How a Haryana portal keeps a check on women with high-risk pregnancies

International News
Rajvanti Devi, 38, stood in a long queue of pregnant women, braving the bright midday sun, at a primary health centre in Wazirabad block of Gurugram district, Haryana. This queue is usual on the ninth of every month, when the health centre provides services to pregnant women, particularly those identified with high-risk pregnancies, under India’s Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (Prime Minister’s Safe Motherhood Programme, PMSMA).
Rajvanti Devi, a mother of two girls, was pregnant for the third time, but she did not know how far into her pregnancy she was. This was her first visit to a health centre, and she was surprised when told she was six months pregnant. Further, the pregnancy was risky, the health centre staff told her, because with a haemoglobin level of 8.8 gm/dL, she was mildly anaemic--the normal range is 12-16 gm/dL for women. The risk was greater as her second child had been born through a caesarean section.
Her pregnancy will be tracked through Haryana’s high-risk pregnancy portal--the only one run by a state government, launched in November 2017--to make sure she receives all required antenatal check-ups, supplements, and referrals to specialists in community health centres or district hospitals. Under this system, Gurugram has recorded 2,750 high-risk pregnancies, and Jhajjar district 3,526.
This is part of Haryana’s ongoing efforts to reduce its maternal mortality ratio (MMR)--past efforts have made the state’s MMR the 12th lowest in the country, having cut it down from 101 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2014-16 to 98 in 2015-17, according to Sample Registration System (SRS) data. The Indian average was 122 in 2015-17.

Haryana’s health ministry has set a target to reduce its maternal mortality ratio to 70 per 100,000 births by 2030. The high-risk pregnancy portal helps register and better track high-risk pregnancy cases, to make sure the women never miss a check-up and their progress is monitored closely....READ MORE

Mexico grants asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales for humanitarian reasons

International News
Mexico has said it has granted asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales, after the leftist president's resignation left the South American nation reeling amid a power vacuum.
"Several minutes ago I received a phone call from (former) president Evo Morales in which he responded to our offer and verbally and formally requested political asylum in our country," Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference on Monday.
"The Mexican foreign ministry, after consulting Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero, made the decision to grant him asylum... for humanitarian reasons." Morales's "life and physical integrity are at risk in Bolivia," added Ebrard, saying Mexico had asked the Bolivian foreign ministry to grant the former president safe conduct.
Ebrard did not answer journalists' questions on whether Morales would travel to Mexico, and if so when he would arrive. A Peruvian military source later said a Mexican air force plane had arrived in Peru's capital, Lima, en route to get Morales in Bolivia."We still don't have a departure time," the source told AFP.
Peruvian government sources said the plane was waiting for permission from Bolivian aviation authorities to take off.Mexico had said Sunday it was prepared to grant Morales asylum, after he stepped down amid massive protests and growing unrest over his fraud-stained re-election to a fourth term on October 20.
Morales, 60, had been in power since 2006.

Mexico, currently led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has repeatedly said Morales was the victim of a "coup." The country is already hosting a large group of Morales government officials and allied lawmakers in its embassy in Bolivia. Originally, there were 20 of them, but Ebrard said earlier Monday that there are now "many more."....READ MORE

Jimmy Carter admitted to hospital after suffering minor pelvic fracture

International News
Former US President Jimmy Carter was admitted to an Atlanta hospital on Monday for a procedure to relieve brain pressure from bleeding caused by recent falls, the Carter Center said in a statement.
Carter, 95, the country's oldest living president, was admitted to Emory University Hospital three weeks after suffering a minor pelvic fracture in a fall at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was released from the hospital a few days after that accident.
A previous fall earlier in October required stitches to Carter's face, but he resumed work soon after on a homebuilding project for the nonprofit group Habitat for Humanity.
In May, the former Democratic president broke his hip, also at home, requiring him to undergo surgery.. He was hospitalized briefly in 2017 for dehydration and was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2015.
No information was immediately provided about the circumstances leading to his latest hospitalization.
The procedure to relieve pressure on his brain was scheduled for Tuesday morning, the Carter Center said, adding that he was "resting comfortably," and that his wife, Rosalynn, 92, was with him.
Carter, a former peanut farmer and Georgia governor, defeated Republican President Gerald Ford in 1976 to become the nation's 39th president, serving a single four-year term in the White House.
His presidency was overshadowed by an economic recession, an energy crisis and the taking of US hostages by Iran, but he also played a leading role in brokering the Camp David Accords leading to an Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
He lost his 1980 re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan.
After leaving office in 1981, Carter went on to become an international fixture and a noted humanitarian. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts toward finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts, advancing democracy and human rights and promoting economic and social development.

He and his wife founded the Carter Center in 1982 to carry on their international and humanitarian work. ...READ MORE

Google is gathering health data of Americans without consent: Reports

International News
Google is reportedly gathering health information of millions of US citizens -- without informing them or their doctors -- to design an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven software, the media reported.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, "Google is engaged with one of the US's largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states" and at least 150 Google staffers may have access to the data.St. Louis-based faith-based healthcare organisation Ascension is sharing lab results, diagnoses and hospitalisation records -- as well as health histories complete with patient names and dates of birth -- with Google, the report claimed.
"The initiative, code-named 'Project Nightingale,' appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients medical data," the report said.The crunching of health data is the next big frontier for tech giants as Apple to Amazon and Microsoft are aiming big to infuse data findings into their devices and solutions in the burgeoning healthcare space.
The New York Times later wrote that "dozens of Google employees" may have access to sensitive patient data and some may have downloaded that data too.As part of "Project Nightingale", Ascension uploaded patient data to Google's Cloud servers.In a blog post, Google tried to clarify its partnership with Ascension."All of Google's work with Ascension adheres to industry-wide regulations regarding patient data, and come with strict guidance on data privacy, security and usage," said Tariq Shaukat, President, Industry Products and Solutions, Google Cloud.

Google said it has a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Ascension, which governs access to Protected Health Information (PHI) for the purpose of helping providers support patient care."To be clear: under this arrangement, Ascension's data cannot be used for any other purpose than for providing these services we're offering under the agreement, and patient data ...READ MORE

Trump impeachment hearings begin Wednesday. Here's how it will unroll

International News
The start of open hearings in the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump on Wednesday will give the American public their first chance to witness live the explosive showdown between Democrats and Republicans over the US leader's future.
The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee marks the second phase of the impeachment investigation into allegations that Trump abused his powers by seeking help for his 2020 reelection campaign from Ukraine.
Trump is under threat of becoming only the third president in US history to be impeached -- formally charged with violating his duties as president or committing crimes, and placed on trial in the Senate.With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, impeachment appears highly likely, as soon as the end of 2019.
But the Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, a bulwark against him being convicted and removed from office -- unless they turn against him.
There is still much to do, but analysts believe the entire process could be completed before the end of January.
On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee takes the impeachment investigation public after six weeks of closed-door depositions from White House, State Department and other officials.Those depositions have already painted a fairly complete picture of how Trump and aides, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, pressured Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations that could conceivably find political dirt against the Democrats and Trump's possible 2020 election rival Joe Biden.

Some of the witnesses who already testified privately will be recalled to face the public panel, starting with Ambassador William Taylor, Washington's top diplomat in Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent on Wednesday, and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch on Friday.The aim is to further compile the evidence against the president, or, for Republicans, in his support....READ MORE

It is time for Hollywood to relinquish ownership of the English language

International News
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- you know, the guys who hand out the Oscars -- have decided to disqualify Nigeria’s first-ever official entry for the international feature film category. “Lionheart,” from Nigerian actress-director Genevieve Nnaji, was rejected because, according to the Academy, the film “includes only 11 minutes of non-English dialogue.”
The decision is in accordance with the rules, which require that foreign films be predominantly in languages other than English. But it has exposed the Academy’s quite comically America-centric view of the world, which is increasingly tone-deaf.Surely the point of recognizing international feature films separately is because it would not make sense to put them in the same category as movies made by American (or British) producers for the home market of the Academy juries. Nigeria has Africa’s largest film industry; about half its population speaks English. It is, in fact, Nigeria’s official language, as it is one of India’s. Is it the Academy’s belief that a film made in Nigeria for Nigerians doesn’t qualify as international merely because the actors use a language Americans also speak?
This is a problem that goes beyond the Academy. England might perhaps be surprised to discover that it doesn’t have the second- or even the third-largest number of speakers of the language that bears its name.
India, the Philippines, Nigeria and Pakistan are all home to comparably larger numbers of English speakers. Yes, many of those people speak additional languages and English is not their “first” language. But, even for them, English is often the language of aspiration, the language of cross-cultural communication, the language of the city.

Restricting their national cultural production entirely to their “first” language would be absurdly limiting. English is not an American or British language. It is the language of millions of us elsewhere who use it unselfconsciously to produce work that is entirely “international” as far as the U.S. is concerned...READ MORE

Malaysian court rules ex-PM Najib Razak's trial will proceed in 1MDB case

International News
A Malaysian judge on Monday ordered former Prime Minister Najib Razak to enter a defense at his first corruption trial linked to the massive looting at the 1MDB state investment fund.
Najib said he would testify in his defense when the trial resumes.
High Court Judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali said the prosecution had established its case on charges of abuse of power, breach of trust and money laundering.The seven charges relate to 42 million ringgit ($10.1 million) that allegedly went into Najib's bank accounts from a former unit of the 1MDB fund.
Najib is charged in four other cases in the scandal that led to his shocking election ouster last year. His wife, several officials from his government, and the US bank Goldman Sachs face charges related to the scandal that led to investigations in several countries.Najib, 66, has denied any wrongdoing and could face years in prison if convicted. The patrician former leader, whose father and uncles were the country's second and third prime ministers respectively, accuses Malaysia's new government of seeking political vengeance.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, leading an alliance that campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, won a history victory in the May 2018 elections that led to Malaysia's first change of government since independence from Britain in 1957.Mahathir, 94, was premier for 22 years until his retirement in 2003 but made a political comeback amid anger over the 1MDB fiasco. His government soon reopened 1MDB investigations that had been quashed under Najib.

US investigators say Najib's associates pilfered more than $4.5 billion from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014 and laundered the money through layers of bank accounts in the US and other countries to finance Hollywood films and buy hotels, a luxury yacht, art works, jewelry and other extravagances....READ MORE