CULTURAL QA 05-2022-17 BEING A COMPILATION THERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 Why do you think the medicalprofession is slowly losing its charm? A1 Abraham Sukumar In medical service inIndia for more than three decades Sat Medicine lost its charm when general practitionersdisappeared from the scene. The GPs had to go; medicinebecame too vast for one person to hold that large a volume of knowledge forimmediate recall. Those of us brought up in the modern world of course know thebenefits of the medical profession, which is vital to our healthy existence,but how can it be charming? An illustrative example from my experience may shedsome light on that mystery. The year was 1966.The patient at my clinic in a busy side street in Royapettah, Madras was littleKudurathullah, aged 10 months. He had the general shape of a soccer ball, witheyes that were large and perfectly circular and expressive. It was expressingnot so much fear as tense anticipation of the bad things that are certain tounfold shortly. In his short life he had known nothing but bad things happen inthat place his mother has brought him to. With minimal cooperation from thepatient, I managed to see his throat and auscultate his chest. He needed antibiotic injection.That was drama time. He saw the syringeand immediately wrapped himself in the ample clothing of his mother’s burkadress screaming the while at the top of his voice. His tear-stained eyes werethe only parts of his body that was visible. My nurse and an aunt of the boy held the screamingstruggling boy to enable me to inject the antibiotic. The family lived inunhealthy surroundings and the boy came at regular intervals for respiratoryinfection. Our relationship soon ended when I was promoted andtransferred to Thanjavur 200 miles away. I returned toMadras after nine years. This time it was to the medical college in Kilpauk,another Chennai suburb quite a distance from Royapettah. I was no longer a GP but aprofessor of surgery. My surgical practice was in a nursing home in Kilpauk.One day I had visitors, a man,his wife and a 10-year-old son. ‘You may notremember us,’ said the man, ‘but you may this boy. He is Kuduratullah.’ The boysmiled a gentle smile. ‘He has heard so much about the troubles he gave you,’said the father, ‘that hewanted to see you in person.’ I felt deeplyhumbled. The relationship of the family to their doctor was so deep that comingto hear of his return to a distant suburb after ten years they have made whatcan be reckoned a pilgrimage to renew the friendship. That was the charm in doctor-patientrelationship that is now gone. To the patient whose gallbladder Ihad removed recently as a specialist I am just the doctor who had removed hisgallbladder. It is as bland as that. Doctors of my era who had lived through both sides of thechange know how deep a loss it is both to the profession and the patients. Q2 Are bureaucrats allowed to take 1-2months leave every year? A2 D D Rishi Former IRS | Advocate | LL.M.,Ph.D. (Law) | Sat Nobody bothers inbureaucracy if you go on leave for 1 or 2 months or years. Many of them go forstudy leave abroad for 2 years or more. Lot many take leave for months till they get a post oftheir choice. Unless your boss wants to be vindictive, leave isgenerally not denied. Bureaucracy is soheavily overstaffed that the official work does not suffer till the workingstrength goes below 25%. InCovid period, administration was running smoothly, rather more efficiently, inspite of very low attendance in government offices. Q3 Why do salt water and fresh waternever mix even when they meet? A3 Ken Saladin Leading horses to water Sun That’scompletely mistaken. The places where rivers meet theocean are called estuaries. They’re highly important, unique ecosystems in which theliving organisms are adapted to the half-salty water and varying salinities thatresult from the mixing of the fresh water of a river with the salt water of thesea. Any aquatic or especially estuarine ecologist can tell you in depth of theimportance of the mixing of salt and fresh water. Foranyone to say they two don’t mix is just a mark of ignorance about the world ofnature. Anyone with a boat and minimal equipment can easily takewater samples and measure their salinity at various point in and near an estuaryand see the mixing of thewater, increasing with distance. It’s not too hardto see how people in antiquity might believe this. Even where two rivers meet,as in this photo of the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers of China, theycan flow for an appreciable distance before their waters become thoroughlymixed. Many of us have perhaps rafted the Grand Canyon and seen this effect, asI have, at the confluence of the clear Green River and muddy Colorado River.But they do mix eventually, just as the waters of a river and the sea do. A dogmatic belief that fresh and salt water don’t mixapparently comes from the Quran, sura 25:53, shown here with a couple ofalternative translations: The only reason onemight argue for this today, in spite of everyday evidence anyone can observe,is simply a dogmatic adherence to the Quran, a false belief that it can neverbe wrong about anything. I suppose one might, in the alternative, argue thatAllah imposed that barrier at one time, but the Quran doesn’t say that was to remain so for alltime, even today. There diverse ways of rationalizing one’s wayaround contradictions between ancient scriptures and today’s reality. Q4 Why are roundabouts so effective? A4 Steven Haddock Studied at YorkUniversity (Canada)Wed Largely because they force traffic to slow down. One of the thingsthat makes intersections dangerous is that traffic with the light tends totravel through them at the maximum legal speed. Some people even have the habit of speeding upwhen they see a yellow light to make sure they “make it through”. Roundabouts havemore collisions, but fewer lethal collisions, even between cars and pedestrianswhich is an important factor. And that’s becausethe design of a roundabout forces you to slow down as you approach it. Even ifyou’re not paying attention to traffic, you are paying attention to the roadshape which means you’re slowing down to navigate a curve. Then, of course,there’s traffic flow. Even though you have to slow down, which is a pain, it’sless likely you will have to stop. That keeps traffic flowing in alldirections, even in a complicated set-up where more than two roads intersect. In right-side countries, they also make left turns abreeze. Left turns are one of the real trafficproblems when using intersections and UPS and other courier companies actuallyplan routes to avoid left turns because even though the route may be longer, itwill still use less fuel. Left turns reduce road capacity from a theoreticalmaximum of 1,800 cars per hour to about half that, and the wider the road themore left turns slow down traffic, both by interrupting flow in the oncomingdirection, and by having cars lined up waiting for the turn. Q5 How does insurance work? What if Ibought an accidental insurance and fortunately, I don't meet with any accidentsand don't claim it? What will happen to the premiums I paid? A5 Prasanna Bhalerao M. Sc. in Electronics& Physics, Fergusson College, Pune4h Insurance is andshould be an expense and not something of an investment. I assume that youhave a two-wheeler or a 4-wheeler. The vehicle has insurance requirement. Soyou buy an insurance for every year of possession. You pay the premium. You maynever meet an accident or sometimes a small skirmish damage is too small tobother claiming insurance damages. In short, you never claimed insurance tillyou own the vehicle. Doyou get this money back after you sell the vehicle or junk it? No, right? Thenwhat is it you paid for? What did you get in return? LIC is the culpritwhich sells insurance with a tag line “बीमाभी,निवेशभी” meaning you willget insurance and investment, i.e., you will get your premium plus bonus backafter the end of the policy. Quit thinking in these terms. I have written along article on this: My note- Vehicle insurance and medical insurance isdifferent from Life insurance, by any company.Life insurance is also an investment in my opinion because, after the insurance period if one survive heget the total amount paid with bonus accured. Q6 I have diabetes. But before food, itis around 120mg. But after food it is going up to 280mg. Why is this happening? A6 Disha Gupta Bachelor's of sciencestudent Fri You have diabetes.It is due to the low insulin level. Insulin helps to digest sugar and it issecreted by pancreas. You have to be on action soon it is not so high and at adangerous level. My suggestion is not to take tablet for this because itmay cause many harm. My uncle is takingpill from its initial stage and now it reaches 450mg. And also he is not ableto eat any sugar, sweet and carbohydrates. Whereas, my motheralso had been finding diabetic few years ago. She doesn't use any pills for it.She is just taking totally herbs based vrinda madhumehhari kada every morning and nowher blood sugar level is normal. She is eating sugar, sweet and anything shewants just because of it. That's why Itotally recommend you that. If you also want to take it. I will tell you how topurchase it. Otherwise ittotally your choice……I hope this will help you…… My note- I do not think ayurvedic medicines can lower bloodsugar levels. It is a fact for som diabetics eating certainsugar items does not increase blood sugar level. I cannot explain the reason. Iam diabetic. Certain sweets does not increase my blood sugar level Q7 What are some things every Indianshould know about Indian history? A7 Ankit Kumar Singh an IT professional,trapped in a concrete jungle. May 5 Today, Sri Lanka is almost bankrupt; however, did youknow that India was once in a worse state than Sri Lanka is now? India had a closedeconomy in the 1990s. The government owned the majority of the companies inIndia, and foreign direct investment was restricted. Policies of previouscongress government was weakening indian economy day by day. Oil prices were atan all-time high in August 1990 as a result of the Gulf War. Non-residentIndians were unable to send money to their loved ones in India. As a result,India's forex reserves were reduced to 600 million dollars. Indian reserveswere only enough to keep the country running for a few weeks. Then came ManmohanSingh, India's finance minister at the time who took some unpopular butcritical decision. He immediately obtained a 2.2 billion dollar loan fromthe IMF and sold 600 million dollars of India's gold to international banks. Tomake Indian exports more competitive he devalued Indianrupee by 20%. He also took some long term step. He brought new IndustrialPolicy and opened Indian market for foreign investors. He Ended his Parliament Speech for the budget session withthe statement :“No power can now stop the growth of India”. The rise of Indiabegan.The foundations for an economic powerhouse was already laid. By 2009, India had been able to repurchase the gold it hadsold in 1990, as well as absorb the shocks of US sanctions against India in1998, the Kargil war in 1999, and the 2009 globaleconomic crisis. In the decades thatfollowed India was one of the fastest growing economy in the world giving toughcompetition to china. Peace.Credits:-Labour Law Advisor. Q8 Is it true that now that 5G exists,we no longer need airplane mode on a plane? A8 Andrew McGregor PerformanceMeasurement Lead at Fastly (company) (2019–present)16h No, that’s a coincidence. We mostly no longerneed airplane mode because airplane electronics finally caught up with theexistence of cellphones. Old airplanes really did have issues with cellphones onboard. While it wasn’t likely to cause a crash, and so far as I know never did,it could have. New airplanes are designed to cope with those signals. So we have come toa point in time where the old airplanes have almost all aged out of the fleetor been upgraded, and the new ones never had the problem to start with. You’ll still be asked to put phones in airplane mode insome cases, and it is still important to do that when asked, but it’s not everyflight now. Q9 Which is the best and the worstairport in India, and why? A9 Shaunak Bhattacharjeee Lives inKolkata, West Bengal, India (1996–present) Apr 5 I am not sure aboutthe best but I am very sure about the worst airport in India. I have been to20–25 cities across the country in the last four years and I know a few thingsabout some of the airports I have visited; as for the Kolkata airport, the mapis ingrained in my brain. Anyway, coming back to the question, if I were to nominate oneairport to be the worst airport in India, it has to be the Hubli airport. I am currently inHubli and will be flying out tomorrow and I hope the Airports Authority ofIndia doesn’t read this and take offence. See, the point is when you develop anairport, you need to take care of things outside the airport too. Uber does notoperate in Hubli and the local cab drivers do not let Ola enter within theperiphery of the airport. The prepaid taxi counter isnon-functional and therefore, passengers arriving at Hubli airport have nooption but to surrender to the local taxi drivers who charge a fixed rate of100 rupees per kilometre. I came to my hotelwhich was 5 kilometres from the airport and I had to pay him 430 rupees. Hestarted from 600 rupees and my bargaining skills bore fruit for the first time;I managed to bring it down to 430. My dad will be super proud of me! It is notlike the driver has conned me, I came to the hotel and the receptionist confirmed the same - that ishow it has been for arriving passengers at the airport. While there isn’t abig of an issue for passengers going to the airport because they can book anOla and go there but the cabs dropping off the passengers are not allowed topick up passengers by the local taxi drivers. They are carrying out a monopolyand with the prepaid taxis being out of service, they are demanding absurdprices from the passengers. To date, I used to think Bangalore airport is the worst because it is40 kilometres from the city and you had to shell 1,000 rupees for a trip.But at least you got a cab over there and compared to Hubli’s rate of 100–150 rupees perkilometre, Bangalore’s prices seem decent enough. My note- I am astonished to hear the taxi rate atCalcutta. Probably a remedy will appear soon. Q10 Why is alcohol still bad for humans,despite it being in our culture since 7000BCE? I'd imagine by now, it wouldactually be good for us, or something we depend upon, yet it still causes long term health problems, andextreme withdrawal symptoms. A10 Matt Riggsby BA Anthropology, U.C.Berkeley Sat Because it’s not that bad for us.Moderate alcohol use along the lines of one or two drinks a day is, for allpractical purposes, harmless, and that’s about the highest widespread level ofalcohol use we’ve seen though most of history. Now, very high levels of alcohol use are certainlyharmful, but through most of history, that much alcohol simply wasn’t availableto a statistically significant number of people. It took things likethe Agricultural Revolution of the early modern period and the development ofindustrial-scale distillation to make very large quantities of alcoholgenerally available. But even then, most people still don’t drink that much. There are certainlyconditions and periods of social disturbance which see widespread alcohol abuse(Britain’s “gin craze,” various circumstances conspiring to drive high levelsof alcoholism among Native Americans, etc.), but those are all quite recent andlimited in scope. Evolution hasn’t had the time or selective pressures to makesignificant changes. All the above QA are from Quora website on 16-05- 2022. Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers . Compiled and posted by R. 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