all of us have visited her room time and again and have cared for her and seen her through her ups and downs. The very idea of withholding food or putting her to sleep by active medication (mercy killing) is extremely difficult for anybody working in Seth GSMC & KEM Hospital to accept and I sincerely make a plea to the Learned Counsel and Hon'ble Judges of Supreme Court of India that this should not be allowed. Aruna has probably crossed 60 years of life and would one day meet her natural end. The Doctors, Nurses and staff of KEM, are determined to take care of her till her last breath by natural process.

Pinky believed that keeping Aruna alive in this vegetative state violated her right to live with dignity. But the Supreme Court took note of the care taken by KEM nurses.

Justice Markandey Katju wrote in his judgement "The hospital staff has provided her an excellent nursing care since then which included feeding her by mouth, bathing her and taking care of her toilet needs. The care was of such an exceptional nature that she has not developed a single bed-sore or fracture in spite of her bedridden state since 1973.

According to the history from them, though she is not very much aware of herself and her surrounding, she somehow recognizes the presence of people around her and expresses her like or dislike by making certain types of vocal sounds and by waving her hands in certain manners. She appears to be happy and smiles when she receives her favorite food items like fish and chicken soup. She accepts feed which she likes but may spit out food which she doesn't like. She was able to take oral feeds till 16th September 2010, when she developed a febrile illness, probably malaria. After that, her oral intake reduced and a feeding tube (Ryle's tube) was passed into her stomach via her nose. Since then she receives her major feeds by the Ryle's tube, and is only occasionally able to accept the oral liquids. Malaria has taken a toll in her physical condition but she is gradually recuperating from it."

"Occasionally, when there are many people in the room she makes vocal sounds indicating distress. She calms down when people move out of her room. She also seems to enjoy the devotional songs and music which is played in her room and it has calming effect on her.

In an annual ritual, each and every batch of nursing students is introduced to Ms Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug, and is told that "She was one of us"; "She was a very nice and efficient staff nurse but due to the mishap she is in this bed-ridden state".

The entire nursing staff member and other staff members have a very compassionate attitude towards Ms Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug and they all very happily and willingly take care of her. They all are very proud of their achievement of taking such a good care of their bed-ridden colleague and feel very strongly that they want to continue to take care of her in the same manner till she succumbs naturally. They do not feel that Ms Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug is living a painful and miserable life."

Four decades after, Aruna is finally free. But her demise brings to an end the greatest story of nurses dedication.

While Duttakumar Desai wrote the Marathi play, Katha Arunachi in 1994-95 and was performed at the college level, subsequently it was staged under director Vinay Apte in 2002. Actress Anumol played Aruna in a Malayalam film 'Maram Peyyumbol'.