Why Geniuses are different.....

Human life is a journey of interaction with different kinds of people, all of whom we can not retain in our memory all the time. But there are some people whom we can not forget, how hard we try. Why does this happen? Perhaps these guys are different from others. These are not normal people yet they are among the normal people. They behave differently and some times they act strangely. In fact interaction with these guys may happen through their genius prowess which translates their pain and agony, joy and happiness into the form of poetry, music, painting, story or novel, and films. They may be the genius who makes great strides in Science, Technology and Mathematics.

However, it is very difficult to define what a genius is. Even geniuses of the highest order such as Albert Einstein, WolfGang MoZart, D.H.Lawrence, Henry Moore, and many others found it difficult to answer the question of the self, and perhaps the observation of themselves in search of these answers have led them to the achievements.

According to Puzant Kevork Thomajan, "True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of genie”. But, it is for definite that a genius breaks the boundaries of common thought to take our sensibility or technology to new mindscapes, resulting in a giant leap of the mankind as a whole.

The problem actually occurs when a whole community of ‘commons’ find it hard to understand, relate and communicate to these special people. Scientists have been striving to correlate mental illness with eminent creative individuals, who have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population.

They found artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people using personality and temperament tests. The results have been ground breaking, as the thinking and reaction patterns of genuinely creative people and the depressive maniacs were almost similar, while it differed from the healthy people in all accounts.

The life history of John Nash, the schizophrenic mathematician who won Nobel Prize for his revolutionary studies in game theory, is a perfect example of the off track characteristics often depicted by a genius written in his biography “The beautiful mind”. The kind of seclusion they face is revealed by the inner stories from the Nobel committee, which had delayed his recognition for the sole reason that he was mentally unfit. There are instances by shocked classmates saying that they had totally kept away from the "The Ghost of Fine Hall” as he was called those days, and were only able to understand his passionate language of numbers and equations many years later.

There are umpteen number of stories written about several geniuses and have become the part of the human history, yet common human is unable to understand and regard these special people in the society. It is only when these people gets recognize we rise above our commonness to show our gratitude towards these special people. We do not know how many geniuses in our society among ourselves without recognition face dejection when they are not able to communicate like one of the commoners. Society always treats these superlative geniuses as an odd and sub human beings.

But in fact, this is what they are. Even if they try hard they can not behave as the normal human being as the society more often expects them to be. It is for the society to understand them and treat them equal in their early life. Else many more geniuses will have to see the disgrace.

Meanwhile Science is striving to decode these minds that keep on creating miracles. It is time the society should learn this new language to accept the super brains and adapt to the incomprehensible and ever changing world ruled by them.

Suicide Tourism: Is it tourism anyway?

The act of seeking death in another country by the help of physician or non physician helper is termed as suicide tourism in today’s world. However, this is stated to be different from mercy death called Euthanasia. Euthanasia is till not acceptable as yet but the assisted death is termed legal in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Oregon State of USA. Its perhaps an act of buying death in legal terms where the existing law of the land permits to do so. The Swiss law that allows anyone to help patients die, as long as there are no ulterior motives, dates back to 1942.

Article 115 of the Swiss penal code considers assisting suicide a crime if and only if the motive is selfish. It condones assisting suicide for altruistic reasons. In most cases the permissibility of altruistic assisted suicide cannot be overridden by a duty to save life. Article 115 does not require the involvement of a physician nor that the patient be terminally ill. It only requires that the motive be unselfish. This reliance on a base motive rather than on the intent to kill to define a crime is foreign to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, but it can be pivotal in continental Europe.

Swiss law does not consider suicide a crime or assisting suicide as complicity in a crime. It views suicide as possibly rational. In 1918, a comment by the Swiss federal government on the first federal penal code stated: "In modern penal law, suicide is not a crime . . . Aiding and abetting suicide can themselves be inspired by altruistic motives. This is why the project incriminates them only if the author has been moved by selfish reasons." At the time, the attitudes of the Swiss public were shaped by suicides motivated by honour and romance, which were considered to be valid motives. Motives related to health were not an important concern, and the involvement of a physician was not needed. Euthanasia for terminally ill patients, although intensely discussed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1900s, seems not to have been debated in 1918 in Switzerland.

Swiss law does not recognise the concept of euthanasia. "Murder upon request by the victim" (article 114 of the Swiss penal code) is considered less severely than murder without the victim's request, but it remains illegal. Following a proposal to the Swiss parliament to decriminalise euthanasia, in 1997 the federal government commissioned a working group which included specialists in law, medicine, and ethics to examine the issue. This group recommended that euthanasia remain illegal. Despite this report, parliament voted not to go ahead with the proposed legislation, and a change is unlikely in the near future. The Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics is debating these issues. Its position cannot be predicted.

Assisted suicide is a controversial topic in Switzerland, but data on public attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia are scarce. According to one survey, half of 2411 army conscripts were willing to "shorten the life of a family member who suffered too much and who asked for euthanasia." In a 1999 survey of the Swiss public, 82% of 1000 respondents agreed that "a person suffering from an incurable disease and who is in intolerable physical and psychological suffering has the right to ask for death and to obtain help for this purpose." Of these, 68% considered that physicians should provide this help; 37% considered that the family, 22% that right to die societies, 9% that nurses, and 7% that religious representatives should be able to fulfil such requests. Legislation to allow euthanasia was favoured by 71% of all respondents. No data are available on how well people believe the existing system is working in practice, even though this is one of the key points in the controversy.

No validated statistics exist for assisted suicides in Switzerland. These deaths are not differentiated from unassisted suicides in official records. According to the president of one of the Swiss right to die societies, around 1800 requests for assisted suicides are made each year. Two thirds are rejected after screening. Half of the remaining people die of other causes, leaving about 300 suicides assisted by these societies annually. This constitutes around 0.45% of deaths in Switzerland (J Sobel, personal communication, 2002). Individuals outside these societies may assist additional suicides. In comparison, reported assisted suicide in Oregon represents 0.09% of deaths, and other US data showed a rate of assisted suicide and euthanasia of 0.4% among terminally ill patients. The rate of assisted suicide in the Netherlands is 0.3%, lower than the estimate for Switzerland.

Nevertheless Suicide tourism is making headlines in Switzerland whether it is for wrong reason or right reason. A 2003 study published in the Lancet showed 0.36 per cent of deaths in German-speaking Switzerland were assisted suicides, compared with 0.21 per cent in the Netherlands and 0.01 per cent in Belgium. Since then, the rate in German-speaking Switzerland has risen to 0.5 per cent. The assisted suicide rate in Oregon was 0.12 per cent last year, according to the state's Department of Human Services.

Dignitas split from Exit Deutsche Schweiz, the biggest right-to-die association in Switzerland, in 1998 and had more than 4000 members at the end of 2004, according to its website. Exit, founded in 1982, has about 50,000 members. It doesn't take clients from abroad because the distance makes it difficult to assess their judgment and motivation.

Dignitas uses letters and phone conversations to establish a relationship with foreign clients. It is much more difficult to establish that a patient has a consistent wish to die and is under no external pressure if the patient is far away, in a different legal, cultural and health-care environment, and possibly speaking a different language.

Dignitas helps patients to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of the barbiturate natrium-pentobarbital, but the patient must ingest it himself, said founder and Chief Executive Ludwig Minelli on the group's website. Natrium-pentobarbital isn't available in Germany.

Death Dignitas members pay 100 Swiss francs ($80) to join and an annual fee of 50 francs. Germans are required to join Dignitate-Deutschland, a group headed by Minelli that is lobbying for the right to assist suicides in Germany, for €95 ($190) plus €16 a month. Dignitas charges 2000 francs to help with a suicide.

With comments received from legal, medial and other civil society group, The Swiss government decided to look into the law freshly but the Swiss Cabinet sees no need to tighten restrictions on assisted suicide, despite the fact that the country has become a favourite destination for "death tourism", and that Switzerland's leading euthanasia doctor has pledged to open a chain of for-profit killing facilities.

Therefore, the debate around the world still continues whether this suicide tourism is right or wrong, the intended people keep coming to these destinations for assisted suicide. But in human life, suicide is a most difficult act and should not be justified as joyful event. People world over should stand against it and oppose strong to ban it wherever it is taking place. Let us make the world full of living tourism and not of death.

Rape: Who are the culprits?

The gang rape and death of a 23-year-old-physiotherapy student has sparked an outpouring of national grief and outrage and posed many questions such as, - “Are women safe in the largest democracy of the world?”, “What is the status of the women in the Indian society?”, “Why is that rape cases are increasing every year?”, “Do rape victims treated importantly by the Indian Police?”, “Are there any stringent law which can serve as deterrent for preventing rapes?”, and most important now, “Will this tragedy promptly change law and attitudes toward women?”.

India has more unreported cases of rapes and deaths than cases lodged in the police complaint books. According to an estimated there are about 100000 rape cases pending in the different courts of India. The unreported cases could be somewhat ten times more than this. Most of the unreported cases do not come into the light because of the shame and social stigma created by the male dominated society at large. The victims or the kin of the victims do not really approach media or the police for such cases. Among the brutal cases when the victims life is in danger it is brought to the attention of the police and police instead of helping the victims poses thousands of negative questions to discourage them to lodge the case. Most of the rapes cases are lodged by the police only when media is sensitize and show some activity, otherwise victims keep hanging in police stations and their cases never get registered.

The reason being Indian police are well aware about the crime and they are well tipped by the criminals in advance not to register these cases. Somehow if the cases are registered, the criminals influence the court and buy the witnesses. Don’t forget, among the people who are involved in the rapes, are mostly spoiled brats of rich and powerful persons of the society. The cases such as the recent one is an example of corrupt police administration which allows anything and everything to happen under their nose by the hooligans, goons, and lecherous individuals who understand that they can get away by paying bribe to the police even if they are caught. Indian Police is more known to free criminals than to punish them. What matters for them is the bribe. Even to registered rape cases they collect bribe from the victims.

Look at the other dimensions, in an outrage when people came out of their home protesting against the most heinous crime of gang raping and murdering the victims, the people who are in the power capital does tongue slinging and passing undeserving remarks to the protesting women. This was none other than son of the first citizen of the country and president of India and a responsible citizen in the form of Member of Parliament. This was not only the remark but the thought and attitude of male in the Indian society. There are various other politicians who have been reiterating against the women time and again irrespective of understanding that they too have women in their life and they need respect them. So, when they do not respect their own women, how can they respect other women in the society?

The rape and torture of the women in the society is the outcome of the perceived mindset of the male protagonist who plays brutal and oppressive role against women. The women have to listen to the dictates of this male dominated society. All morale and values are for women and men can do anything.

The recent rape case brought into the public eye a threat to women's security that is at odds with India's image of itself as a modernizing nation that is striving to provide equal opportunity to all its citizens. Even after the news spreading in media throughout the country about this case, there is yet another reported case of rape came into the light and who knows there could be many cases not known to us. India is the largest democracy.

India is a democracy but some are more equals than the other, that’s why laws will not be made such stiff which can affect so called more equals. The law makers will not make it harsh which serve as deterrent. We, in fact, send our representative in parliament to make our society better but they see everything through their own lenses.

These six men who have been nabbed for the crime would be punished, they may get capital punishment too, but will the Indian mindset change towards women is the bigger question.

Around three decades back due brother and sister, Sanjay Chopra and Geeta Chopra, were murdered by then DTC bus driver and conductor in another evening. While finding them lonely in the bus, the driver and conductor tried to molest and rape the sister but the brother fought valiantly. The culprits, Ranga and Billa, were caught and hanged till death. People thought that will serve as deterrent for the rapist. But the statistics have shown so far the different pictures only.

If as a society we are to avoid such cases we need to respect our women and change attitude towards them. We can make kind of society we want. But if the present mindset continues we all will find culprits among ourselves who sees women as commodity to use and throw.