"It's an order from State Govt. to conduct [the new examination] at any cost, and we will break your agitation by hook or by crook as and when we want to."

"We are facing lots of pressure from many [private] medical colleges to conduct the exams. Whatever may be the circumstances 5-10 seats are filled through the 'backdoor'".

"Ultimately whose responsibility is it? It is the responsibility of the government, you cannot say that they are an autonomous body, take away their autonomy. You are asking the corrupt system to clean its corruption. The total amount involved is more than $30 billion every year. The big money goes to 100 colleges, $30 billion". CNN-IBN

"In view of the order dated 13.12.2012 of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in T.C. Case No. 101 of 2012 and connected cases, permitting the Medical Council of India and Dental Council of India as well as the States and Universities and other Institutions to conduct their respective examinations for MBBS, BDS and Postgraduate courses and restraining them from publishing the result till the outcome of pending cases, it is open for the students from Andhra Pradesh to appear in NEET-2013 or EAMCET or both"

"I'm also amongst those unfortunate , unwanted helpless MBBS doctor who has given this NEET exam and since then every aspect of my life is on stand still"

"Anyway, life of most medical students, including me, have entered the doldrums. I, for instance, appeared in an interview out of the frustration of waiting for the results. Although I supposedly cleared the interview, I never got the joining letter after the medical check-up.. ... Most other students have been asked to commit for 6 months or something to get a job, which they can't because of the delayed results.. So, no job, no results""

"There is a lot happening ! Been having tons of meetings! Lawyers are busy following up our cases".

"One form of privilege is the privilege of not having to care about the killing of others who live far away and look different than you"

"Manning provided to the public the most important window into the inner workings of imperial power since the release of the Pentagon Papers. The routine use of torture, the detention of Iraqis who were innocent, the inhuman conditions within our secret detention facilities, the use of State Department officials as spies in the United Nations, the collusion with corporations to keep wages low in developing countries such as Haiti, and specific war crimes such as the missile strike on a house that killed seven children in Afghanistan would have remained hidden without Manning."

"Manning explains his motives, noting how he believed the documents showed deep wrongdoing by the government and how he hoped that the release would 'spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan'"

"Yet it's Manning facing life "@dr_rita39: If the aerial weapons team conducting in an unlawful manner, surely, they should be tried".

"The extract below, from Manning's statement, deals with the 'collateral damage' video which Manning courageously leaked to Wikileaks, and which shows civilians, including two cameramen, being attacked and killed by a US helicopter gunship. The Pentagon repeatedly denied the existence of this video and refused to release it when requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Those responsible for this war crime have faced no justice."

1. An employee enters into a dispute with their employer, and they part company on bad terms. The rights and wrongs of the dispute are irrelevant for these purposes; it is enough to know that employer and former employee are at loggerheads.



2. The ex-employee, feeling aggrieved, begins legal proceedings against their former employer, who, also feeling aggrieved, defends the action to the hilt. At this point, they become Claimant and Respondent, respectively.



3. Legal (un)pleasantries are exchanged, forms are filled in, witness statements are obtained, and documentary evidence is requested from various parties.



4. The Claimant may begin to realise that, firstly, these things take a very long time which could be more usefully and enjoyably spent doing almost anything else, and, secondly, that lawyers are very, very expensive.



5. The Respondent, in all probability, begins to realise the same things.



6. At this point, and at all points during the proceedings right up to and including final hearings, the parties have a choice. They can fight on to the bitter end, each convinced that they are in the right and that having their day in court is worth any amount of time, money, inconvenience and stress, or they can come to an agreement amongst themselves to end the proceedings here.



7. This is usually referred to as "settling" the case, and often involves the Claimant receiving a sum of money - and, perhaps, some additional promises or undertakings to do, or not do, certain things - from the Respondent in exchange for the Claimant making some promises of their own. The nature of these undertakings, and any sums to be paid, are largely at the discretion of the parties; no party need agree to anything they don't like, and there is usually a great deal of back and forth negotiation between the parties before they arrive at something they're all happy with.



8. If agreement is reached, it goes before the court / tribunal hearing the case, where it is checked over for obvious problems - for example, the parties can't agree to anything illegal, amongst other things. Assuming all is well, the court makes an order, called a Consent Order, in which the terms of the agreement become legally binding on the parties involved.



9. It is important to understand that, at this point, there has been no finding of guilt or innocence in the case and neither party has been found to be right or wrong (unless some kind of admission is made in the Consent Order) - they have simply agreed to stop fighting.



10. It is likely that the Claimant has made, or intends to make, allegations against the Respondent which, whether they are true or false, may be damaging to the Respondent's reputation. Consequently, it is not unreasonable for the Respondent to seek to protect that reputation by making the Claimant's ongoing silence a condition of their settlement - the so called "gagging clause". After all, where would be the point in the Respondent settling the case, and paying lots of cash to someone whose allegations they vigorously deny, if the Claimant can go right on making those allegations - perhaps even using the Respondent's own money to do so?

"Where allegations were made about the treatment of specific patients, case-notes were reviewed and her claims could not be substantiated."

"Earlier data from Dr Foster does suggest that they did have more concerning mortality in years before 2003/4".

"According to the latest statistics, the number of civilians killed in firings by security forces is almost three times the number of those killed in actions by terrorists".

"Defence Minister AK Antony said last month that hasty decisions could not be taken regarding the withdrawal of the Act since infiltration from across the Line of Control (LoC) had increased. The Defence Ministry and the Army have been strongly opposing withdrawal of the AFSPA from the state, saying that such a step could adversely impact the security architecture in the region"

"Indian forces in Kashmir have engaged in massive human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, rape, torture and deliberate assaults on health care workers. Armed insurgent groups have murdered Hindu and Muslim civilians, summarily executed persons in their custody and have committed rape, assault, kidnapping and indiscriminate attacks which have injured and killed civilians".

"For the victims, the wait for proper justice seems perpetual. In its approach to justice, the Indian state has not moved beyond cash relief or the promise of re-investigation."

"The state has wilfully lowered the standard of justice as well as the crimes perpetrated," he said.

"Cases presented in this report reveal that there is a policy not to genuinely investigate or prosecute the armed forces for human rights violations. There is an occasional willingness to order compensatory relief, but not to bring the perpetrators to justice. On the contrary, alleged perpetrators of crimes are awarded, rewarded and promoted by the State"

"Up to 70,000 people died in violence in Kashmir over recent decades, it is widely estimated. Civilians and security forces were killed in a series of suicide-style attacks and bombings. Such attacks justified the hard-line often taken by security forces, former officers say. However, as the intensity of the conflict has ebbed in recent years, there has been a steady stream of revelations detailing abuses. In recent years, dozens of unmarked graves containing more than 2,000 corpses have been discovered on the Indian side of the line of control, the de facto border that has split the former kingdom between India and Pakistan for nearly 40 years."

Every living human is a descendant of a long line of successful maters. We've adapted to pick certain types of mates and to fulfil the desires of the opposite sex

"At a time when diamorphine may be coming under increased scrutiny, more detailed information is required of its uses and applications"

"She was indicted for having exercised various wicked and devilish arts called witchcrafts, enchantments, charms and sorceries, upon one Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in the Forest of Pendle, and with having, by force thereof, feloniously killed him." It continued, "She was further charged with having bewitched the drink of John Moore, and also with having, without using the churn, produced a quantity of butter from a dish of skimmed milk!".

"The speediest way to take a man's life away by witchcraft is to make a picture of clay, like unto the shape of the person whom they mean to kill, and dry it thoroughly. And when they would have them to be ill in any one place more then an other; then take a thorn or pin, and prick it in that part of the picture you would so have to be ill. And when you would have any part of the body to consume away, and then take that part of the picture, and burn it. And when they would have the whole body to consume away, and then take the remnant of the said picture, and burn it: and so there-upon by that means, the body shall die." The Witches of Salmesbury were charged with bewitching and slaying a child of Thomas Walshams by placing a nail in its navel; and after its burial, they took up the corpse, when they ate part of the flesh, and made an 'uncious ointment' by boiling the bones"

"Rising numbers of women doctors working part-tine present a 'huge risk' to the NHS, the General Medical Council (GMC) is warning, with hospitals potentially having to employ many more foreign-trained medics to plug gaps"

"Doctors have been making the case strongly, and trying to get the political class to hear. They have warned that the working time directive is devastating the NHS in three ways. First, on doctor training, it is eroding the professional ethos that upholds the NHS, and beginning to replace it with a clock on, clock off culture. New generations of junior doctors will know only that. They will never know the old ethos that sustained our NHS. Secondly, the safety of patients--our constituents--is being seriously jeopardised daily. Thirdly, I am sure the Minister appreciates that the financial cost is absolutely massive. I will deal with those three issues in turn, before concluding on the final, biggest blow, which is that the directive does not achieve its aim of a better work-life balance for doctors, and in some cases it makes matters worse.

The previous Government estimated that the introduction of the EWTD, given the existing new deal limitation of a 56-hour working week for doctors, would be the equivalent of taking 4,000 doctors out of circulation. The Royal College of Surgeons estimated the loss of surgical time per month to be 400,000 hours. To put that into perspective, that is equivalent to 45 years of surgical time per month being lost to the NHS"

"There are plenty of wildfires burning in the hot, dry USA this month. If any of them produce smoke with an extra dose of micron-sized particles, the full Moon might really turn blue. On the other hand, maybe it will turn red. Often, when the moon is hanging low, it looks red for the same reason that sunsets are red. The atmosphere is full of aerosols much smaller than the ones injected by volcanoes. Measuring less than a micron in diameter, these aerosols scatter blue light, while leaving the red behind. For this reason, red Blue Moons are far more common than blue Blue Moons."

"It seems to be absolutely possible that someone took the English meaning," now and again" and assigned this astronomical meaning" . So in conclusion the current meaning is " Rare, seldom, even absurd".

"Firstly that the profession, through the GMC or BMA Council, should commission a Consultation Group on Reporting Poor Care. This Group will examine the consequences to all parties from incidents of reported poor care. Second, the Government should consider establishing a Health Select Committee Review of Whistleblowing that would make impartial recommendations to Government and the profession. Third, the Government should consider setting up and resourcing a National Whistleblowing Centre similar to that in the US. We believe that only by open public scrutiny will constructive change be cemented into exemplary clinical practice."

"Without whistleblowers the public wouldn't hear about what really goes on, yet organisations too often have a 'shoot the messenger' approach to whistleblowing as they focus on the person rather than their message. For those that have been brave enough to raise concerns in good faith, expecting change, being subjected to disciplinary procedures for raising a grievance can be personally upsetting."

"The ultimate decision on intervention or non-intervention should be left with the individual doctor without the intervention of third parties whose primary interest is not the patient's welfare. However, the doctor should clearly state to the patient whether or not he is able to accept the patient's decision to refuse treatment or, in case of coma, artificial feeding, thereby risking death. If the doctor cannot accept the patient's decision to refuse such aid, the patient would then be entitled to be attended by another physician."

"In a letter published in the Lancet (2006; 367: 811), these doctors have argued that force-feeding prisoners who were on a hunger strike violated established standards in medical ethics, which acknowledge that patients - including detainees - have a right to refuse treatment, even of a life-sustaining kind, provided that they enjoy decision-making capacity (or more briefly, capacity)"