COVID-19 - Updates

"India’s COVID-19 crisis is far from over, and vaccines alone won’t help.  Here’s why" PBS NewsHour 5/3/2021

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SUMMARY:  The COVID-19 crisis in India shows little sign of slowing down.  As death tolls and infections skyrocket, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership is under increasing political pressure and scrutiny.  The country is short on vaccines, and other life-saving supplies like oxygen and antiviral drugs.  William Brangham speaks to Indian reporter Barkha Dutt about what she's seeing on the ground.

 

 

"Dr. Vivek Murthy on new US inoculation strategy and distributing vaccines abroad" PBS NewsHour 5/4/2021

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SUMMARY:  U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, a key member of the president's team combating COVID-19, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss President Joe Biden's aims to vaccinate 70 percent of all U.S. adults with at least one dose by July 4, and how a focus on rural communities will help achieve that goal, and how the U.S. plans to distribute vaccines abroad.

 

 

"Waiving vaccine patent rights may be the ‘only way’ to end the pandemic" PBS NewsHour 5/5/2021

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SUMMARY:  President Biden announced that the U.S. will support waiving patent rights for the COVID vaccines — a major move that follows a call domestically, and internationally, for America to provide much quicker and greater assistance to the rest of the world.  William Brangham looks at the potential impact of this decision and the reaction to it with Madhavi Sunder of the Georgetown University Law Center.

 

 

"The government wants to pay for every COVID funeral.  Experts worry the process is flawed" PBS NewsHour 5/5/2021

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SUMMARY:  In the past few weeks, a new and large form of COVID-19 relief has opened in the U.S., with the federal government offering to pay for all or most of every funeral of those lost to the disease.  Lisa Desjardins reports on the unprecedented scale of help, how the rollout has fared so far, and the questions it raises about the cost of grief in America.

 

 

"Waiving the vaccine patent may come down to giving pharmaceutical companies incentives" PBS NewsHour 5/6/2021

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SUMMARY:  President Joe Biden has given the initial nod for the U.S. to waive patent rights on COVID vaccines to boost international production.  But there are real questions over how effective these moves would be, what other countries feel about it, and when this would translate into action.  William Brangham discusses the matter with Rachel Silverman, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.

 

 

"Honoring 5 American lives lost to COVID-19" PBS NewsHour 5/7/2021

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SUMMARY:  Each week, the PBS NewsHour pauses to remember five Americans lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, and shares memories and highlights from their lives.

 

 

"Serbia’s winning fight against COVID-19 raises questions about ‘vaccine diplomacy'" PBS NewsHour 5/8/2021

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SUMMARY:  Serbia has had considerable success in its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with the third-highest rate in Europe; supply is mostly from China and Russia.  While Serbia's efforts have received high praise, experts are warning about unprecedented, growing Chinese influence in the country and the wider region through so-called 'vaccine diplomacy.'  Jorgen Samson and Aleksandar Papajic report from Serbia.

INDIA - Highest Global Single-Day COVID-19

"Modi punts responsibility to states as India records highest global single day infections" PBS NewsHour 4/22/2021

aka 'The Pointing Finger game' (it's not my fault)

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SUMMARY:  This week, India set grim and global new high records Thursday with 315,000 cases in just 24 hours and another 2,100 deaths — the highest one day number of new COVID-19 infections of any nation since the pandemic began.  The country's already stressed health care system is overwhelmed.  Amna Nawaz speaks to epidemiologist Ramanan Laxminarayan about the situation and the Indian government's response.

PRESIDENT BIDEN - New Vaccine Timeline

"Biden moves up vaccine timeline in the U.S., vows to expand global supplies" PBS NewsHour 3/12/2021

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SUMMARY:  President Biden moved up the timeline for vaccine allocation Thursday by ordering all states, tribes and territories to make every U.S. adult eligible for the COVID vaccines by May 1.  And on Friday, he also vowed to expand the vaccine supply globally in an unprecedented meeting with world leaders from India, Japan and Australia.  Nick Schifrin and William Brangham join Judy Woodruff to discuss.

BANGLADESH - Cyclone of the Decade

"Millions in India and Bangladesh flee strongest cyclone in a decade" PBS NewsHour 5/20/2020

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SUMMARY:  A tropical cyclone is blasting India and Bangladesh, killing at least 14 people and destroying homes by the hundred.  The storm surged out of the Bay of Bengal Wednesday into a densely populated area that has been beset by the COVID-19 pandemic -- and the millions of people forced to flee their homes are taking refuge in crowded shelters where social distancing is impossible.  Judy Woodruff reports.

INDIA - The Polluted Ganga River

"India’s effort to clean up sacred but polluted Ganga River" PBS NewsHour 2/11/2020

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SUMMARY:  The Ganga River, known as the Ganges under British rule, is one of the most revered waterways in the world -- and also among the most polluted.  Stretching from the Himalayan foothills to the Bay of Bengal, it provides water to nearly half a billion people, more than any other river in the world.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from India on the latest efforts to clean the river.

TOXIC SKIES - Extreme Air Pollution in India

"What’s behind extreme air pollution in India" PBS NewsHour 11/7/2019

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SUMMARY:  A toxic brew lingers in the skies over India, created by everything from agricultural burning to industrial pollution.  Cars are also a major contributor, with roughly 1400 vehicles added to the roads daily.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro examined this problem roughly two years ago and returns with this update on the cultural and economic challenges of making Indian air safer to breathe.

MONSTER STORM - India and Bangladesh

"Monster cyclone slams northeast India, takes aim at Bangladesh" PBS NewsHour 5/3/2019

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SUMMARY:  The enormous Cyclone Fani, equivalent in power to a Category 5 hurricane, slammed into northeastern India Friday, whipping the region with torrential rain and sustained winds over 120 miles per hour before moving toward neighboring Bangladesh.  The storm forced more than a million people to evacuate, brought transportation to a standstill and disrupted Indian election events.  Judy Woodruff reports.

FILM - "Hotel Mumbai"

"How ‘Hotel Mumbai’ illuminates the courage of the everyday hero" PBS NewsHour 4/4/2019

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SUMMARY:  In 2008, a series of terror attacks rocked Mumbai [India], ultimately killing more than 160 people over three chaotic days.  Now the horrific experience of those trapped in a hotel during the siege is being shared in “Hotel Mumbai.”  Amna Nawaz sits down with director Anthony Maras and actors Nazanin Boniadi, Dev Patel, and Armie Hammer, to discuss how the film portrays the courage of the everyday hero.

HOTEL MUMBAI Official Trailer (2019)

INDIA - The Struggle

"In India, this group helps turn wasteland into greener pastures" (Part-1) PBS NewsHour 4/19/2018

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SUMMARY:  Most rural Indian parents dream of an education and job in the city for their children, rather than a life spent farming.  But with a growing migration to cities, there is concern India might not be able to produce enough food to feed its people.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on one group’s effort to restore rural land and communities, in part one of a two-part look.

"India’s struggling farmers find seeds of hope in heritage crops" (Part-2) PBS NewsHour 4/23/2018

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SUMMARY:  About two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people live on small subsistence farms, struggling to eke out a living.  Many farmers have felt left behind as crops have failed or diminished due to disease, degraded soil, and drought.  Not thousands are returning to traditional seeds that went out fashion decades ago -- an approach that's gaining attention.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "The Heart Is a Shifting Sea"

"In ‘The Heart Is a Shifting Sea,’ Indian couples navigate domestic squalls and rapid change" PBS NewsHour 2/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  “The Heart is a Shifting Sea” is a story of modern love told through the eyes of three Indian couples in Mumbai.  The NewsHour’s Elizabeth Flock spent years following how these men and women navigate marriage and relationships at a moment when tradition is colliding with 21st century global culture.  Flock joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss what she learned.

AGENTS FOR CHANGE - Clubfoot

"This simple correction for clubfoot is a life changer for kids in India" PBS NewsHour 7/3/2017

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SUMMARY:  Clubfoot, a treatable birth defect that can bring pain and social isolation, is often not treated in the developing world.  But a treatment developed a half century ago by a doctor in Iowa is less invasive, less expensive and less painful than the corrective surgery that was once required.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how a charity is trying to bring the cure to children in India.

INDIA - Towering Landfills

"Tackling India's towering landfills takes cultural innovation" PBS NewsHour 4/3/2017

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SUMMARY:  In Delhi, India, the capital of the world's fastest growing economy, there's a towering symbol of the environmental cost of development; tons of festering, toxic trash, piled up 10 stories high, with more and more added every day.  Efforts have been made to turn that trash into energy-producing fuel, but cultural hurdles remain.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  In India's capital, new housing sprawls as far as the eye can see, a symbol of the world's fastest growing major economy.

There also are towering symbols of the environmental cost of all this.  Just look for the birds.  Under thousands of hovering vultures are the city's landfills.  This is one of three covering some 70 acres in a low-income area called Ghazipur.

I'm standing near the top of the Ghazipur landfill site, an accumulation by now of more than 10 million tons of waste.  It's more than 10 stories high.  Behind me, it towers over the surrounding skyline.  And trucks are all around here, bringing in an additional 2,000 tons of unsorted garbage every day.

MAHESH BABU, Managing Director, IL & FS Company:  You can't dump more in that mountain there.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Mahesh Babu heads an infrastructure company that's been contracted by Delhi's government to tackle a trash problem that he says is a crisis at many levels.

MAHESH BABU:  Keep in mind Delhi is on the seismic zone.  So, you are really…

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  If you had an earthquake here, God forbid.

MAHESH BABU:  Yes.  You have an earthquake, you will have that mound just sliding down.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  And even without an earthquake, he says the festering garbage is toxic.  Methane from the dump explodes daily in dozens of spontaneous fires that spew toxins into the air, while a stew of heavy metals and organic and inorganic pollutants washes into the soil when it rains and into Delhi's main river.

MAHESH BABU:  Yes, the dark liquid right here is what we call leachate.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Babu showed me a sample of this so-called leachate.

MAHESH BABU:  What we do is basically treat it, so that it removes all the toxic impurities.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  But of the millions of tons that are not treated yet, this is the stuff that's going into the Yamuna River.

MAHESH BABU:  Especially during monsoon.

DELHI INDIA - World's Most Polluted Metropolis

"Fighting to breathe in the world's most polluted city" PBS NewsHour 2/20/2017

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SUMMARY:  Delhi now outranks Beijing as the world's most polluted city.  Carbon dioxide, ozone and fine carbon particles get trapped over India's capital, mostly due to dirty fuels, causing long-term health consequences such as lung and heart disease.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on some efforts to lessen the environmental toll on residents.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  India's capital, Delhi, now outranks Beijing as the world's most polluted large metropolis.  And it's taking a toll on its residents' health.

But, as special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, there are efforts under way to make the city's air less toxic.

It's part of his ongoing series Agents for Change.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  He murmurs and he gasps, waiting for a spot to free up, for a chance to just breathe.

As nebulizer treatments open up the lungs of a handful of patients, dozens more await their turn at the chest clinic in a Delhi government hospital.

This is the scene outside of the doctor's office.  Clinic hours are 9:00 in the morning until 1:00.  And on a typical day, the doctor says he sees about 120 patients who've been here before and 30 brand-new ones.

Three to four patients are seen at the same time, in the same room, by Dr. Raj Kumar and his team of junior doctors and residents.  The most common complaint?   Simply change of season, the winter, which brings dust and tiny carbon particulates into the environment

DR. RAJ KUMAR, India:  When there is a change in environment or increase in the particulate matter and everything, these asthmatic and COPD patients do get exacerbation of their symptoms.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  They get exacerbation of their symptoms?

DR. RAJ KUMAR:  Yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Dr. Kumar can do little more than check on their medications and advise patients to avoid some of the most polluted outdoor air on the planet.

Weather and wind patterns are blamed for trapping pollutants over India's capital, carbon dioxide, ozone and fine carbon particles.  Dirty fuels are the culprit from several sources.  Automobiles are the major one.  On average, 1,400 new vehicles are added to Delhi's streets every day, most now burning a highly polluting diesel long outlawed in Europe and the United States.

By 2021, diesel fuel here will meet European standards.  The government has also promised to shut down old coal-fired plants and restrict new ones.  And wood- and coal-burning brick kilns has been moved farther away from the city.

But the pollution continues.  To get an idea of how polluted the air is, we went to one of the cleanest places in Delhi, the American Embassy School.  It serves the children of American and other expats and diplomats.  Many don face masks, but only until they're inside, says the director, Ellen Stern.

ELLEN STERN, Director, American Embassy School:  We have an air system that goes all the way through the school.  We now have four different kinds of filters on it that filter out various kinds of things.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Barun Aggarwal showed me the elaborate system his company, BreatheEasy, has set up in the school, pulling out the first layer of filter, thickly coated with a grimy soot.

So, if you were to walk outside today, this is what is coming into your lungs?

BARUN AGGARWAL, BreatheEasy:  Absolutely.

Most of the black carbon actually passes through a filter like this.  This is mostly dust.  And the black carbon will get trapped in the finer particle filters.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  So, how old is this accumulation?

BARUN AGGARWAL:  Less than six days.

INDIA - The Last Jewish Community

"Preserving what's left of a once-thriving Jewish community in India" PBS NewsHour 8/4/2016

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SUMMARY:  The coastal Indian city of Cochin was once home to a thriving Jewish community; immigrants came for the spice trade and ended up settling there.  But in 1955, the community largely vanished as its residents departed en masse to the newly founded state of Israel.  Now, it's a struggle to preserve the structures and relics of Jewish heritage that remain.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  In its nearly 900-year history, this synagogue had never seen an observance like this one.  They came from four continents to this unlikely location, the coastal Indian city of Cochin, for the first Sabbath service in decades — and possibly the last one ever.

A once thriving Jewish community of several thousand has mostly faded into a bittersweet history in the age of modern-day Israel, said Yeshoshua Sivan, a British-born Israeli.

YESHOSHUA SIVAN, Israeli tourist:  I'm very sad to see communities disappear.  On the other hand, I'm very happy to see that after all these years of dispersion the prophecy of the return to the land of Israel is in my time being — I'm part of it — is being realized.  At least we see the synagogues, we see the streets, we see how life was once here.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Jewish life along India's Malabar Coast dates back to the ancient spice trade that drew explorers from across the sea.

They come now as tourists, but they came in ancient times to trade, and, in the case of some Jews, to settle — from Yemen, Mesopotamia, and later a few from Spain and Portugal after the Inquisition.

Away from tourist enclaves, there's a struggle to preserve what remains of the Jewish heritage here.

I'm standing in what was the women's section of a synagogue in Mala, about four or five miles in from the coastline.  There was a thriving Jewish community here until 1955, when they decided, all of them, en masse, to emigrate to Israel.  And they turned this building over to local municipal authorities.

C.  KARMACHANDRAN, Historian:  They were very good friends.  They were very good neighbors.  They were very good traders.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Some left for religious fulfillment in the new Jewish homeland, says retired Professor C. Karmachandran, who heads a local historic preservation committee.  Others thought Israel had better economic prospects, he adds, but none left in fear.  Scholars agree that there's little history of anti-Semitism in India.

C.  KARMACHANDRAN:  They were given all the protection by the rulers as well as the local people to maintain their culture, their religion, their belief and their practices, and this in fact is the living symbol of that particular lofty tradition.

LEADING EDGE OF SCIENCE - Language to the Voiceless

"Teen scientist’s revolutionary speech device could grant language to the voiceless" PBS NewsHour 6/22/2016

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SUMMARY:  At age nine, Arsh Shah Dilbagi asked his parents for a puppy; they gave him a Lego kit instead.  Undeterred, Arsh used it to construct a dog.  Now 17, the tech prodigy is still building his dreams from scratch.  His latest project is a smartphone-sized device called “Talk” that converts breath into speech, a boon for the developmentally disabled.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

ARSH SHAH DILBAGI, Student Inventor:  Hi.  My name is Arsh Shah Dilbagi.  I’m from Panipat, India.  I love robots.  I’m good at computer science and math.  And I wish to change the world.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  He was 15 when he made this video two years ago, as a finalist in Google’s Science Fair, with a smartphone-sized device called TALK that converts breath into speech.

COMPUTER VOICE:  TALK is an innovative device for people with developmental disabilities.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He is also savvy at marketing, abundantly displayed on social media.

Here he is giving a "TED Talk" in Mumbai:

ARSH SHAH DILBAGI:  I felt that, as long as you are breathing, you should be able to live, truly live.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He’s always like to tinker, he says.  When his parents gave him a LEGO kit, instead of a dog, there was only one thing to do.

ARSH SHAH DILBAGI:  I made a little dog out of the LEGO kit.

The very fact that we humans are capable of creating machines which can be more capable than we ever can be, that is fascinating.  That’s just like cheating evolution.

Over the years, learned locomotion, how to control motors, how to put things together, how to make robots better.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He learned to turn toys into tools.  The idea for the speech device began when he accompanied his grandmother to the hospital, he says, and saw a severely speech-impaired Parkinson’s disease patient.

ARSH SHAH DILBAGI:  I researched about everything I could about all the speech impediments.  That research went on for a long time.  And after that, I decided, OK, there are problems that I found out with the currently available solutions.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  He says devices now on the market, like the one used by one of his favorite authors, Stephen Hawking, all require a laptop computer, they can be invasive, and they are, of course, expensive, well beyond vast majority of people, especially in India.

INDIA - Water ATMs

"Can water ATMs solve India’s water crisis?" PBS NewsHour 4/13/2016

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SUMMARY:  About 76 million Indians don’t have regular access to clean drinking water, the most of any country in the world.  But a new nationwide experiment aims to address the water crisis with “water ATMs,” machines that purify water on site and dispense it through prepaid card swipes, an idea that is gaining traction with the prime minister on down.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  India has the world’s largest number of people, about 76 million, without access to clean drinking water.  And that’s according to a report the international charity WaterAid released last month.

As special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, an innovative solution to that problem is popping up across the country.

His report is part of our Breakthroughs series.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  The United Nations estimates that women in India spend a collective 150 million workdays every year just gathering water, water that’s increasingly scarce and polluted.

Now, in parts of the country, including this Delhi suburb, an experiment is under way.  It’s called a water ATM.  Customers purchase credit on a prepaid card, scan it at the tap, and out comes water that’s drawn from the ground and purified right at the site, using a technology called reverse osmosis.

Amit Mishra manages the Delhi facilities for a social business called Sarvajal, which hopes to use reinvest profits it makes to sustain these outlets over the long term.

This where the water gets purified.  It goes into the large tanks here storage?

AMIT MISHRA:  Yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  With charitable grants for the $30,000 of equipment and land given by the local government, Sarvajal can charge customers a fraction of the price of commercially bottled water, which most people here cannot afford.

Fetching water remains a mostly female chore.  It’s still self-service with heavy lifting.  But it’s a massive improvement over what most of Delhi’s poorer neighborhoods have.

WOMAN (through interpreter):  By 12:00?

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  We filmed their ordeal six years ago.

WOMAN (through interpreter):  By 4:00.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  The long wait for a municipal tanker truck that has no fixed schedule, the mad dash when it finally arrives.

The city’s middle class buys its way out of such chaos.  Jyoti Sharme lives in an apartment that’s hooked up to the city water supply, better off, but hardly well off.

Sound familiar?  Buy those BIG plastic water jugs that you fill form a water vending machine?

AGENTS FOR CHANGE - India's Vendors

"Empowering India’s street vendors as entrepreneurs" PBS NewsHour 4/6/2016

Bet that today's Republican conservatives would like to have MORE 'informal sector' workers.  After all, they enact policies that essentially do that in the US.

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SUMMARY:  In India, home to the world's fastest growing economy, most workers, from street vendors to rickshaw drivers, aren't on the books, making them vulnerable to harassment by corrupt officials and policemen.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro profiles one group trying to protect vendors and improve their lives and businesses.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  The big malls may have arrived, but in India, food, clothing and virtually everything else is still bought mostly from street vendors.

They, along with construction laborers, domestics, rickshaw drivers and rickshaw pullers, in fact, most workers in India’s economy, are, quite literally, off the books, says Indiana University’s Sumit Ganguly.

SUMIT GANGULY, Indiana University:  Ninety percent of the work force in India is in the so-called informal sector.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  That could be a technical term that means a very hard life.  They live from day to day.  That is, if there’s work on any given day, they are paid at the end of it, less than $2 for most of them.

SUMIT GANGULY:  These are people who have no Social Security provisions, who have no health care provisions, who can be hired and fired at will.  And yet, according to a recent Credit Suisse study, it’s close to — they contribute close to 50 percent of India’s gross national product.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Not only are they underappreciated, but they fall easy prey to corrupt officials.

The market outside of Delhi’s main mosque has been here for more than 200 years.  The vendors complain that they’re subject to regular harassment from police demanding bribes or from municipal authorities who conduct regular raids to evict them.

IMRAN KHAN, Street Vendor (through interpreter):  They kicked us out from here in 2014, citing security reasons.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Across India’s cities, vendors like Imran Khan carry tales of harassment, sometimes along with their own video, of stalls dismantled and merchandise confiscated.

IMRAN KHAN (through interpreter):  Then finally, we went to NASVI, to Arbind, and he said, you have only one option, straight to court.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Social activist Arbind Singh founded NASVI, the National Association of Street Vendors.

INDIA - Girls in Schools

"Why it’s hard for girls in rural India to stay in school" PBS NewsHour 9/22/2015

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SUMMARY:  Fifteen years ago, the UN set a goal that by 2015 there would be universal free primary education.  Although the number of children out of school has been cut almost in half, getting them to stay in school has proved more challenging.  The WNET series “Time for School” travels to India to see whether education has improved for young girls in the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Fifteen years ago, the United Nations set a goal:  By this year, every child in every nation should be able to obtain free basic education.

While the number of children out of school has been cut almost in half, there are still 57 million worldwide who have never set foot in a classroom.  Hundreds of millions more have dropped out.

PBS has been reporting on the global education crisis by following six children from different countries over 12 years, part of WNET’s documentary series “Time for School.”

Tonight, we travel to India, where nearly 100 percent of children start primary school.  But especially for girls in rural areas, staying in school remains a challenge, and literacy rates have not improved.

NARRATOR:  Neeraj Gujar is 9 years old and lives with her tightly knit family of herders in a small village in Rajasthan, a desert region in the northwest of India.  It’s a deeply traditional community, where women rarely have the chance to go to school.

NEERAJ GUJAR, India (through interpreter):  My name is Neeraj. I’m about 9 or 10, and I have been studying for the past year, math, multiplication, addition. So I’m learning.

QUESTION (through interpreter):  Did you ever go to school?

WOMAN (through interpreter):  What would I go to school for?  What’s so great about being educated?  Even if you study, these educated people have nothing to do.  Anyway, the everyday chores will take over.

NEERAJ GUJAR (through interpreter):  I work during the day.  I do so much.  I have to sweep.  I have to bring water.  I have to make dung cakes.  I have to graze the cows.

NARRATOR:  Like many girls here, Neeraj can only go to school if she does so at night.  In Rajasthan, 56 percent of the female population is illiterate.  Schools like hers started in India to educate the country’s legions of girls, who must work all day.

INDIA - Affordable Surgery

"How this Indian medical chain makes heart surgery affordable" PBS NewsHour 9/16/2015

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SUMMARY:  Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, one of the world's most prolific heart surgeons, is the founder of a for-profit medical chain in India that offers top-notch surgery at very low prices.  It serves wealthy patients and some medical tourists, but their goal is to bring the latest advances to the poor.  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Next, the story of a man who’s been called the Henry Ford of heart surgery.

Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from India.  It’s part of his ongoing series Agents for Change.

A warning:  Some images may be disturbing.

DR. DEVI PRASAD SHETTY, Founder, Narayana Health:  Hole in the heart.  It’s one of those standard procedures.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour):  It is especially standard for 62-year-old Devi Prasad Shetty, one of the world’s most prolific heart surgeons.

DR. DEVI PRASAD SHETTY:  I do now about one or two surgeries a day, and we work six days a week.  My colleagues, some of them do four surgeries, five surgeries a day.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Anywhere from 25 to 35 open heart operations are performed in the theaters here every day, many on babies, making this by far the largest cardiac care facility in the world.

It’s part of a fast-growing for-profit chain called Narayana Health, offering top-notch surgery, like this complex valve replacement, at rock-bottom costs.

DR. DEVI PRASAD SHETTY:  This patient would have paid us about $2,500 to about $3,000, but in the U.S., an operation of this nature would cost, I guess, more — anything from $30,000, $100,000.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:  Dr. Shetty founded Narayana Health 15 years ago.  It serves wealthy patients and some medical tourists.  But he says the goal is to bring the latest advances in cardiac surgery to the poor.

DR. DEVI PRASAD SHETTY:  It’s pointless we’re talking about huge developments in cardiac surgery or a brain operation or a complex cancer surgery if the common man cannot afford it.  If a solution is not affordable, it is not a solution.

Republicans, are you listening?

Unfortunately Republican are blind, dumb, and deaf because of the virtual realty helmet put over their heads (installed by their big-money paymasters) to make sure they DON'T serve the American citizen.  Money first, citizens health last.

INDIA - Bans Documentary on Gan Rape

"Why did India ban a documentary on a deadly gang rape?" PBS NewsHour 3/10/2015

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SUMMARY:  The 2012 deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi sparked outrage around the world and led to unprecedented protests.  A new documentary, “India’s Daughter,” sheds light on the violence, shame and injustice that Indian women often face.  Jeffrey Brown interviews Leslee Udwin, the film’s director, about why the case galvanized so much support and why India has banned the film.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to India and a documentary about a horrific event in the country’s recent past.  The government there doesn’t want citizens to watch the film, and has banned its airing.

Jeffrey Brown reports.

PROTESTERS:  We want justice!   We want justice!

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It’s a now infamous incident that generated mass protests and stained India’s international image.  A 23-year-old medical student, Jyoti Singh, was gang-raped on this bus in South Delhi in 2012.  She died days later, and now her story is the subject of a BBC documentary, “India’s Daughter.”

NARRATOR:  According to the latest government figures, a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes.  But most rapes are unreported.  This rape led to unprecedented protests erupting across India.  The silence has been broken.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The documentary had its U.S. premiere in New York last night, and is already airing in Britain, but not in India.

The Indian government has banned the film, saying the producers never got permission to interview one of the suspects in prison, and that his statements are — quote — “an affront to the dignity of women.”

The suspect, Mukesh Singh, was driving the bus, and is one of four men currently on death row for the crime.  In the documentary, he appears unrepentant and unaffected.

MUKESH SINGH, Convicted Rapist (through interpreter):  A decent girl won’t roam around at 9:00 at night.  A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy.

And we hear from anther true male chauvinist pig.