October 2007. There is no clear data on the number of people who have died in the epidemic so far. When the epidemic happened the public health system run by the state government failed to attend to ailing people.
The health system of orissa had attracted much ridicule recently when a fake drug scam became public. In recent times the health ministry of the state government has been attacked for many reasons. In the capital city's neighboring district Nayagarh a doctor turned out to be a vile criminal responsible for many foeticides.
Orissa is a state of multiple paradoxes. It has the maximum number of poor people while being most mineral rich. Droughts, starvation deaths, cyclones, floods & for other reasons the people have been in distress for years.
Researching the other reasons tells you that be it drought, cyclone or floods; all were manmade disasters.
For decades crores of rupees were pumped into the 'development' of Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput districts despite which people languish in disease. From the Congress Govt to the BJD-BJP coalition, the tradition of corruption, negligence and inefficiency continued using the foreign aid plea as a mask for development activities. The only development that happened in Orissa in the last 20 years is that the infrastructure was laid by the state so that miners could come and dig Orissa's mineral wealth away, mostly found in these K-B-K regions.
The mining companies have a brute style of operating their business. Their moduc operandi is to first build a relationship with the bureaucracy, the politicians, the oligarchy & the mafia before actually beginning their real operations. They spend years doing so and the real reason behind this sort of approach by the cos. is the strong resistance by the people of orissa opposing the very presence of these companies.
The state and people have been at loggerheads since years now. It began fifty years ago when 350 villages were forcefully displaced to dam the Mahanadi river in Sambalpur. People were beaten out of their homes by the police. It is said that Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India told the people to be displaced for the dam, "if you have to suffer, you must suffer in the name of the country". The people continue to suffer with the very electricity that the dam makes yet to reach them. They were picked out of centuries old villages and put in tiger infested forests. In their own words, "they were pushed back in time". All that in the name of development.
More recently the chief minister of orissa Naveen Patnaik echoed Nehru when he said, "No obstacle in the path of industrialisation will be tolerated". He said that after village people were murdered by the state police at his orders
because they were opposing a Tata steel factory. Tata is a company known to work in a brute manner as in Singur & Chattisagarh where the hands of the state police are stained with blood of villagers opposing Tata factories.
It is not less than a civil war with gun totting people representing the left and the right ideologies shooting at each other in jungles. In all that violence the cries of the people is suppressed.
In Kashipur three people were shot dead right outside their villages because they were strongly oppossing the aluminium company Hindalco. Today they are known as martyrs in Orissa and a source of inspiration many villagers in Orissa who liken these three people to the legendary Bhagat Singh & other freedom fighters.
The epdidemic happened in the same region of Kashipur and took many lives. The people in a conflict situation with the state govt. since 2001 when the murders happened. Therefore it is not a surprise that the state run health system's inefficiency, negligience & corruption could not contain the epidemic in time.
Like the people of Sambalpur who have been "pushed back in time" the so called development of the Kashipur region has also pushed back its people into the medieval age with murders, mining & no medicine.
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6:58Vedanta in Orissaby activemedia8,498 views
CRIMINALS are Ruling This Country.....
How Long POOR will Suffer ??? God is also blind....
WE Need Jan Lokpal Bill and Right to Reject and Recall Bill....
Wisdom909 1 month ago