Mailbag

Golden hour resuscitation

Sir,

This is in reference to the news item published in your news paper titled 'Mass participation in civil defence imperative: DGP' on 31st Oct. 2004. DGP Mr. Gopal Sharma in his address said that the objective of the Civil Defence movement is to save public life, property and to keep high morale of its people at the time of disasters or natural calamities. Mr. Sharma further said that Civil Defence Organization is a people's movement and this has to be strengthened in a big way and has asked for desired support from everywhere in the State. Deptt of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Govt. Medical College Jammu, has developed a teaching and training programme of 'Golden Hour Resuscitation' for organizations involved in rescue and resuscitation at the time of disasters or natural calamities. The aim of this teaching programme is to impart scientific knowledge about pre hospital management and other do's and don'ts in saving maximum human lives thereby reducing morbidity, mortality and improve human resource. This teaching programme to civil defence personal shall go a long with in involving people and strengthening, upgrading and modernizing this organization.

Yours etc...
Dr. Ranbhushan Singh
Anaesthesia Specialist
Deptt. of Anesthesiology & Intensive Care.
Govt. Medical College Jammu.

Eco-friendly Deepavali

Sir,

This has reference to the news item 'Get ready for a Deepavali' published in the Daily Excelsior on Nov. 6

It is quite encouraging that the All India Federation of Fireworks Association (AIFFWA) is taking steps to contain the sound level of crackers at 125 decibles at the production stage itself. This would certainly help in reducing the noise pollution. This is turn would make living of people healthy and enjoyable.

Recently, Maneka Gandhi in her article 'Fire crackers and Festivals' had enumerated the harmful effects crackers had on the animals. She had mentioned that firecrackers leave animals shocked and depressed. They then also do not eat properly and as a consequence get sick.

Unless we create an eco-friendly state it would be difficult both for people and animals to live a healthy life.

Yours etc...
Vikas Kumar
Rehari

Global linguistic scenario

Sir,

The news item ancient language cling to life at tip of Britain" from Tencereek, (D.E 26.10.04) is of great interest for linguists.

Ken George, member of the Cornish language border, enumerates 6000 world-languages out of them 75% may die out in 100 yrs' time. However, in this regard I may supplement differing opinions.

* "About half of the world's 6000 languages are expected to disappear over the next century"

* "The number of languages in world is about 6800. About 372 languages that die out each year 10".

(Both these statements have been quoted from Manorma year book 1999, page 316X372 respectively).

Thus in the same book, same edition at different pages the number of world-languages differ. This is why Guinness Encyclopedia, 1990 at page 602 states "No one is certain how many living languages there are in the world, but it is likely that number exceeds 5000".

"Another question raised in an article 'written & spoken word' is why as many as 3000 different languages are spoken through out the world remains a mystery" (Reader's Digest, No date, Page 210). This conclusion about the languages in the world i.e 3000 is very doubtful. The double number of languages (i.e 6000) are in a journal wisdom (edited by K V Govind Rao), March 2003, at page 41. The number 3000 is even less than if above quoted 6800 languages are divided by two. As per Manorma year book India alone has 1652 Languages in the form of mother tongues (now the number might have risen when from 14 to 22 languages have been included in 8th schedule of Indian constitution including Dogri, Bodo, Maithali and Santhali). There were 147 mother tongues in J&K alone (census 1971)

We may, thus, firmly say that not less than ten thousand languages are spoken in our land inhabited by multilingual people.

Yours etc...
Prof. Baldev Raj Gupta
37, New Garden Colony
Mission Road, Pathankot -145001