Ready or not?

For once, the government seems to have reacted swiftly to the growing worldwide concern over a possible swine flu pandemic.

For once, the government seems to have reacted swiftly to the growing worldwide concern over a possible swine flu pandemic.

Busy airports such as Delhi and Mumbai are running four flu counters with 32 doctors working in shifts to screen incoming passengers from affected countries, efforts are on to get at least four doctors stationed at most other major airports.

Better Safe Than Sorry: Passengers filling up swine flu check up forms on their arrival at the Indira Gandhi international airport

As it so often happens, while some people criticise the delay in setting up the airport counters and issuing health guidelines, others, including WHO, believe that the Health Ministry has reacted swiftly enough to get safeguards in place.
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India, we are told, comfortably has a stockpile of 1 million doses of the anti-flu drug. Relief.

Beyond swine flu

Guarding our borders against flu is good, but Chinese hackers recently hacked into many Indian embassies mail systems.

Our MEA mandarins are not the only ones to suspect hackers in China for the cyber attacks. The US has also accused China of hacking into its electricity grid.

But while security chiefs are worried about cyber warfare (all computers in Indian embassies are now being fortified against cyber attacks and mandarins are even forbidden from using external e-mail services), the Indian security software market is growing 25 per cent annually!

Bollywood blues

With much of the economy teetering, how can Bollywood not feel the effects of the recession? Business has dipped anyway with the ongoing producer-exhibitor standoff, but now things just seem to be getting worse, with banks also going slow on disbursal of loans to filmmakers.u00a0

Industry watchers say this slowdown is reflected in the annual growth rate which is expected to be around nine per cent up to 2013 from the high of 17.7 per cent.

Multiplex owners, for one, are also feeling the impact of the showdown with film distributors. They are bracing to take a hit of 35-50 per cent in business, according to an estimate, in the absence of new films from Bollywood.
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And with the second season of IPL underway, many multiplexes have fallen back on reruns of former blockbusters to keep the footfalls going. Clearly, there is no light at the end of this tunnel, for the time being at least.