This three-day conference focused on advancing health equity in the 21st century. It attracted leading global health leaders, practitioners, faculty, and students, who engaged with world renowned keynote speakers, invited guest speakers and lecturers, and partook in the break-out conference sessions, symposia, plenary panels, and oral presentations that the conference embraced.   Hosted by the Global Health Education Consortium, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, and the Canadian Society for International Health, this conference was an exciting way to showcase and shape global health research, education, and advocacy with individuals from a vast spectrum of backgrounds, interests, and stages of training that make global health the dynamic field that it is.

The Sunday break-out session on the Global Burden of Disease included an eye-opening talk entitled “Infant Mortality and Micronutirition” which focused on zinc. The deficiency of this micronutrient is the greatest in the developing world.

The first speaker, Doctor Robert Black, spoke of the unmet potential of micronutrients and how zinc supplementation has great impacts on infant mortality. In fact, The World Health Organization estimates that the global burden of mortality attributable to zinc deficiency is 750,000 deaths annually. This deficiency is most commonly found in individuals living in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Black revealed that time after time, studies show that zinc supplementation can decrease mortality by 15-30 per cent in infants 6 to 35 months old.  Furthermore, 178 million children suffer from stunted growth, and zinc supplementation has a positive effect on such anthropometric measures. Zinc supplementation also curbs infectious disease rates. One study in India showed that zinc supplementation reduced the incidence of diarrhea by at least 20 per cent; when zinc is given as a treatment of diarrhea during an acute bout, it decreases future prevalence of diarrhea by 34 per cent.

Black was followed by Doctor C. Larson, a McGill Medical Graduate specializing in paediatrics and public health. Zinc, he explained, is an important mineral in a large number of biological functions; it supports normal growth and development, promotes wound healing, enhances taste and mood, and is essential for cellular metabolism and immune function. Dietary sources of zinc include oysters, meats, beans, and nuts. He spoke of international efforts to scale-up zinc treatment in an effort to curtail the insidious effects of childhood diarrhea. So far, international efforts have achieved 10 per cent coverage of supplementation in rural areas. He claims the greatest challenge is that such initiatives must have sustainability and it is difficult to distribute resources to the mouths of those who are most in need without creating disparity.

“There is this idea of marketing, which we as health care professionals don’t understand nearly as much as we should, and which is the key for success in large-scale initiatives that involve supply and demand,” he said.

Specifically, the problem with zinc supplemention is demand. Most people are not educated on the importance of zinc. A few years ago, supply was also a barrier, since only France was producing zinc supplements. Currently, Zambia and India are as well.

Doctor S. Horton stepped up to the microphone next to speak about the economics behind micronutrients. She discussed the Copenhagen Consensus, which she describes as the “olympics for economists.” Occurring every four years, it is a meeting where ten of the most eminent economists in the world meet to answer the question of how to best advance global welfare, assuming there was 65 billion dollars at disposal over a four year period. The last meeting in 2008 – which included five Nobel laureates – concluded that micronutrient supplementation for children, specifically vitamin A and zinc, would have the most impact. According to Horton, the international community is making an effort to prioritize these interventions and implement changes as part of a broader international policy effort. Such efforts are funded with increasing contributions by the international private sector, the domestic private sector, domestic governments, and most importantly, by international donors.

Doctor Mark Fryars, vice president of the Micronutrient Initiative wrapped up the session by talking about the need of strengthening inter-country capacity to scale-up micronutrient interventions.  He started his powerful presentation with a quote by Richard Kohl: “start with the end in mind.”  Scaling up is not simply about “coverage or about products,” he said. “It is very much about impact. There has to be a constant and major focus on those truly in need.”

One of the conditions that is implicit in this issue is that sustainability is vital and that coverage needs to encompass those truly in need, and not just those in reach. He discussed the important capacities and capabilities needed to implement a scale-up program. The road for such projects seems clear cut: scientific evidence shows proof of concept, which leads to a scaling-up process which allows for long-term sustainability.  In practice, however, it is not so straightforward. In essence, political commitment, distribution, proper uptake and utilization, affordable prices, the right people, adequate providers, promotion, business processes for engaging conversations between providers and consumers, and finally, complexity and diversity of partnerships are all crucial factors. He particularly stressed the need for secure partnerships. The making of which is, in and of itself, “a discipline, a skill, a science even,” requiring a wide array of interdisciplinary efforts and collaborations.

Zinc supplementation, then, in areas that have a high rate of deficiency has positive, significant benefits in reducing mortality and improving quality of life, yet the path to up-scaling is complex and takes time. It is vital that amidst the process of up-scaling we not lose sight of the ultimate goal – which should focus on positive global impacts and humanitarian-centered interventions.

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The FMRQ is an organization that advocates for Quebec residents – doctors who have finished medical school, but are completing their obligatory postgraduate training in their specific fields. According to the FMRQ, there are 3,000 residents in Quebec who work an average of 72 hours a week in over 100 health institutions.

Dr. Joseph Dahine, internal medicine resident, FMRQ board member and president of the Association des Résidents de McGill, explained that the residents’ main grievance was that their pay was 30 per cent less than that of their equals in other provinces. This disparity in pay appears to make Quebec a less attractive option for potential residents.

“In 2011 there were 106 unfilled residency positions in Canada and an alarming 84 of those spots were in Quebec,” said Dahine. “At the end of the day, when doctors are choosing where to go for residency, polls have shown that pay has an overwhelming influence. Studies have [also] proven that residents are more likely to practice [medicine] in the same places they had been trained [for residency]. This results in a hemorrhage, whereby Quebec is losing doctors to other provinces.”

Yet some students do not believe that Quebec residents asking for pay parity with residents from other provinces is fully justified. “Considering that tuition for medical education at the University of Toronto is $75,000 and $22,000 at McGill, it doesn’t make much sense to expect the Quebec government to close the gap between salaries,” said April Rose, a third year medical student at McGill.

Initially, residents tried to express their grievances without sacrificing medical education or patient care. “We tried to create promotional material to inform people of our demands,” explained Dahine. “But that wasn’t enough. The government was not rational in their negotiations and offered ridiculously low salary raises just to appease [our demands].”

It was under these circumstances that on July 11, 2011, residents decided to completely stop teaching medical students. This tactic had its greatest effect when it was communicated to the Quebec government that third year medical students were at risk of failing their clinical core rotations, which could pose the threat of postponing graduation. This put pressure on the government to begin taking the residents’ demands more seriously.

Yet, though this maneuver reached its target, the collateral damage to medical students and the burden placed upon staff and medical education administrators were substantial. In many instances, hospital staff had to supervise students directly so that students could continue their education without interacting with residents.

Pediatrics, the branch of medicine concerned with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents, is thought to be the core rotation hardest hit by the strike. Half the students doing pediatrics during the strike did not receive any ward exposure, which is where general pediatrics is optimally learnt. Dr. Preetha Krishnamoorthy, program director of the Undergraduate Medical Education in Pediatrics, explained how the residents’ decisions to stop teaching required her to completely revamp the curriculum. “When residents decided to suspend teaching, we had to pull students off of wards and find alternative subspecialty options that would allow them to fulfill their core requirements. We just had to make it work because we didn’t want to delay their graduation.”

Though the pediatric training for this year’s medical students was a difficult experience, Krishnamoorthy states that it was not necessarily a negative one. “In the end we made it work because the students really stepped up to find alternative solutions that made everyone happy,” she said. “I was incredibly impressed by the maturity, poise, and professionalism by which everyone worked together.”

Nevertheless, according to Esli Osmanlliu, executive president of the Medical Students’ Society of McGill, 62 per cent of third year medical students said the strike had affected their education. “Although there still was support for the FMRQ demands by medical students, we strongly believed that a prolonged teaching strike would have had long-term effects on medical education and the eventual quality of care delivered in Quebec, which is a risky business for all stakeholders,” he said.

General strike becomes a reality
Despite all that was taking place, negotiations between the FRMQ and the government remained at a standstill and the FRMQ was forced to subscribe to their last resort. On September 19, 2011 at 8:00 am the FMRQ decided to initiate a full-on general strike. This meant that 10 per cent of all residents would stop working entirely every day.

“The strike was the big gun that required residents to leave the hospitals,” said Dahine. “With the onset of the general strike, negotiations intensified. The [Quebec] government recognized the imminent threat a general strike would have on patient care and how chaotic it would be in the hospitals. So they were pressured to give us their best offer in the shortest amount of time.”

Fortunately just 3.5 hours after commencing, the strike ended on September 19, 2011, at 11:30 a.m., after FMRQ members received an offer that they deemed satisfactory. This latest offer gives Quebec residents a 20.3 per cent increase in salary over five years. Specifically, there will be a 6 per cent annual increase in salary, a doubling of on-call hourly wages, and a $210 teaching stipend for every rotation. Non-monetary gains include personal on-call rooms rather than shared rooms and a better maternity leave package. In addition, the 16-hour work shifts negotiated earlier this summer are to be fully implemented by July 1, 2012.

At present, two out of the four union members – McGill University and University of Laval – have approved the offer. The University of Sherbrooke and University of Montreal will be voting this week.

“This is a huge achievement since sleep deprivation studies have proven the adverse effects of 24-hour calls,” said Dahine. “In fact, Quebec is a pioneer in this arena since other provinces still have 24-hour calls.”

However, some students, including Rose, have doubts. “Many residents and senior staff question whether the advantages of cutting down on the hours are ultimately worth it since shift work may affect continuity of patient care and because trainees are exposed to and therefore learn a lot more medicine through 24-hour calls,” said Rose.

Nevertheless, after all this, Dahine believes that the greatest achievement of the strike was proving the value of residents in academic and community hospitals. “Now, no one can deny that residents are an integral part of the healthcare system both clinically and academically.”

The post Residents score a strikeout appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs where airway tubes periodically and temporarily narrow in response to stimuli such as cold air, dust mites, exercise, perfume, allergens like pollen, viral infections like the common cold, and air pollutants. During an asthma attack, airway muscles constrict, the lining of the airways swell, and thick mucus fills the bronchial tubes, leading to symptoms that include wheezing, coughing, difficulty breathing, and/or chest tightness.

Dan Cooper, Director of the Institute for Clinical and Transnational Science (ICTS) at the University of California at Irvine believes that there are many reasons for the increase in asthma rates. “For one thing, great medical advances have allowed an increasing number of premature babies to survive,” he said. In these babies, the immune system is triggered more and the lungs have less time to develop properly, perhaps making them more prone to [lung] diseases. It might also have something to do with the recent increase in pollutants and pesticides in the air,” he said.

Christine McCusker, a pediatric allergist, and associate professor in McGill’s Department of Pediatrics, and a researcher at Meakins-Christie Laboratories, believes that the current statistical plateau in asthma incidence rates exists because physicians are becoming more adept at differentiating asthma from other respiratory diseases, such as viral-induced respiratory distress.

“Asthma has gone from a disease that physicians attributed to any condition that resulted in wheezing to a diagnosis that can only be made after a more comprehensive analysis of past medical history, frequency and duration of symptoms, trigger determination, and age considerations are made,” she said.

But diagnosis still remains difficult: people with asthma seem perfectly healthy between attacks even though their lung function is sub par. Also, patients cannot always determine why asthma attacks occur, or even predict when their next attack will occur. Unlike other diseases, such as HIV, sickle cell anemia, and tuberculosis, there is still no blood test to diagnose asthma. Though patient history, chest x-rays, sputum tests, and pulmonary function tests can point physicians towards asthma, they are still not conclusive.

Asthma also presents myriad symptoms that often overlap with other diseases. “Wheezing is associated with asthma, but can occur in patients with pulmonary edema or heart failure, and can also be triggered in healthy individuals given certain conditions,” says Cooper.

Hye-Won Shin a prominent researcher at ICTS, explains that even taking a proper patient history is problematic. “There are many children from low-income families who simply do not have the insurance to afford clinic visits [and medication]. [There] have been many reported cases of parents having to lie to clinicians about the severity of their child’s symptoms,” she said. However, treatment in Canada remains more accessible than in the U.S. “In Canada, you have the opposite problem in fact,” claims McCusker. “You have relatively easy access to care and most provinces have programs to supply [inhalers]. However, because of the huge number of prescriptions issued per year, it does become a costly disease to manage…”

Beside ambiguities in diagnosis, the controversial “hygiene hypothesis” may also explain why asthma rates have increased significantly in developed countries and not in developing countries. When a foreign substance attacks the body, an inflammatory response is initiated. However, any time the inflammatory response is stimulated, an anti-inflammatory response is also triggered to curb the initial response. This curbing response is developed more in countries where there is an exposure to a variety of pro-inflammatory triggers, such as viruses. In Western countries, because there is less exposure to such triggers in childhood, there is thought to be a deregulation and disruption of pro- and anti-inflammatory mechanisms, partly neutralizing the curbing response and rendering inflammatory diseases, like asthma, diabetes, allergies, and autoimmune disease more common.

McCusker has her own reaso why asthma and allergies are virtually absent in Africa. Individuals who could potentially have asthma symptoms often die before those symptoms appear “because access to medical care is much more difficult” than on other continents. “Either that or the immune systems is so busy fighting off malaria, schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness, and other infectious diseases, that asthma doesn’t even manifest,” she said.

According to McCusker, the hygiene hypothesis was originally theorized in 1995, and was formulated partly based on observations made after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. “Epidemiologists have had a field day since the wall came down,” she said. “Berlin was a relatively uniform population when the wall went up, since genocide had gotten rid of a lot of ethnic diversity. When the wall went up, it literally split the city in two, and so for about 40 years, there were people living in socioeconomic conditions that were almost polar opposites, but genetically, the people were similar. It was beautiful fodder for lots of studies,” she said.

When the wall came down, epidemiologists predicted that asthma and allergies would be rampant in East Berlin, where health care was relatively less accessible, people lived in overcrowded conditions, and infections were high. Instead, West Berlin was found to have higher asthma rates. Since the genetic populations of both West and East were relatively uniform, the argument maintained that environment, specifically hygiene, was making a difference. West Berlin had less viral diversity, and thus newborns’ immune systems were not conditioned to respond properly to certain stimuli.

Cooper believes in an exercise corollary to the hygiene hypothesis. In contemporary Western society, food is readily available and cheap. He believes that human beings, rather than working towards maintaining a balance between energy intake and energy expenditure, now tip the balance towards intake. “Physical activity also stimulates the immune system towards a response similar to the response that bacteria and viruses trigger,” Cooper said. “Because children are not as physically active as in the past, the immune system is not being triggered as much in childhood, perhaps also contributing to increased asthma rates.”

McCusker agrees that asthma is often associated with inactivity and thus, obesity. “It’s like a vicious cycle. People with asthma often have exercise limitations that make them less likely to be fit. This leads towards an increased risk of obesity. Fat cells release molecules that are thought to worsen asthma, and therefore asthmatics become even more exercise limited, and are less likely to engage in exercise,” she said.

As common as it is in the developed world, it is still a serious mystery in the scientific community what exactly constitutes asthma. Is it disease of the airways, or is it more a systemic disease of the whole immune system? To what extent do genetic and environmental factors play a role in causing asthma? Can diverse viral exposure in childhood have preventative effects? Why do some children respond to treatment and some do not? Until these fundamental questions about asthma are clarified, Cooper believes that the quality of life of children living with asthma may not increase significantly.

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For the past 3 months, at least 300,000 people in Sri Lanka have endured suffering as a result of the country’s ongoing civil war between the Singhalese-dominated government, the SL Army (SLA), and the rebel group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The atrocities committed against civilians in the country are shocking, yet the international community’s failure to intervene has allowed the Sri Lankan government to continue its gross violations of human rights, amounting to a genocide of the Tamil people.

The current situation

Sri Lanka’s 20-million person population is made up of 74 per cent ethnic Singhalese, 12.5 per cent ethnic Tamils, 5.5 per cent Indian Tamils, 6.5 per cent Moors (Tamil Muslims), and a small percentage of other ethnicities. The ethnic Tamils, represented by the LTTE, are struggling to obtain civil rights and freedom from the Singhalese-dominated government, represented by SLA. Because of the war, more than 630,000 Tamils have fled the country to seek refuge elsewhere.

Since January 2009, the SL government has turned to an all-out war policy. Currently, 150 Tamil civilians are killed or wounded each day due to constant government bombing of an area in northeastern Sri Lanka. This area represents the last patch of land that is under LTTE control.

On February 24, the U.S. Senate took part in the Hearing on Recent Development in Sri Lanka, during which the SL Government Genocide against Tamils was discussed. Dr. Anna Neistat of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that many of the current civilian deaths are occurring in so-called government safe zones. Accounts from the HRW suggest that the shelling comes directly from the SLA, and kills and wounds hundreds of people who were told by the government that they would be safe if they stayed within this area. The government’s use of indiscriminate three-barrel rocket launchers makes the attacks particularly deadly.

“Particularly outrageous were numerous attacks on hospitals. Our reports document at least two dozen attacks by artillery shelling and aerial bombardment directly on hospitals,” Neistat said at the hearing. Neistat concluded her report by saying that collecting information was extremely difficult since the SL government had “conducted a cynical campaign to prevent all independent coverage of the conflict in a clear effort to cover its abuses.”

The government has denied attacks against civilians. According to the BBC, the government claims the UN’s figures of those killed are “irresponsible and sensationalist.” There are at least 250,000 civilians currently trapped in the area where there is heavy fighting, according to the BBC. During a three-week period from January 20 to February 13, over 2,000 civilians were killed and another 5,000 wounded; 85 per cent of the victims were women and children. “It is sad to say, but it is almost a certainty that the latest attacks against civilians have been carried out by the government. Impunity seems total and no one has been prosecuted for any of the incidences,” said U.S. Foreign Relations committee member Jeffrey Lunstead at the hearing.

In a March 4 interview on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) web site, ICRC head of operations for South Asia Jacques de Maio reiterated the need for a mass evacuation of civilians, and said the current situation there is one of the worse disasters he has ever experienced.

The ICRC has repeatedly accused the government of preventing humanitarian aid from arriving to areas that are most in need. In September 2008, the SL government ordered the UN and humanitarian aid organizations to leave Tamil areas. Since then, the violence affecting civilians has escalated.

The few aid workers who are able to access war areas speak of a dire and desperate situation: hundreds of thousands of people lack clean water, food, and medicine, and most are trapped in these areas. ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva, Carla Haddard, told the BBC that that the ICRC is limited in its ability to evacuate the wounded and innocent because they have not received the security guarantees and permission needed from the SL government.

What’s more, those who escape from the current fighting must enter government controlled camps where they face violence, coercion, and intimidation from the army. A report by University Teachers for Human Rights in Jaffna specifies the conditions in these camps: for example, if a parent cannot produce the exact whereabouts of a missing child, the entire family is killed immediately despite international laws that prohibit such acts. Mothers are forced to separate from their children and most men are ordered to get into buses, often never to be heard from again.

An HRW article quoted Brad Adams, HRW Asia Director, as saying, “To add insult to injury, people who manage to flee the fighting end up being held indefinitely in army-run prison camps. These ‘welfare centers’ are just badly disguised prisons.”

The SL government shows no signs of halting their bomb raids against civilian villages and has rejected recent calls for a temporary ceasefire even though the LTTE has said that they are ready to comply with international calls.

Although the SL government’s purported mission is solely to terminate the LTTE, its actions against Tamil civilians suggest otherwise. In September 2008, in an interview with the National Post, head of the SLA Sarath Fonseka said, “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Singhalese.”

A troubled history

The history of the Tamil and Singhalese people is long and complex. The cause of the current situation stems from British colonization.

The Singhalese and Tamils have traditionally and historically ruled two separate kingdoms as distinct nations. In 1505 and then in 1658, Sri Lanka was colonized first by the Portuguese and then the Dutch. During this time the colonizers continued to rule the island’s distinct ethnic groups separately.

When the British usurped Dutch rule in 1796, they continued to govern the different groups separately; however, in 1833 they decided to rule everyone on the island together for administrative purposes. It was during this time, too, that the British brought over 300,000 Indian Tamils to work as indentured servants and labourers. In 1948, the British granted independence to Sri Lanka, leaving it as one country with political power in the hands of the majority Singhalese people.

Two historically distinct ethnic groups were thrust together under a centralized unitary government. In 1949, the government decided to completely deprive Indian Tamils of voting rights and deported around 100,000 people to India. The other Indian Tamils living in the highlands of Sri Lanka lost their citizenship and many basic human rights. This resulted in decreased representation for all Tamils (ethnic Tamils, Moors, and Indian Tamils) in the government, allowing the Singhalese to gain absolute power.

Subsequently, in 1956, the Sinhala Only Act made Sinhalese the sole official language of the country. The law had its intended effect: thousands of Tamil civil servants were forced to resign due to lack of fluency in Sinhalese, and through much of the 1960s government forms and services were virtually unavailable to Tamils.

Non-violent protests in the form of hunger strikes and peaceful sit-ins by Tamils were met with mob violence by the SL government and eventually snowballed into the 1958 riots. State-sponsored mobs murdered hundreds of ethnic Tamils across the country. This became the first of many pogroms in Sri Lanka against the Tamils.

The LTTE

In the 1970s and 80s a multitude of discriminatory policies were established to prevent Tamils from seeking university entrance and to limit employment opportunities. During this time, violence also increased. For example, in 1974 during an International Tamil Conference for professors, scientists, and engineers, the SL government killed nine civilians and injured hundreds of others.

The concept of Tamil Eelam, or a separate Tamil state, represented the will of the Tamil people to be independent from the government. In a 1977 referendum, the majority of Tamils gave their mandate to politicians for a separate state. This referendum was rejected by Parliament. Violence continued as Tamil libraries were burned down and people were tortured, killed, and mysteriously went missing. No one was held accountable for any of the atrocities committed, and those who spoke out against the government were murdered.

The LTTE was originally formed by educated Tamil students as an organization to represent the voice of the silenced Tamil population. They wanted to underscore Tamil grievances and represent the Tamil people’s desire for autonomy. Initially the LTTE protested peacefully, but peaceful demonstrations did not deter the violence against them, and the organization made no headway in reclaiming basic civil rights. In 1983, another major nationwide incidence of violence and killing, now known as Black July, left 3,000 Tamils dead and tens of thousands homeless and unemployed after their homes and businesses were burned down. It was at this time that war officially began between the LTTE and the SLA – the LTTE has since pursued militant actions.

The SLA is internationally financed and equipped, and has manpower at least 50 times that of the LTTE. China, India, Pakistan, and Russia supply the SL government with money, weapons, military training, and currently all four countries have soldiers in Sri Lanka assisting the attack against the LTTE. The government is said to have increased their war spending to 1.8-billion dollars; some of this money has come from the World Bank, intended for tsunami relief.

The LTTE are well-known for their administrative, engineering, and planning capabilities. They have carried out suicide bombings against military targets and on the front lines of battle. These bombings have occasionally resulted in civilian deaths; both the SL government and the UN claim that the LTTE have purposefully killed civilians, but the LTTE denies these allegations. Still, the LTTE has been known to force civilians, including children, into battle against the SLA.

A war targeted against civilians

Tamil civilians have had to pay the greatest price for the ongoing war. Already over 150,000 people have died and an additional 25,000 have gone missing. The past 30 years have been marked by human rights violations, disrespect to human dignity, extra-judicial killings, abductions, disappearances, and intimidations, leaving the remaining Tamil population living in constant fear for their lives.

In 2004, 17 Tamil employees of the NGO Action Against Hunger were told to lie face down on the ground with their hands on their head and shot dead. It is unclear who orchestrated these killings: the LTTE blames the SLA, and the SLA attributes the shootings to the LTTE. Although the SLA allowed Australian forensic scientists to investigate the incident, it denied their access to the execution site.

Furthermore, according to the UN, Sri Lanka is second only to Iraq in the number of enforced or involuntary disappearances in the world. Most of these disappearance are of Tamils, and as HRW explained in a news report: “the SL government is responsible for widespread abductions and ‘disappearances’ that [have become] a national crisis.”

Women and children often receive the brunt of unchecked government violence. Rape of women and young girls by Sri Lankan soldiers is common, and victims and families are often punished for reporting incidents. The South Asia Human Rights Violators Index 2008 ranks Sri Lanka as the third worst violator of women’s rights.

Further, hundreds of children have been killed during Sri Lanka’s military campaign, and many more have been orphaned. In August 2006, after Sri Lankan jet bombs killed 67 schoolgirls and seven teachers in a Tamil village, a government minister said, “There is nothing wrong in killing future child soldiers.”

While it claims to be primarily fighting the LTTE’s terrorism, the SLA is currently waging a massive genocide against the Tamil race. Instead of stepping in to stop the brutality, the international community, including the UN, has been soft-pedalling.

Silencing the truth

Impunity institutionalizes the torture, disappearances, murders, and abysmal humanitarian violations perpetrated by police and armed forces in Sri Lanka.

Mass graves of Tamil families have been discovered in territories formally occupied by the Sri Lankan security forces. In 2006, 15 Tamil aid staff working on post-tsunami rebuilding were found dead, their bodies littered with bullets.

Such incidents are common, but so far, no official or member of the armed forces has ever been punished, with the exception of the murder and rape of the Kumaraswamy family. In this case, a 16-year old Tamil girl, Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, was gang raped by 20 SLA officers and then strangled to death. When her mother, brother, and neighbour went searching for her they did not know that they too would be tortured, strangled, and buried that night. The whereabouts of Krishanti and the other three remained a mystery and the army flatly denied any knowledge about the missing persons. After the bodies were found by sheer accident and Amnesty International launched a sustained campaign to pressure the SL government to arrest the rapists and murderers, SLA soldiers were found guilty.

When the government does agree to investigate certain cases, again under international pressure, the evidence is usually lost or becomes murky, and the case is dropped.

Sri Lanka is also fast becoming the world’s most dangerous place for journalists, further limiting dissemination of crucial information about the conflict. During the recent U.S. Hearing, Bob Dietz, from the Committee to Protect Journalists said, “Many foreign and local journalists and members of the international community firmly believe that the government is complicit in the increased attacks and disappearances [of journalists]. The attacks and murders have been premeditated, and not one of the cases has been investigated and no one has been brought to trial.”

On February 9, 2009, the BBC stopped providing radio news to SL Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) since they said that many of their news reports had been blocked. SLBC chairman, Hudson Samarasinghe, admitted to censoring BBC programming, saying that he had a duty to do so at a time of war since foreign news centres, including the BBC, create fabricated news. Freedom of speech is suppressed, dissent is silenced, critical thought is discouraged, and those who speak out pay with their life. This has allowed the SLA to continue to brutalize, marginalize, and exterminate a race of people without reprisal.

At a time when the plight of the ethnic Tamil people has reached a pivotal point, it is important the international community help mediate justice and peace in Sri Lanka before the SL government succeeds in ethnically cleansing Sri Lanka of its minority population. Presently, both sides seem to be in a fight to the death. On their way they are taking the entire country with them, robbing another generation of Tamil people of the right to live in peace.

The first sentence of the original article stated that Sri Lankans have been suffering for the past 30 years. Although the country’s civil war has been ongoing since 1983, the specific suffering referred to in the first sentence is a result of deteriorating conditions for civilians during the past three months.

The post An island divided appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Over 1,200 people in the greater Montreal area attended and over $8,000 was raised for AIC – a remarkable feat considering it was completely student-run with no starting budget.

Much like SynesthASIA, AIC is completely student-run. AIC started off as a vision by Elizabeth Sholtys in the U.S. who did not want to create just another orphanage in India, which she felt were often impersonal and not helpful for the children.

“Many of the children come from backgrounds of abuse, neglect, and extreme poverty, and since they are older, they are unlikely to be adopted,” says Samantha Kumar, president of AIC McGill. “At the home, we want the kids to feel as if they belong to a family, and also provide them with a sense of responsibility, routine, and discipline so that they can better reintegrate into society.”

It is this transferable and reciprocal nature of giving, which Kim believes reflects a movement toward a more global society.

“My experience with SynesthASIA really makes me believe that right now in our generation there is a huge movement toward open-mindedness, positive change, giving back, and helping others who live in less privileged areas of the world,” she explains.

Apart from managing and funding the home for ten orphans, AIC also runs literacy, female-empowerment, health and hygiene, and educational outreach programs for the surrounding community, positively affecting an additional hundred people.

Canada’s branch of the organization is represented by AIC–McGill. The club fundraises through different events like benefit dinners and different movie screenings. Now, added to this list is the eventful SynesthASIA show, which Kim is confident will be bigger and better next year.

The show appropriately ended with a video showing the kids in their home. This was a heart-warming end to a profoundly well-organized and well-executed production.

“The video really made the cause tangible and real,” says Kim “because everyone could directly see where their money was going.”

Students interested in volunteering at the home in India, at next year’s fashion show, or with AIC can email Aiccanada@gmail.com.

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As the movie opens, Jamal is being interrogated by city officials who believe he cheated his way to the top of the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Jamal astonishes everyone – including himself – when he answers all questions correctly and finds himself one question away from winning 20-million rupees. Those who doubt that a young boy who grew up in the depths of poverty can achieve the improbable have a lot to learn about how far perseverance, determination, and a little bit of chance can go.

Through a series of flashbacks that highlight how Jamal is blindsided by struggle after struggle, viewers learn that all Jamal needed to answer the questions correctly was his own life experience. We also learn how he and his brother, Salim (played by Madhur Mittal), are orphaned when brutal, religiously-motivated hate crimes sweep through the slums of Mumbai, how he survived his difficult childhood days through grit and fear, and how his lifelong journey to find Latika finally brings him to the hot seat of the city’s most popular game show.

Categorizing Slumdog as a romantic drama falls drastically short of accurately describing this whirlwind of a film. After witnessing the miserable conditions the young characters are forced to cope with, Jamal and Latika’s love story is the last thing on one’s mind by the movie’s end. During the closing credits, characters break out into a typical uplifting Bollywood dance sequence, yet one does not know whether to feel crushed, overjoyed, or relieved. The film intricately weaves together the harsh, inescapable realities of impoverished India while still embodying the vibrancy and beauty of the country’s people and culture. Hailed as one of the best contemporary representations of India on film, Slumdog captures the raw, contagious energy that arises from the country’s astounding heterogeneity.

What further validates the film’s hype is the flawless and natural acting of child actors, Ayush Khedekar (youngest Jamal), Azharuddin Ismail (youngest Salim), and Rubiana Ali (youngest Latika). The latter two were in fact street kids with no prior acting experience. That the movie’s director, Danny Boyle, is providing them with an education and a trust fund makes this film all the more praiseworthy.

Intertwined with a captivating plot and dynamic characters are the upbeat and infectious sounds of musical genius A.R. Rahman. Through his collaboration with Maya Arulpragasam, popularly known as M.I.A., the songs capture each moment of the film seamlessly with extraordinary prowess and a brilliant fusion of Western and Eastern sound and language. Couple this with the considerable talent of Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, and it is no wonder that Slumdog garnered all four of the Golden Globe Awards it was nominated for and, that it is nominated for an additional ten Oscars.

In truth, Slumdog is a film about real-life struggles and the vast discrepancy between the ugliness of reality and the sugarcoated tourist version. The film offers true-to-life insight into a world that many Westerners can hardly fathom. As the young kids in the movie transcend hurdle after hurdle, one realizes that this is an atypical film that is not gift-wrapped neatly in shiny wrapping paper, topped with a bow. Slumdog, then, is a film for the realist, the romantic, the cynic, and the believer.

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