In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution.
Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.
source: http://www.penguin.co.in / Penguin House / Books> Non-Fiction
The skull belonged to a 32-year-old Indian soldier who revolted against the British
In 2014, while sitting in an office in London’s Mile End, historian Kim Wagner received an email from a couple who said they owned a skull.
Dr Wagner, who teaches imperial history at Queen Mary University of London, says the couple told him they did not feel comfortable with the “thing” in their house, and did not know what to do with it.
The lower jaw of the skull was missing, the few remaining teeth were loose, and it had the “sepia hue of old age”.
But what was remarkable was a detailed handwritten note in a neatly folded slip of paper inserted in an eye socket. The note told the brief story of the skull:
Skull of Havildar “Alum Bheg,” 46th Regt. Bengal N. Infantry who was blown away from a gun, amongst several others of his Regt. He was a principal leader in the mutiny of 1857 & of a most ruffianly disposition. He took possession (at the head of a small party) of the road leading to the fort, to which place all the Europeans were hurrying for safety. His party surprised and killed Dr. Graham shooting him in his buggy by the side of his daughter. His next victim was the Rev. Mr. Hunter, a missionary, who was flying with his wife and daughters in the same direction. He murdered Mr Hunter, and his wife and daughters after being brutally treated were butchered by the road side.
Alum Bheg was about 32 years of age; 5 feet 7 ½ inches high and by no means an ill looking native.
The skull was brought home by Captain (AR) Costello (late Capt. 7th Drag. Guards), who was on duty when Alum Bheg was executed.
A handwritten note inserted in an eye socket told the brief story of the skull
What was clear from the note was that the skull was of a rebel Indian soldier called Alum Bheg, who belonged to the Bengal Regiment and who was executed in 1858 by being blown from the mouth of a cannon in Sialkot (a town in Punjab province located in present-day Pakistan); and that a man who witnessed the execution brought the skull to England. The note is silent on why Bheg committed the alleged murders.
Native Hindu and Muslim soldiers, also known as sepoys, rebelled against the British East India Company in 1857 over fears that gun cartridges were greased with animal fat forbidden by their religions. The British ruled India for 200 years until the country’s independence in 1947.
The couple in Essex had trawled the internet and failed to find anything about Bheg. They contacted Dr Wagner after they found his name as a historian who had authored a book on the Indian uprising, often referred to as the first war of independence.
‘Grisly trophy’
On a wet November day, which was also his birthday, Dr Wagner met the couple. They told him that they had inherited the skull after one of their relatives took over a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963, and found the skull stored under some old crates and boxes in a small room in the back of the building.
Nobody quite knows how the skull ended up in the pub. The local media had excitedly reported on the “nerve-shattering discovery” in 1963 and carried pictures of the new pub owners “proudly posing with the grisly trophy” before it was put up on display at the pub. When the owners died, it was finally passed on to their relatives who simply hid it away.
“And so it was I found myself standing in a small train station in Essex with a human skull in my bag. Not just any other skull but one directly related to a part of history that I write about and that I teach my students every year,” says Dr Wagner.
What was very clear, he says, is that it was a “trophy skull, irrevocably linked to a narrative of violence”.
But first Dr Wagner had to confirm that the skull matched the history outlined in the note, written by an unknown person. At London’s Natural History Museum, an expert examined it and suggested that it dated back to the mid-19th Century; and that it definitely belonged to a male of Asian ancestry, who was possibly in his mid-30s.
The skull was discovered in a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963
There was no sign of violence, said the expert, which is not unusual in the case of execution by cannon, where the torso takes the full impact of the blast. The skull also bore cut marks from a tool, suggesting that the head was defleshed by being boiled or being left exposed to insects.
Dr Wagner says he did not believe immediately that it would be possible to find out very much more about Bheg.
Individual soldiers rarely left any traces in the colonial archives, with the possible exception of someone like Mangal Pandey, who fired the first shot at a British officer on 29 March 1857 on the outskirts of Kolkata and stirred up a wave of rebellion in India against the colonial power.
Bheg’s name was not mentioned in any of the documents, reports, letters, memoirs and trial records from the period in the archives and libraries in India and UK. There were also no descendants demanding the return of the skull.
But there were a few helpful discoveries.
Dr Wagner found the letters of Bheg’s alleged victims to their families. What proved crucial, he says, in piecing the story together were the letters and memoirs of an American missionary, Andrew Gordon, who lived in Sialkot during and after the uprising. He knew both Dr Graham and the Hunters – Bheg’s victims – personally and he had attended the soldier’s execution.
There was also a revealing report in the illustrated newspaper, The Sphere, in 1911 on a grisly exhibit in a museum in Whitehall:
The ghastly memento of the Indian Mutiny has, we are informed, just been placed in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution at Whitehall. It is a skull of a sepoy of the 49th Regiment of Bengal Infantry who was blown from the guns in 1858 with eighteen others. The skull has been converted into a cigar box as we see.
The newspaper said that “while we may be able to understand all the savagery of the terrible time – the cruelty of the natives and the cruel retribution that followed – is it not an outrage that a memento of our retribution, which in these days would not be tolerated for a moment, should be placed on exhibition in a great public institution?”
Indian soldiers rose up against the British in 1857
Battling a famine of evidence, Dr Wagner began researching Bheg. He worked in the archives in London and Delhi, and travelled to Sialkot to locate the forgotten battlefield of the four-day Trimmu Ghat clash in July 1857 – during which the Sialkot rebels, including Bheg, were intercepted and defeated by General John Nicholson. The general was mortlly wounded two months later leading the assault to recapture Delhi from the mutineers.
He relied on letters, petitions, proclamations and statements by rebels after the outbreak of the uprising, went through 19th Century newspaper databases and scanned books.
“It was only after I spent some time researching the story, in the UK and in India, that I managed to piece a historical narrative together and realised that there was a bigger story to tell,” he told me.
‘Detective novel’
The result is Wagner’s new book, The Skull of Alum Bheg, a vivid page-turner on life and death in British India during the largest anti-colonial revolt of the 19th Century. Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history at the University of Oxford, says the book “reads like a detective novel and yet is also an important contribution to understanding British rule and the extent of colonial violence”.
Dr Wagner writes that his book sets out to “restore some of the humanity and dignity that has been denied to Alum Bheg by telling the story of his life and death during one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British India”.
“I hope I have prepared the ground for Alum Bheg to finally find some peace, some 160 years late.”
Kim Wagner says the ‘final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written’
In Dr Wagner’s telling, Alum Bheg – properly transliterated as Alim Beg – was a Sunni Muslim from northern India. The Bengal Regiment was raised in Cawnpore (now Kanpur) in today’s Uttar Pradesh state, and it is likely that Bheg hailed from the region. Muslims made up around 20% of the largely Hindu regiments.
Bheg was responsible for a small detachment of soldiers, and had a gruelling routine, guarding the camp, carrying letters and working as a peon for higher officials of the regiment. After the revolt in July 1857, he appeared to have evaded the British troops until his capture and execution nearly a year later.
Resting place
Captain Costello, who was described as being present at the execution in the note, was established as Robert George Costello. Dr Wagner believes he is the man who brought the skull back to Britain. He was born in Ireland and sent to India in 1857, and retired from his commission 10 months later, boarded a steamer from India in October 1858, and reached Southampton a little more than a month later.
“The final aim of my research is to prepare for Bheg to be repatriated to India, if at all possible,” Dr Wagner says.
He says there have been no claims to the skull, but he’s in touch with Indian institutions and the British High Commission in India is also involved in the initial discussions.
“I am very keen for Alum Bheg’s repatriation not to be politicised, and for the skull not to end up in a glass-case in a museum or simply be forgotten in a box somewhere,” says Dr Wagner.
Dr. Wagner says Bhegh should be buried in an island on the current India- Pakistan border
“My hope is for Alum Bheg to be repatriated and buried in a respectful manner in the near future.”
A fitting place to bury Bheg, he believes, would be on the island on the Ravi river, where the sepoy and his fellow soldiers had taken refuge after surviving the first day of the battle and which today marks the border between India and Pakistan.
“Ultimately, that is not for me to decide, but whatever happens, the final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written.”
Photographs courtesy Kim Wagner
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC News / Home> India / by Soutik Biswas / India Correspondent / April 05th, 2018
Jordanian food is delicious with varied dishes paired with Jordanian hospitality, that makes for a once in a lifetime experience. If you can’t make the visit to the country, visit mini Jordan for food in Tolichowki with the same recipe and imported ingredients.
Ever see a tiny copper bowl immersed in hot sand to brew coffee? Or even a traditional chicken grilling on charcoal for shawarma? If not, Jordan’s Charcoal Shawarma and Falafel is the place for it. Jordanian food is delicious with varied dishes paired with Jordanian hospitality, that makes for a once in a lifetime experience. If you can’t make the visit to the country, visit mini Jordan for food in Tolichowki with the same recipes and imported ingredients.
Located near Brindavan Colony Road, Tolichowki, Jordan’s Charcoal Shawarma and Falafel has become a happening hotspot as it offers a nice break from usual hangout spots.
Managed by 19-year-old Musharraf Niazi who is pursuing B.com in Computers, the place is inspired by the spices of Jordan.
“My brother who was working in Riyadh came up with the idea to set up a store with the spices and coffee powder imported from Jordan. We follow the traditional method of making shawarmas on charcoal and coffee on sand.”
Traditional method of cooking is the USP of the place. Here, coffee is brewed on hot sand, as it generates consistent heat. This method of brewing is practiced in Turkey so it’s called Turkish sand coffee. The ingredients in Turkish sand coffee are same as that of a regular coffee – milk, finely-ground coffee beans and sugar, if desired. The shawarmas here are unlike those grilled on gas. The juicy pieces of chicken grilled on charcoal, differ in the aroma and taste from the usual fare.
Their menu is simple with limited options and includes charcoal shawarma roll, charcoal shawarma plate (with hummus), falafel with Indian dressing, hummus and coffee. The price ranges between Rs 20 and Rs 160 inclusive of all taxes.
“I’m a coffee lover, and I usually come here with friends to sip a cup of coffee and have authentic shawarma. Coffee making is what attracts me to visit the place over and over,” says Mohd Taqi, a resident of Tolichowki.
Jordan’s Charcoal shawarma and falafel is open from evening 4 pm to 12 am.
source: http://www.telanganatoday.com / Telangana Today / Home / by Nikisha Uddagiri / April 07th, 2018
Shaik Abdul Hameed of India won the 2014 Thailand Tour title of Asian Bowling Federation (ABF) on 17 April 2014 at Blu-O Rhythm & Bowl Ratchayothinon in Bangkok, Thailand.
With this Hameed became the first Indian to win the title of ABF.
Hameed defeated Mahamood Al Attar of UAE 242-183 in the final.
Shaik had won India’s first-ever medal in Commonwealth Tenpin Bowling Championship in 2002. He won the Gold medals in Singles and Masters and a Silver medal in all events.
In the Women’s Final, Kritsanakorn Sangaroon of Thailand won the Thailand Tour title of Asian Bowling Federation.
About Asian Bowling Federation (ABF)
The ABF Tour of 2014 consists of nine legs, five in the Middle East (Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia) with a men’s division only and four in East and South East Asia (Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau and Indonesia) featuring men and women in separate divisions.
The top 16 men and the top 16 women at the end of the 2014 season qualify for the ABF Tour Tournament of Champions scheduled for March 2015 in Kuwait.
QUICK DIGEST
Who: Shaik Abdul Hameed
Where: Bangkok, Thailand
What: won 2014 Thailand Tour title of Bowling
When: 17 April 2014
source: http://www.jagranjosh.com / Jagran Josh / Home> Sports Current Affairs> Library / by Leena / April 21st, 2014
After six months, Reshma Nilofer Naha will be piloting ships from sea to the Kolkata port.
She will be the world’s first woman river pilot to do this. She will pilot ships through a distance of 223km, of which, 148km will be up the Hooghly – considered to be one of the most treacherous with its sharp ‘bars and bends’. Reshma, originally from Chennai, is now undergoing training at the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT).
“The role of river pilots is crucial as they have knowledge of the river and can guide the ships into port. We have 67 river pilots in service and Reshma will start her job soon,” KoPT chairman Vinit Kumar said.
Reshma, a BSc (Nautical Science) graduate, was recruited by KoPT in 2011. According to JJ Biswas, director, marine department, KoPT, she also has a year’s experience at sea as a cadet. “After joining KoPT, she obtained the 2nd and 1st mates competency certificates from the Directorate General of Shipping. Recently, she cleared the Grade III Part-I examination from KoPT. In the next six months, she will qualify as a Grade III pilot,” he added.
As a Grade III pilot, Reshma will initially be assigned smaller vessels. Later, as she gets more experienced, she will graduate to Grade II and Grade I and take charge of large ships like Panamax vessels – nearly 300m-long with a capacity of 70,000 tonnes or more.
All ships calling on the ports of Kolkata or Haldia have to contact the pilot station on Sagar Island when they approach the Sandheads. From the Sandheads to the pilot boarding point at Sagar, remote pilotage is provided to the ships using Vessel Traffic Management System guidance. At a spot known as Middleton Point, a pilot vessel rendezvous with a ship and the pilot gets on board. The pilot is in charge till the ship reaches Kolkata and the harbour pilot takes over.
“The river has several sandbars and bends. A river pilot knows the channel along which the ship has to move to avoid getting stranded. Draught is also a problem and there is little scope of manoeuvring. The pilots make best use of the tides to guide ships in. People without training and experience along the river cannot handle ships,” another official said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News / by Jayanta Gupta / TNN / April 05th, 2018
From left — Scientists Shriessh Srivastava, Syed Shams Yazdani, Zia Fatma and Tabinda Shakeel studied the phospholipid pathway of E. coli . (Photo – The Hindu)
New Delhi :
A team of scientists at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi has successfully experimented with the use of microbes in making hydrocarbons.
The scientists “have succeeded in engineering the metabolic pathway of Escherichia coli in such way that it would synthesise hydrocarbons of carbon chain length 15 and 17, which are the fundamental components of diesel,” says a report in The Hindu.
The results of the study, conducted by four researchers of microbial engineering – Shriessh Srivastava, Syed Shams Yazdani, Zia Fatma and Tabinda Shakeel – were recently published in the Journal of Metabolic Engineering.
“Few cyanobacteria are known to produce a low quantity of alkane. So we put the genes responsible for this production into the laboratory bacteria. But then the production was very minimal. So we took the approach of in-silico metabolic pathway, and finally over-expressed a gene (zwf gene) and removed few genes from E. coli which resulted in significantly high hydrocarbon production,” explained Zia Fatma, Postdoctoral researcherand first author of the paper.
Dr Syed Shams Yazdani, from Microbial Engineering group and corresponding author of the paper said: “Currently, most of our need for fuels is met by non-renewable crude petroleum. Few countries have commercialised biodiesel made via transesterification of vegetable oil, but they can only be blended in the proportion of 5-20% with diesel and are not compatible with the supply chain,” says per. “The production is currently only at the lab level. We have to integrate the engineered plasmid into the genome and go for mass production. We are working to bring about a ten-fold increase in the production and at the same time bring down the cost of the new product.”
Makkah Masjid in Hyderabad is one of the biggest mosques in India and the foundation stone for its construction was laid during 1616-17 CE and the foundation was laid by the Qutub Shahi ruler, Sultan Mohammad Qutub Shah VI.
The construction was completed by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1694 after 77 years.
The mosque is also listed as a heritage building. The Masjid is built in granite and the bricks for its construction were brought from Mecca, the holy city of Saudi Arabia.
source: http://www.siasat.com
The chief mason was Rangaiah Chowdhury while the engineer was Faizullah Baig.
The prayer hall can accommodate 10,000 people owing to its large size with dimensions of 75 feet high, 180 feet long and has a width of 220 feet.
According to the information available on the Hyderabad.org.uk, it is believed that a strand of Prophet Mohammed’s hair is preserved in a room in the mosque’s courtyard.
There are 15 intricately designed arches that support the roof of the main hall, in which 5 arches were constructed on 3 walls. The mosque is decked with Belgian crystal chandeliers, which adds to the beauty of the exquisitely designed interiors of the mosque. Inside the mosque, there are 5 passageways and tombs of the rulers belonging to the ‘Asaf Jahi’ dynasty.
According to the news reported in Times of India, during the Qutub Shahi rule, Iran was specifically mentioned in Friday sermons in all mosques in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the Qutub Shahi kingdom.
According to the historian Abdul Majeed Siddique in his ‘History of Golcunda (1956)’ one of the reasons for the Mughal rulers to attack the Qutub Shahi kingdom was the recital of the name of the Shah of Iran (Safavid dynasty) in Friday sermons. Emperor Shahjahan was so angry that he sent a letter to Abdullah Qutub Shah VII to stop mentioning the name of the Shah.
Historian Abdul Majeed Siddique quotes Emperor Shahjahan’s words that order “the abandonment of the name of the Safavid King and replacement thereof by the emperor’s own name in both, the Friday sermons and coins”.
Currently, the restoration works are being done to welcome the Iranian President Dr. Hassan Rouhani who will be the first Iranian President to address the congregation, though he is the second leader to visit the mosque. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Mohammad Khatami became the first Iranian President to visit Hyderabad (January 28, 2004), but he did not participate in the Friday congregation.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Hyderabad> News> Top Stories / February 15th, 2018
With the tinge of an Indian accent, a bespectacled professor rattled off medical terminology in English as students frantically took notes. Unfazed by the stench of embalming fluids, they examined the torso of a cadaver at Gulf Medical University (GMU) in Ajman, United Arab Emirates. Nothing unusual as far as anatomy classes go, except that GMU is the only privately owned academic medical center in the U.A.E. It is part of a network of four pioneering teaching hospitals that now train 19% of doctors in the country and treat nearly 1,800 patients a day.
The founder is Thumbay Moideen, a 58-year-old former timber trader from Mangalore, a port city on the Arabian Sea in southern India. He is as surprised as anyone to find himself at the helm of a growing healthcare empire, Thumbay Group, which generated $700 million last year, up more than 20% from 2014. “It’s an unlikely tale,” says Moideen.
The career switch has made Moideen a billionaire, with a fortune FORBES MIDDLE EAST estimates at $1.8 billion, based on comparable publicly traded healthcare companies in the U.A.E. He says he’s Thumbay Group’s sole shareholder.
What began as an institution to teach aspiring medical professionals from India in the U.A.E.—Indians make up half of the country’s population, turned into training grounds for all expats, and includes a sizeable Arab student body. The university gets up to 6,000 applications a year for a total of 270 spots. Tuition ranges from $8,000 a year for a degree in physiotherapy to $32,000 annually for a medical degree—more than three times the cost of an MD at a government-run university. Other specialties include dentistry and pharmacy. Since 2003, over 2,000 students have graduated.
Healthy Choice
The tale of Moideen’s ascent into medical academia begins in December 1997. Traveling from Mangalore to Tanzania, he made a stop in Ajman and paid a visit to a member of the royal family, Sheikh Majid bin Saeed Al Nuaimi, a family acquaintance.
Moideen was then working for his family’s timber and real estate company, BA Group Thumbay, a pillar of the Mangalore business community. His father, Ahmed Hajee Moideen, formed the establishment in 1957. It imports wood from Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, and processes them in its factories. After graduating with a degree in commerce from St. Aloysius College in Mangalore, Moideen joined the business in 1979, and traveled frequently.
Over dinner that December evening in Ajman, Sheikh Al Nuaimi asked him, “Can you think of a project which could have multiple effects on the economy of Ajman?” recalls Moideen.
Ajman is the smallest emirate in the U.A.E., and the royal family was on the hunt for new projects to help boost its economy.
“In those days, Ajman was like a village. There was nothing,” says Moideen.
He proposed expanding the family business in Ajman, but the Sheikh pushed for new ideas. Moideen told him the story of a medical university and affiliated hospital close to his hometown. Kasturba Medical College in Manipal began accepting medical students in 1969, and it built Kasturba Hospital. “The whole town grew around the college and it became world renowned,” says Moideen. In 2015, an India Today/Nielsen survey ranked Kasturba Medical College one of the top 10 medical schools in India—a feat in a country with more than 280 medical colleges.
Moideen thought their conversation was casual brainstorming, but the Sheikh immediately saw potential. Three days later, he brought up the idea of an academic medical center for Ajman with the Emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, who asked to see Moideen. He told the Emir that although it was an exciting idea, he didn’t have expertise in education or healthcare. The Emir persisted. “As we spoke, the ruler said, ‘you look like a smart chap, why don’t you try it? I’ll help you,’” recalls Moideen..
“It was a risky move, but I’m an adventurous fellow,” he says. It didn’t take him long to abandon his career in the family company in 1998, and immerse himself in the business of healthcare. “I was rushing between India and Ajman. I couldn’t keep up anymore and this was so much more exciting.”
His first move was to seek advice from Kasturba Medical College. Consultants from the school helped him draw a feasibility study. The only other medical schools in 1998 in the U.A.E. were Dubai Medical College, which is only open to women, and government-owned Al Ain University.
The Ministry of Higher Education didn’t allow expats to own a license for educational institutions, but a royal decree soon waived that requirement in January 1998. Moideen bought 25 acres of land from the government the following month, bankrolling the venture with an initial investment of nearly $41 million in bank loans and his own capital. In March, he began building the university and by the fall of that year, it started accepting students.
To his surprise, the school hardly got any Indian applicants. Arabs and expats from countries such as the U.K. and Germany enrolled. Gulf Medical University, which had only recruited Indian staff, quickly had to hire personnel from other nationalities.
The student body is now made up of 36% Arabs, 32% Asians (including Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans) and 22% Africans; the rest comes from Europe and the U.S. Gita Ashok Raj, a pathologist from Mangalore, oversees a faculty of 162 from 22 countries. Students straighten up when she walks down the university corridors. “We have fast evolved from a college offering one full-time program to a full-fledged university offering 15 full-time programs,” she says.
To build the school’s reputation, Moideen began raising its profile by sponsoring conferences with top medical schools, such as Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic and Hamburg University. “We took the initiative 17 years ago and contacted these big universities,” he says. Early on, for example, GMU organized a national conference on ophthalmology along with the U.A.E.’s Ministry of Health and Mayo Clinic. James Garrity, Chair and Professor of Ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic, delivered the keynote address. To date, the school has organized more than 275 national and international conferences.
The plan for a teaching hospital began in 2000. For the first two years, students were sent to Iranian Hospital in Dubai, while Moideen built the first 200-bed Thumbay Hospital in Ajman. Financed with $81 million in loans from Islamic banks and his money, it opened in 2002, a year before the first graduating class. He opened three other hospitals with 60 beds each in Fujairah in 2006 and Sharjah in 2011, and 150 beds in Dubai in 2015. His eldest son Akbar who studied hospital management at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy, runs the hospital division.
GCC countries still struggle with a shortage of medical professionals. There are 1.5 physicians per 1,000 people, while hospital beds lag at 21 per 10,000 people, according to Colliers International, a global real estate consultancy firm.
One law hasn’t changed for Thumbay Group: its medical school graduates are required to complete a year of internship at a government-owned hospital. Besides Al Ain University, they now include the University of Sharjah, and Ras al-Khaimah Medical and Health Sciences University.
The majority of GMU students go on to specialize in areas such as cardiology, neurology, and dermatology; 22% are admitted to U.S. medical schools for further training.
The school’s academic record hasn’t necessarily translated into a preference for its physicians, or any U.A.E.-trained doctor for that matter. Saudi German Hospital in Dubai, for example, hires GMU graduates with three years of experience, but a western education still carries prestige. “Western-trained doctors are preferred by patients,” says Semira Dikbas, executive, International Patients Program at Saudi German Hospital. “Gulf Medical University is well recognized, but we cannot compare it with any other university in Europe, the U.S. or India.”
In an effort to gain prestige, Moideen started the first medical journal in the GCC. Launched in 2012, the Gulf Medical Journal is a peer-reviewed publication with an international advisory board that includes doctors from India, the U.K. and U.S. Researchers at Gulf Medical University are expected to publish two to three articles a year. The school spends close to $3 million a year on research, and faculty is regularly awarded external grants. Recently, for example, the World Health Organization provided a $10,000 grant to study at-risk relatives of patients with diabetes, which affects one in five people in the U.A.E.
The strategy is slowly paying off at Thumbay hospitals too. In 2013, they received accreditation from Joint Commission International, a U.S. non-profit organization. It bestows its highly coveted stamp of approval on hospitals that meet benchmarks for quality and safety.
Thumbay Group runs the only privately owned teaching hospitals in the U.A.E., but the number of hospitals is growing to meet demand. VPS Healthcare, HNC Hospitals and NMC Healthcare, to name a few, are expanding. Their founders are also Indian entrepreneurs, who have staked out a claim in the healthcare sector in the Gulf.
Moideen has now set his sights on Ghana where he expects to open a medical school by 2017. He inaugurated a hospital in Hyderabad in November 2015, and plans to build hospitals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bombay and Bangalore next year.
source: http://www.forbesmiddleeast.com / Forbes Middle East / Home> Business / March 01st, 2016
Iqbal Siddiqui, born December 26, 1974, was a Maharashtra stalwart through the 1990s. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at a man whose solitary Test resulted in multiple records for him.
The ‘One-Test Wonder’ tag does not sound something to be very proud of. Iqbal Rashid Siddiqui, however, had a remarkable one-off outing. It was not a remarkable performance, but he created multiple records in the process. But all in due course of time.
Siddiqui was reminiscent of Kapil Dev in more ways than one. He was stout, had an imposing frame, could generate deceptive pace, could swing the ball in air and gain significant movement off the pitch, and had that rare ability to run through a side on flat tracks — an attribute Indian pacers are not known for.
His 90 First-Class matches, mostly for Maharashtra, earned him 315 wickets at 30.08 — a number that reflects his inconsistency more than anything else. A decent batsman, he also scored 1,343 runs and had scored a hundred. He was also an excellent outfielder.
Maharashtra days
Born in Aurangabad, Siddiqui made his way quickly through the Under-16s and Under-19s. He made his First-Class debut in 1992-93, and stormed through Tamil Nadu at Bhusawal in the second innings with 6 for 59 and 4 for 71 in his second match.
He found a berth in the India Under-19s side for their 1994 tour of England. He had an excellent outing in the first Youth Test at Taunton against England Under-19s, taking five for 75 and four for 88; his tally included wickets of Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, and Anthony McGrath. Siddiqui headed the Indian bowling charts on the tour with 18 wickets at 24.
However, inconsistency caught up with him, and his career seemed to be fading away by 1995-96 (he even shifted to Hyderabad), though he found a place in the Irani Cup squad. Then came the match at Pune in 1997-98, where he routed Baroda with 7 for 49 and 5 for 30. The match figures of 12 for 79 remained his career-best.
Sent in as night-watchman against Orissa at Pune next season, Siddiqui slammed 116 from 292 balls. He ran through Saurashtra the next season with a career-best 8 for 72 at Pune (he took 2 more in the next innings). Consistent performances in the domestic circuit earned him a call-up for India A in their match against the touring Englishmen at Jaipur.
Siddiqui removed Mark Butcher after Sunil Joshi declared the innings closed at 233 for 9. But his real impact came in his second spell, when he removed Vaughan, Mark Ramprakash, and Andrew Flintoff in the space of 12 balls. He finished with 4 for 53, and gave the hosts a 63-run lead. Craig White bowled out India A for 109. This time Siddiqui removed Trescothick, but the tourists reached home with 3 wickets in hand. The selectors liked what they saw: Siddiqui made his debut in the first Test of the series at Mohali.
One Test, many records
To be fair, the selectors were harsh on the Indian bowlers after a dismal tour of South Africa. They brought in two debutant opening bowlers (Tinu Yohannan would partner Siddiqui), while in Sanjay Bangar they drafted in an all-rounder. England also had two new men in James Foster and Richard Dawson.
England got off to a good start and reached 172 for 2 when Siddiqui claimed his only international wicket: Graham Thorpe edged one to VVS Laxman at third slip. Harbhajan Singh then bowled a fantastic spell, and the English were bowled out for 238. Deep Dasgupta, opening due to Virender Sehwag’s ban, scored a hundred; Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar both scored eighties; and India secured a 231-run lead.
Siddiqui, having taken 1 for 32 in the first innings, got only 8 wicketless overs in the second as Anil Kumble routed England for 235. However, he stunned Mohali by taking an exceptional tumbling catch of Trescothick at deep fine-leg off Yohannan. With only 5 to chase, Sourav Ganguly sent Siddiqui to open with Dasgupta; Siddiqui hit a boundary off the first ball from Matthew Hoggard and took a single from the second, and that was that.
In the process Siddiqui became the 12th player (and second Indian, after Manoj Prabhakar) to open batting and bowling on debut. He also remains the only cricketer to do the same in his only Test, and the second person to play the winning shot in his only Test after Jeff Moss.
[Note: Pat Cummins has also played the winning shot it in the only Test he has played so far, but he may play again.]
Later days
Siddiqui never played another Test. He played domestic cricket till 2004-05 before calling it quits. His last season saw him score 59 and take 5 for 68 against Assam at Aurangabad. He also played for Sevenoaks Vine in Kent Cricket League Premier Division in 2006, finishing with most wickets for the club (20 at 28.75).
(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here)
source: http://www.cricketcountry.com / Cricket Country / Home> Features> Moments In History / by Abhishek Mukherjee / December 26th, 2016
Kochannoor (Thrissur District), KERALA / Doha, QATAR :
K P Abdul Hameed
Doha :
Long-time Doha resident and prominent Indian entrepreneur K P Abdul Hameed (76) passed away at a hospital in Bengaluru in southern India on Monday.
He was a managing director of Al Muftah Rent A Car, set up in 1970 as the first vehicle rental firm in Qatar.
Hameed will be buried at his native place, Kochannoor, in Kerala’s Thrissur district on Tuesday. He leaves behind his wife Aminu and two sons, Dr K P Najeeb (Hamad Medical Corporation) and Fazil Hameed (Al Muftah Rent A Car). A K Usman, who is also a managing director of Al Muftah Rent A Car, is his brother-in-law.
Hameed had suffered a stroke more than a month ago in Doha and was taken to India for treatment. Hameed, who arrived in Qatar in 1965, was a regular presence at a number of community events over the last four decades.
The veteran businessman was among the founders of MES Indian School, which was the first Indian expatriate institution of the country. The school was established in 1974.
Hameed was also one of the founding members and chief patrons of the Indian Cultural and Arts Society (Incas Qatar).
Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF) and expatriate forums Incas Qatar and Indian Medical Association (Qatar chapter) and Pravasi Malayali Federation have mourned the death of Hameed.
source: http://www.gulf-times.com / Gulf Times / June 19th, 2017
