400 Indian Doctors to arrive in Sindh to treat Flood victims

[Durran3]

This is brilliant news indeed

KARACHI: As nations around the globe are planning to help Pakistan’s flood victims, Indians have also decided to play their role by sending teams including 400 doctors and paramedical staff to work in the flood-hit districts.

The Indian civil society, who wants to see peace between both nuclear rivals, will make all arrangements to send these teams. The Indian doctors will work in flood-affected districts of Sindh province, but will avoid visiting Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa because of Taliban threat.

An Indian delegation of peace activists including Shri Sandeep Pandey of Voice of Ayodhiya, Mazher Hussain of Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), Mumbai-based prominent human rights and social activists Feroze Mithiborwala, Gurudial Singh Sheetal, Monika Wahi, Zaid Ahmed Shaikh and others arrived in Pakistan on Sunday after holding rallies from Mumbai to Amritsar as part of recently announced Pakistan-India Peace Caravan, the ‘Aman Ke Badhte Qadam’.

During a meeting with peace activists of Pakistan, Mazher Hussain offered to send doctors’ teams to flood-hit districts. “We want to see peace between both countries and if in situations like this, help comes from India, it will send a message of love. So we will send doctors and medical experts with medicines to help the flood-affected people,” he said.

COVA is an Indian Hyderabad-based network of over 800 organisations working in nine districts of Andhra Pradesh, and in the states of Gujarat, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir on different issues including peace.

During the meeting Pak-India Joint Flood Relief Committee was formed comprising Shri Sandeep Pandey, Mazher Hussain and Feroze Mithiborwala from India and Adam Malik, BM Kutty, Karamat Ali, Pakistan Medical Association president Dr Tipu Sultan, South Asia Partnership Executive Director, Muhammad Tahseen and Dr AH Nayyar from Pakistan.

“We will manage the arrival of the Indian doctors here so that they may start their work in flood-hit areas as soon as possible,” said Mithiborwala.

The meeting also decided that the Indian doctors would work in Sindh, a southern province of the country. “The law and order situation in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is not good, so it will not be advisable to send them there, therefore we have decided to send them to areas in Sindh where they will be safe,” said Kutty.

Talking to Daily Times, committee member Adam Malik said that there was no Taliban presence in Sindh and the people would welcome the Indian guests with open arms. “Besides that in Sindh everyone will help Indian doctors work easily in the flood-hot areas,” said Malik.

The Indian members will manage the affairs till the teams reach Wagah from where the Pakistani members of the committee will take charge to bring them to the flood-hit areas.

“In the meeting we also decided that the Indian members besides sending doctors would also collect funds, medicines, tents and dry food items in Indian cities,” said Pak-India Peace Caravan spokesperson, Sharafat Ali. He said that the Indian delegation also brought 35,000 Indian Rupees and submitted the amount to the Labour flood relief camp, set up by Labour Party Pakistan. “We are also talking to Edhi Foundation to start relief work in flood-hit areas,” he said.

After causing widespread devastation in the north western and central parts of Pakistan, the floods, worst in 80 years, struck the southern Sindh province and badly affected more than five million people. In such conditions, the decision by Indian civil society to send doctors will boost the ongoing peace process.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[TOPGUN]

This nice of india i thank india for this its nobile of them to come help and save livies i sure hope for peace between both our nations soon .

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Please people for the goodness sake, no bickering & India-Phobia, lets take whatever we can to help the people who are out their dieing in water...

Thanks to India for favoring us in this time of need

 

[mohan goyal]

great news indeed.....i am also in support of indian helis having both PAF and IAF officials. what do you say guys??

 

[RobbieS]

Since this is a non-govt initiative, I hope there are no barriers from either govt. If we can forget our enmity in this time of crisis, that will be worth a thousand rounds of bilateral talks and hundreds of confidence building measures.

 

[gubbi]

Now that is something we can all be proud of. Thank Hippocrates for that!

 

[trident2010]

India should send large amounts of food and medicines. If pakistan is reluctant to take aid in the form of money then give them help in the form of food and other necessary supplies. I am sure they will accept it.
I hope Indian govt. wont make us ashamed by not generously helping Pakistan in this dire situation.

 

[anathema]

I just hope that it happens soon enough and that they are not stuck in bureaucratic hurdles ....Good development !

Any Indian media reporting this development ?

 

[Che]

It's wonderful news for both Pakistan and India. China should send our aide team to pakistan too, even when we are still recovering from the landslide and floods. I still remember the helping hands from Pakistan during the earthquake in Sichuan.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

as long as it doesnt become sensationalized/politicized/overly-publicized and it was a genuine move, then no problem; it's a good news

 

[Meengla]

great news indeed.....i am also in support of indian helis having both PAF and IAF officials. what do you say guys??

Yes, what is probably most needed is the transportation to deliver water and food to people who can't be reached because, to quote a source, 'an area roughly the size of Italy is flooded' in Pakistan.

In an age of satellite based spying where one can read the license plates of vehicles I don't think allowing Indian helis are going to pose too much threat.

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Re: helicopters

it still wont be good; there is still some difference between sat imagery and actually getting a live aerial view

i would be against indian armed forces personnel being able to fly in our airspace; unless the Pakistanis fly, and the indians are blind-folded...maybe some agree with me, some dont. I don't really care though.

like i said earlier; good move if it's from the heart and not from other areas

 

[FreekiN]

This is better than money.

 

[Bhim]

I knew Indian organizations must be working over time to get the aid moving.

400 medics is no joke, along with their transportation and some form of residence in the form of tents or what ever, they would be needing HUGE amounts of medicines and vaccinations, clothing, food etc etc.

More than money these poor flood victims need these things. This way there will be no complaint of aid not reaching or money being gulped by corrupt politicians.
Also the Pakistani medics can join them in the work and the effect will be multi fold.

 

[Awesome]

Doctors are coming on a personal level and many here had said if Indians want to give there are many channels open where they don't need anyones permission. They can even send it to the appropriate parties in a fire and forget way and everything will be taken care of.

Volunteers, however are one of the best type of aids that Pakistan needs. People are ready to send in more, but they want to see work being done with their aid and the more volunteers come in, the more work will get done.

Lets not go towards the Helis, funding...