Miscellany

Health situation in embattled Afghanistan continues to be precarious. Once upon a time Afghanistan was rated as the unhealthiest of the nations in the world as per the ratings produced by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But Mohammad Daim Kakar, Director General of Preventive Medicine and Primary Healthcare, says the health delivery system has improved and the national health indices show partial recovery.
Dr. Kakar who was here recently to attend a workshop on Disaster Management and Impact on Gender organised by Visthar, an NGO, told Islamic Voice that life expectancy has gone up from 40 to 45 year for females and from 42 to 47 year for Afghan males. However, he said the maternal mortality is more in case of females. Even in terms of accessibility of health facilities, the country has put in better performance. In 2002, when the Talibans were driven out, the country had merely 250 health clinics while in 2007, the number of health centres (clinics as well as hospitals) run by the Government had gone up to 1,400. According to him, the maternal mortality (death of mothers during childbirth) was 1,600 per one lakh of childbirths in 2002. During the last five years it has declined by 10 per cent. In absolute terms if 196 mothers used to die for every 1000 live births, in 2007, this number had come down to 110. He also pointed out that the immunization coverage was merely 40 per cent in 2002 while it had gone up to 83 per cent in 2007.
Dr Kakar said the country had now six medical colleges, nine intermediate medical schools for training of nurses, lab technicians and pharmacists.
Kakar identified HIV/Aids, and war-inflicted disability as the major medical problems for 28 million Afghani population. “The country had 12 lakh drug users and 260 full blown HIV cases. Sixty per cent of the HIV cases were due to drug injections”, he added. Nearly nine lakh people have been disabled due to war in the country, Kakar informed.
Kakar said the current government in Afghanistan has taken up training of local girls as midwives. He however denied that Taliban had debarred women from medical profession. He said continued turmoil had brought about gender imbalance in Afghanistan and there were 49 females to 51 males currently.
Kakar can be contacted at : kmd786@yahoo.com

The Government of India has prepared a list of 105 districts that are educationally backward. These include 22 districts that were previously identified as Minorities Concentration Districts (MCDs) with low socio-economic indices.
In 2007, University Grants Commission (UGC) identified educationally backward districts based on the criterion of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) less than National Average. Heading the list are Assam with 14 districts, Jharkhand with 13, Bihar and Orissa with 12 each, and Madhya Pradesh with 10.
This list was released by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Mrs. D. Purandeswari in a written reply in Lok Sabha on March 11.
The Government proposes to give incentive to the State Governments to establish one college in each of these districts during the 11th Five-Year Plan. These districts will also be the special focus of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).
Ninety districts were recognized as MCDs in 2007 to be the target of various programmes dealing with poverty alleviation, education, health and provision of basic amenities etc.
The 22 Minority Concentration districts that are educationally backward are Barpeta, Darrang, Dhubri, Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Marigaon, North Cachar Hills, (all in Assam), Araria, Darbhanga, Katihar, Pashchim Champaran, Purnia, Sitamarhi, (all in Bihar), Gumla, Sahibganj, (both in Jharkhand), Bidar (Karnataka), Wayanad (Kerala), Tamenglong (Manipur), Gajapati (Orissa), North Sikkim (Sikkim) and Barabanki (Uttar Pradesh) and North 24 Parganas (West Bengal). (source: Twocircles.net)

The Census 1901 had recorded 1,576 languages in India which were spoken as mother tongue with separate grammatical structures and syntax and 1,796 languages classified as ‘other mother tongues’.
A 2007 survey by the National Geographic said that half of the world’s 7,000 languages are expected to disappear before the end of this century; every 14 days a language dies. So what is it that is lost when a language fades to oblivion? From music and riddles to medicine and therapy, a large portion of traditional know-how passed on orally through different aspects of language and structures will be lost in translation. Now if the next generation does not study or document this, the level of expertise needed to read and interpret will not be available. That is the real crisis.
In the United States alone, 211 languages recorded in 1960 have already dwindled down to about six.
Though there have been several censuses conducted officially, the government only releases records of languages spoken by a minimum of 10,000 people.

Mosques in the United States = 1,209
American Muslims associated with a mosque = 2 million
Increase in number of mosques since 1994 = 25 per cent
Proportion of mosques founded since 1980 = 62 per cent
Average number of Muslims associated
with each mosque in the United States = 1,625
U.S. mosque participants who are converts = 30 per cent
American Muslims who “strongly agree”
that they should participate in American
institutions and the political process = 70 per cent
U.S. mosques attended by a single ethnic group = 7 per cent
U.S. mosques that have some Asian, African
American, and Arab members = 90 per cent

Ethnic origins of regular participants in U.S. mosques:

South Asian (Pakistani, Indian,
Bangladeshi, Afghani) = 33 per cent
African-American = 30 per cent
Arab = 25 per cent
Sub-Saharan African = 3.4 per cent
European (Bosnian, Tartar, Kosovar, etc.) = 2.1 per cent
White American = 1.6 per cent
Southeast Asian ( Malaysian,
Indonesian, Filipino) = 1.3 per cent
Caribbean = 1.2 per cent
Turkish = 1.1 per cent
Iranian = 0.7 per cent
Hispanic/Latino = 0.6 per cent
U.S. mosques that feel they strictly
follow the Qoran and Sunnah = 90 per cent
U.S. mosques that feel the Qoran
should be interpreted with consideration
of its purposes and modern circumstances = 71 per cent
U.S. mosques that provide some
assistance to the needy = 70 per cent
U.S. mosques with a full-time school = 20 per cent
(Source: Society of Americans for National Existence) n