Oops! Bihar hospital asks doctors to declare their ‘virginity’?

Agencies
August 3, 2017

Patna, Aug 3:  A virgin is a girl who is unmarried, says Bihar's Health Minister Mangal Pandey in a bizarre comment that was meant to justify a government hospital form that requires doctors and other staff to declare their virginity or the number of times they have been married.

"I have looked up 'virgin' in the dictionary. It means kanya, kunwari (girl, unmarried) Punya Bhumi...I don't see anything objectionable in this," said Mr Pandey on Thursday.

He was responding to the inexplicable "marital declaration" form circulated at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna, which appears to cross the professional line.

Recruits have been asked to declare whether they are bachelors or widowers or virgins, whether they are married and have only "one wife living" or whether they have more than one wife. Women have to testify whether they are married to a person with a wife or without.

The minister said he had been told that the form follows the same format as the premier AIIMS hospital in Delhi. "It has been a rule for 34 years for medical staff to submit the declaration," he told reporters.

Manish Mandal, the Medical Superintendent of the hospital, said: "Rules are made by the government and constitution. If they change the word, we will too."

The virginity declaration, he said, was about a person's marital status and next of kin.

"Virgin doesn't have anything to do with virginity but marital status. If a person joins in and then dies, who would be the claimant?" Perhaps, he conceded, respondents "should have been asked whether they are married or not...that would have been sober."

The comments have been ridiculed in tweets that guessed that the word the form really meant to use was "single" and not "virgin".

"It is embarrassing for all of us to say anything," a state health official was quoted as telling the news agency.

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News Network
May 11,2020

Kabul, May 11: Four back-to-back roadside bombs exploded in a northern district of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Monday, wounding four civilians including a child, police said. Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said a clearance team was at the site of the attacks.

Militants have carried out several roadside bombings and rocket attacks in Kabul and other parts of the country in recent weeks, but Monday's four consecutive explosions appeared to be the first coordinated effort for some months.

The Taliban has not carried out any large attacks in the city since they signed a landmark withdrawal deal with the US in February, meant to pave the way for peace in the country. No group has claimed the attacks. The explosions come as authorities are trying to impose a lockdown in the capital to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Kabul, Jan 27: A passenger plane crashed on Monday in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan's Ghazni province, local officials said.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, which is held by the Taliban. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash.

The number of people on board and their fate was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.

Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national carrier, dismissed the claim that one of their planes had crashed in a statement on their website, saying all their aircraft were operational and safe.

The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.

The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.

The war however has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.

Afghanistan's aviation industry suffered desperately during the rule of the Taliban when its only airline Ariana was subject to punishing sanctions and allowed to fly only to Saudi Arabia for Hajj flights.

Since the overthrow of the religious regime smaller private airlines have emerged but the industry is still a nascent one.

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News Network
March 3,2020

Daman, Mar 3: A BJP councillor was shot dead on Monday in the Union Territory of Daman, police said.

Salim Memon was sitting in his motorcycle showroom when three to four unidentified persons shot four to five bullets after asking a visitor there to move out, an official said quoting eye-witnesses.

While fleeing, they also shot two rounds close to this visitor who was standing outside, he said.

"Memon was rushed to a hospital in Marwad area but was declared dead on arrival. CCTV footage is being scanned to nab the culprits," said Daman Superintendent of Police Vikramjit Singh.

Memon was elected to Daman municipality as a Congress candidate but then switched over to the BJP.

Sources said Memon, who also has a land brokerage business, had come out of jail a few months back in connection with a case of rivalry.

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