Here's what made my head spin today.
It is a piece of news that will probably appear in tomorrow's Hindu.
"First batch of students trained in HIV medical care passes out"
We have had this scourge since more than two decades, India probably has the highest number of HIV infected people on the planet with more than six crore Indians infected and "only 5 hours ago" have we received the news that India has finally produced a batch of 24 people who are trained to extend the special care needed for HIV infected Indians.
About 15 years ago, I wrote a proposal to Doordarshan, based on a cover story in Time magazine featuring Laurie Garrett's book .
The then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh represented my case with the nobs on DD, so did the Home Minister of the day, the late Shri Indrajit Gupta, Jaipal Reddy, the Information & Broadcasting Minister had written a fulsome letter admiring the Urdu language documentary that I had made for Doordarshan, but the nobs nixed me.
I am a bad boy, because I will not do kickbacks.
From CNN to Oprah, BBC to ABC they all beamed in on Lauries Garrett's book. The lady herself became, according to her bio, the only writer ever to be awarded all the three Big Ps of Journalism. The Peabody, Polk (twice) and the Pulitzer.
For us in India, nearly six months after the Garrett's book, the plague surfaced at Surat,Gujarat.
Incidentally, I tried and tried and tried, but I could not find a copy of Ms Garrett's book in India.
To the best of my memory, the book was not even reviewed in India.
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