The Aruna Case

“I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel”
Euthanasia is both a libertarian movement for the right of freedom and right of choice; and
also an aggressive drive to exterminate the old, weak and the different. Legalising
euthanasia will be looked at through many a looking glass. Former nurse Aruna
Ramachandra Shanbaug has been in the Mumbai KEM hospital for the past 37 years in a
vegetative state. The Supreme Court rejected the petition to allow mercy killing to be
carried out in this case but granted that passive euthanasia is permissible under supervision
of law. This verdict was greatly appreciated by the hospital staff as they want o continue
taking care of her. This case has brought to the notice of the court that a stand should be
taken regarding euthanasia. Making it legal would be lethal and cause people to misuse it.
The Nazi way of thought should not be legalised. The severity of each case should be studied
from economic and psychological points of views. Science should evolve greatly so as to
liberate this social context, making possible to get rid of prolonged and extreme pain
without devaluing human life. On one hand it is murder on the other it is a freedom of
choice leading to ‘good death.

Rubina’s Theme
Five hundred homes burnt down. Thousands homeless. Reporters report about one girl.
Rubina Ali, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’-s Latika, and thousands of others have been left homeless
after a fire in their Garib Nagar slum. The celebrity quotient of news is more important than
equality being rendered to all sufferers. The news has been restricted to information about
Rubina, her family and the accolades the fire cost her. Thousand others also lost their
homes and have been left without anything. The media quite furtively avoided reporting
about the others because of the celebrity quotient. A luminary figure attracts more
attention to a piece of important news as compared to reporting about the common man.
Media is more worried about what sells rather than reporting what is required. Money
outclasses truth. Reality is written with everything except veracity. Candour and integrity is
lost. News nowadays cannot be wholly trusted. This is just a one off example of what
happens in the media nowadays. It should serve as an eye-opener to all media personnel.
Rubina should be mentioned but not to such an extent that the anguish of all the others is
left out. It is a dogfight between reality and news. News is now about money and power.
The truth is vehemently hidden or easily avoided. As Mark Twain said – ‘Twenty years from
now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do’.
These words echo like a prophecy.