THE UNQUALIFIED MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS - Methods of Practice and Nexus with the Qualified Doctors

The private sector accounts for about 75 percent of outpatient as well as inpatient medical care in Andhra Pradesh. The presence of a large number of unqualified medical practitioners in the rural areas and urban slums indicate that they provide most of the outpatient services in the private sector. Given the huge quantum of services provided by the RMPs, the present study aims at identifying their number, characteristics and the nexus with the qualified doctors through a case study of one district in AP. The RMPs have no professional qualification and no license to practice any system of medicine. They practice on the basis of work experience in hospitals and clinics. On average, there are 12 RMPs per 10,000 population. About 90 percent of the RMPs are from the deprived social groups. They are relatively young and a majority of them have more than 12 years of education. The RMPs are very popular in the rural areas and urban slums because they are the first contact in the medical emergencies. The RMPs are an organic part of the private medical care and have referral arrangement with the qualified doctors on the basis of kickbacks. It is not possible to ban the RMPs without providing alternative sources of medical care in the villages. In the short term, it is in the public interest to train the educated RMPs and regulate their services. As a long-term solution, there is a need for introducing short-term medical courses to provide a trained medical person in every habitation. Once the state is able to provide access to alternative sources of treatment, the RMPs will vanish on their own.Unqualified, Medical Practitioners, Andhra Pradesh

Wage Inequality in Indian Manufacturing - Is it Trade, Technology or Labour Regulations?

This paper investigates the question of wage inequality in Indian manufacturing in the years of trade and investment liberalization. The objective is to test the hypothesis of skill biased technological change (SBTC) due to capital-skill complementarity and the impact of labour regulations on wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labour. The skill-wage bill share equation is estimated for a panel of 46 three-digit industries spanning the period 1981-2004 followed by 113 four-digit industries panel covering the period 1993 to 2004.The econometric results suggest the positive contribution of change in output (scale effect), capital-output ratio and contract-worker intensity to wage inequality in Indian manufacturing.wages inequality, skill technological change labour manufacturing

Business ethics and corporate responsibility:a new perspective

Starting from the famous but controversial statement of Peter Drucker (1981) - “There is neither a separate ethics of business nor is one needed”, this paper goes on to argue that business ethics and social responsibility are not unrelated. It shows how it is necessary to distinguish between business philosophy and philosophy of business. Through this distinction it develops a framework that relates the two – business ethics and CSR. It goes on to argue that there is a paradigm shift in the philosophy of business. This shift leads to a framework wherein a new perspective on business ethics and social responsibility emerges. It is coined as Corporate Responsibility. It consists of (a) good governance (b) corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) (c) environmental accountability. It discusses the role of top managers in achieving Corporate Responsibility through Organizational Transformation. This is the integrated approach to Corporate Responsibility that needs to be incorporated into International Standards of Social Responsibility. However, the major challenge is of evolving a strategy for laying down standards that take care of major issues and provide standards that are measurable, objective and universal. The three central issues of International Social Responsibility Standards are: 1. Acceptance of the tri-focal approach – Governance, Responsibility and Accountability. 2. Approach to methods of measurement is resolved. 3. The mandatory versus voluntary issue can be resolved only if issues of measurement and their universal applicability is resolved.

Social responsibility standards and global environmental accountability : a developing country perspective

This paper argues that accountability, responsibility and governance go hand in hand. Evolving standards is a part of governance. Unless such a global perspective is adopted “Social Responsibility and the implications for Developing Countries”, which is the theme for this workshop, cannot be unraveled. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how Social Responsibility Standards and their relation to environmental sustainability cannot be addressed without relating it to Global Environmental Degradation, Global Environmental Accountability and Global Environmental Management. Also that there is a need to adopt the coercive connotation of accountability. It raises several issues in this context. The emphasis is on transorganizational development and the need for measurement. The limitations of evolving standards in this context are raised. It argues in favor of having differential standards. The main problem, for implementing differential standards is, however, that this would need a system of metrics that measures social dimensionalities and parameters. For this the new developments in environmental economics need to be incorporated into the framework of evolution of International Standards.Global Environmental Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; International Standards

Phase diagram of quasi-two-dimensional bosons in a laser-speckle potential

We have studied the phase diagram of a quasi-two-dimensional interacting Bose gas at zero temperature in the presence of random potential created by laser speckles. The superfluid fraction and the fraction of particles with zero momentum are obtained within the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii theory and in diffusion Monte Carlo simulations. We find a transition from the superfluid to the insulating state when the strength of the disorder grows. Estimations of the critical parameters are compared with the predictions of the percolation theory in the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Analytical expressions for the zero-momentum fraction and the superfluid fraction are derived in the limit of weak disorder and weak interactions within the framework of the Bogoliubov theory. Limits of validity of various approximations are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

On a path integral with a topological constraint

We discuss a new method to evaluate a path integral with a topological constraint involving a point singularity in a plane. The path integration is performed explicitly in the universal covering space. Our method is an alternative to an earlier method of Inomata

Comments on the PLA article 'UCN anomalous losses and the UCN capture cross section on material defects' [Phys. Lett. A 335 (2005) 327]

We comment on the paper `UCN anomalous losses and the UCN capture cross section on material defects' by A. Serebrov et al., Phys. Lett. A 335 (2005) 327 - 336. Data presented do not originate from these authors alone but were taken in collaboration with several other authors and institutes not mentioned.Comment: 4 page

Spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage due to coarctation of aorta and intraspinal collaterals : a rare presentation

The occurrence of spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in association with coarctation of thoracic aorta and absence of intracranial aneurysm is a rare association. In spontaneous SAH, the predominant cause is intracranial aneurysmal rupture. This report describes a case of a 40 year-old male who presented with SAH and was incidentally diagnosed to have coarctation of aorta (CoA) with intraspinal collaterals on further work up. This case demonstrates the importance of detailed evaluation of patients with spontaneous SAH on whom common aetiologies have been ruled out.peer-reviewe

On Relativistic Material Reference Systems

This work closes certain gaps in the literature on material reference systems in general relativity. It is shown that perfect fluids are a special case of DeWitt's relativistic elastic media and that the velocity--potential formalism for perfect fluids can be interpreted as describing a perfect fluid coupled to a fleet of clocks. A Hamiltonian analysis of the elastic media with clocks is carried out and the constraints that arise when the system is coupled to gravity are studied. When the Hamiltonian constraint is resolved with respect to the clock momentum, the resulting true Hamiltonian is found to be a functional only of the gravitational variables. The true Hamiltonian is explicitly displayed when the medium is dust, and is shown to depend on the detailed construction of the clocks.Comment: 18 pages, ReVTe