Happy Birthday, Hema Malini

Famous actress of yesteryear, Hema Malini celebrates her 59 th birthday today.

She looks amazingly fit, thanks to her passion for dance. “I did four ballets in two days and danced for about 24 hours. Ahana peformed with me. I’m a great devotee of Lord Krishna and loved the experience,” she says.

She has had a long and illustrious career starting in 1968 with the Hindi film ” Sapnon Ka Saudagar” (“Seller of Dreams”) for which she was given her sobriquet of “Dreamgirl”.

She recently donated her eyes in support of a noble cause. Apparently against the need for 200,000 eyes every year, India gets only 34,000 by way of donations.

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Admirable Medical Entrepreneur

Came across the name of Dr. Ramakanta Panda the other day and was impressed by what I read about him.

He is the Vice Chairman of the Asian Heart Institute which he set up in Mumbai.
Dr. Panda was the topper in the All India Institute of Medial Sciences but favouritism led to dissatisfaction and compelled him to go abroad. This was possibly the best thing that happened to him. He trained at the Cleveland Clinic and did his Fellowship there working under the pioneer of by-pass surgery, the legendary Dr. Floyd D. Loop.

Dr. Panda has himself performed more than 10,000 by-pass surgeries making him one of the highest volume surgeons in the world. More importantly, he has performed more than 1500 high-risk surgeries which have given a new lease of life to those considered “inoperable”.

A striking feature is Dr. Panda’s habit of taking all his fees by cheque, never accepting cash which many doctors do to have an undisclosed income. The Income Tax department of the Government of India has honoured him for being amongst the highest tax payers.

There is a lot of useful information on heart care – useful to heart patients and others alike because after all, isn’t prevention better than cure?