Corporal lab – Clinical trials sustain Ahmedabad’s Riot Victims
Clinical trials sustain Ahmedabad’s riot victims
When her husband took chronically ill after communal riots drove them to Juhapura, a ghetto on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, poverty made life seem unmanageable. Free will then became a matter of Rs 8,000 for 40-year-old Zainab Bi. For a sum like that she was willing to swallow an unknown pill once in three months. It wasn’t much they were asking for really, so she gladly gave her thumb impression on the dotted line.
For companies researching new drugs the thumb impression was proof that Bi submitted herself to the experiment of her own free will. It was far more expensive to have such proof in countries where the multinational drug companies that sponsored the research had their headquarters. They were far more cumbersome, involved lengthy documentation and rigorous insurance plans. Clinical research organizations (cros) made the task far easier for these companies by carrying out their research in the ghettoes of India’s big cities. Drug trial was far less daunting; and inexpensive. People were more than willing to offer their bodies for bio-chemical experimentation. The official guidelines warned against monetary inducement. Continue reading »
Filed under India, Livelihood, News, Research | Tags: Ahmedabad, Drug Industry, Drugs, Gujarat, Health, Health Effects, India, Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR), Medical Research, Poverty, Women | Comment (0)Biometric Data to keep tap on Beggars
At the end of a daylong futile search for job, Mohammad Javed made his way to a temple in Old Delhi’s Meena Bazaar in the hope of getting some prasad. Little did he suspect a ‘raiding squad’ swooping down on him and bundling him off to Sewa Kuteer, a beggars’ home at Kingsway Camp. “I do not beg. I came here to work. But when there is no work we go to the temple to take the prasad. And if somebody gives a little money I don’t mind taking it, but I don’t ask for it,’ pleads the 26-year-old, who ran away from home in Sultanganj, Patna, six years ago. Javed will probably escape punishment for ‘begging’ this time but his data has been entered into a biometric identification system, which means he has been tagged a beggar by the government for the rest of his life.
At Kingsway Camp an experiment is under way. Delhi’s Department of Social Welfare (DSW) has installed a biometric machine at its classification centre there. It records the picture, fingerprint and the height of the person brought there by the department’s raiding squads, besides his/her address, begging history and health record. The system is part of a grand plan to rid the city of beggars by the 2010 Commonwealth Games. “We have increased the pace of raids. In 2005, we caught 1,000, while the number went up by 475 in 2006. In 2007, we apprehended 2,533; target is 5,000,’ says a DSW official. Continue reading »
Filed under Delhi, India, Livelihood | Tags: Delhi, India, Information, People, Poverty, Unemployment | Comment (0)