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Sting in the tail!

The honourable director-general of malaria control was taking his biannual pre-monsoon meeting of directors to review the national malaria c...

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The honourable director-general of malaria control was taking his biannual pre-monsoon meeting of directors to review the national malaria control programme. 8220;Sir,8221; mumbled a well-fed gentleman from UP, 8220;we8217;ve taken intensive and extensive measures to clean all the drains in the state. We have sprayed lime-powder along the river banks. We have issued instructions to the DMs to see that no mosquitoes are allowed to breed in garbage dumps.8221;

The boisterous gentleman from Bihar said that in addition to river-banks and city streets and village drains, the state government had taken care of wells as well. All the stagnant water in the wells which had turned into black soil had been removed to the fields of paddy.

The man from West Bengal said that his state too had taken out all the ancient water from all the ancient tanks and had replaced it with fresh water from the Hoogly. He further submitted that his state had simultaneously made sure that its prized hilsa fish did not die in the process.

The man from Kashmir pleaded that his boss had gone to Pakistan to meet his mother-in-law and the report from the state would be submitted when he returns. The babu from Tamil Nadu stated that Madame Jayalalithaa had informed him that malaria had been completely wiped out from the state. The lady from Karnataka was missing. She had gone to Bangalore to obtain fresh instructions from her new bosses.

The lady from Kerala was very much there but she submitted that since everybody in her state was on strike, an authentic status report could not be prepared. The gentleman from Hyderabad said that the insecticides specially imported from Australia as part of the Indira Gandhi Vikas Yojana had been sprayed extensively all over the state under the dynamic leadership of Sonia Gandhi to ensure that malaria did not occur anywhere.

Came the turn of the high-minded gentleman from Punjab. He proudly declared that he had nothing to report: 8220;Malaria in my state is perfectly under control.8221; The tall well-fed Haryana gentleman said the same, as did a tiny fellow from Himachal.

8220;If there is no malaria in your states,8221; asked the director-general, 8220;how do you justify continuance of your posts?8221;

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8220;The same way,8221; the assembled worthies chorused, 8220;as you do yours!8221;

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