This textbook is in the public domain and may be copied without permission

“This textbook is in the public domain and may be copied without permission”

In this age of intense patent and copyright protection, is it possible to imagine a statement like the one above? Well, wikipedia has shown that it is possible (though the license terms are slightly different). In the field of health and public health, it seems a little more improbable, but it is true. There is a text book, which is online, and it actually states the magic words “This textbook is in the public domain and may be copied without permission”.

The text book on “Public Health Management & Policy” has a history attached to it. Duncan Neuhauser, Ph.D., Professor of Health Management and Co-Director of Health Systems Management Centre at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio began teaching a course on “Public Health Policy and Management” (MPHP 439) as part of the new Master’s degree program in Public Health in the winter 2000 session. As part of the course, the students were required to write a chapter for the on-line textbook for the class, following standard publishing guidelines (no plagiarism, no quotations without permission, etc.). Subsequent batches wrote new chapters, edited old ones and rewrote some portions. Interestingly, many of the old students continue to edit their chapters. Today (Aug 2007), the online edition is in its Eighth Edition. It can be accessed at An On-Line Textbook on Public Health Management & Policy.

The website caught my eye, while reading The Journal of Health Administration Education, Vol 23 (1), Winter 2006. The article by Dr. Neuhauser is titled “A Student-Written, Faculty-Reviewed, Free, On-Line Textbook of Public Health Management and Policy.

Initiation into Mumbai

Moving newly to a city is teaching us many things, starting with, ‘things are not cheap here’ (except the vada pav . Living opposite a slum invariably has its own lessons to teach. Firstly, the water to this area is visibly different from the rest of chembur/ govandi. It comes with worms (red, black.. all colours and shapes). The corporation blames the community and community blames the corporation. Net result… diarrohea is a perrenial problem. When we took Ashima to a doctor, she said, “oh diarrohea, no problem, everybody here has it”. We have two filters on every tap – one for the worms and second for the mud and silt. The boiling water residue here must contain all the minerals in the world. Milk and curd is sold in quantities as small as 100 ml. Not surprising because 1 litre packet milk price here ranges from 19 – 26 rupees a litre. A constant reminder of living here is that the underworld here is not so under the world. Many of the unorganised systems here are under somebody (respectfully called bhai)’s control. Yesterday, a shopkeeper and his son in Navi Mumbai was attacked and shop ransacked for not giving Rs.1001 to a ganesh pandal. An auto driver’s remark was quite telling of the situation here. We were coming back by an auto one night, and as we passed through a particular area, we saw crowds of people and people huddled together in small groups, the auto driver said “dus rupiya ka daaru peeta, aur sab log bhai banta hai” – they drink 10 rupees liquor and all of them turn into bhais(can’t find a suitable english term for this

If you see the stark contrast between the rich and the not-so-rich and the semi-rich and the almost-rich and then the different shades of poor, you won’t be surprised at the way life is organised here. The poshest bungalows and high-rises with state-of-the-art secuirity sit comfortably besides the poorest jhuggies. The latest cars jostle for space with the lady washing clothes on her doorstep (really!!! I saw a woman move her basin of clothes from outside her own door-step, to make way for an extra-wide latest car to move).

The funny(?) parallels

Recently, I saw two similar news events on TV. In both the cases, the reporters, TV crews and a lot of people (admirers?) were waiting outside the residences of these people, in eager anticipation. The news channels kept focusing on the gate and door and the news anchor repeatedly kept saying “we expect them to come out any moment now”, and finally they came out and left for their respective destinations. In the first case, the destination was Rashtrapati Bhavan, and in the second instance, the destination was a jail in Jodhpur.

Smt.Pratibha Patil, was escorted to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to be elected the first woman president of India. This was well covered on TV. But what got even greater coverage was a film actor being escorted by family and friends (and the media) to the Jodhpur jail for hunting a protected wild-life species.

Today’s newspaper tells us that one cop was suspended for hugging Sanjay Dutt when he came out of jail. While the action has been justified saying that a cop hugging a “convict” does not present a good image for the police, it seems very un-proportionate when many people in power including sitting MPs and senior politicians have all shown their allegiance (or support) to the same celebrity (and many other “convicts”), and have openly cast aspersions on people who have filed cases against them, the judiciary, etc. And to my knowledge, none of them have been arrested or suspended. [The suspension was later revoked by the Chief Minister after protests from various quarters]. And similarly, the media is let scot-free after distorting the perspective on these issues and after creating a sensation (and sympathy wave) out of events such as people going to jail after blatantly violating existing laws.