Month: June 2024

CRUISE HOSPITALS Cruise hospitals will make the world better in handling the curative aspect of many ailments that plague the citizens of some nations. Universal Healthcare is not an easy term to understand, and medical tourism needs to be defined separately. Tourism is meant for healthy persons of all ages to enjoy moving out of their homes to places that are meant to attract “tourists.” The result would be an economy based on transportation in all forms, making the places of stay enjoyable and ensuring the expansion of the human mind in witnessing places, events, and different aspects that one as a human being would need to look at beyond the walls of their homes. The cruise ship industry has enormously grown and is now a preferred way of traveling at leisure compared to air transportation. It is required that the United Nations, as well as all nations, undertake a multinational transnational effort to have hospitals that cruise. The modifications need to meet world standards equivalent to the National Health Service of the UK and the standards of G20, as much as it is continuously evolving in terms of the presence of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals now include administrators, accountants, and promoters who organize as a specialized field of management so that patients can be taken care of, treated, and discharged more effectively than ever in the past. The question here is who pays for it. The patient? Insurance companies covering patients globally for health insurance? National Health programs like the NHS in the UK and many other agencies in parts of the world, like ESI in India, which is also a form of insurance coverage for employees? The difference between hospitals on land and a cruise is that it provides the ease of a multinational crew and the healing power of the sea. The facilities inside will also be available to patients whose diagnosis is “complete.” The specialization involved here is in the waiting period for the doctors to attend to the patients. It is not per se a “shortage of doctors” but the time that is given by the doctors to the patient. The doctor decides on the program based on years of experience and advanced preparations. The current time of the doctors is engaged in commuting and also the coordination efforts that are required for each of the operations, if it is a surgical operation, where a large number of cases are pending. Operations are critical and non-critical. Critical operations get the highest attention for life-saving, while non-critical operations improve the condition of the current patient diagnosed but waiting for treatment. The cruise period can be currently determined as a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 4 months. The facilities available in nations like Sri Lanka, India, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, parts of Brazil, and islands like Cuba, where the medical profession can evolve to a generation of new doctors who will be able to have the requisite experience in dealing with patients at any part in the world. The administrators know the cost of each activity, and health insurance companies are now engaged in the top as they are continuously engaged in settling claims. The United States is an example where every insured person goes through a process. Currently, in India, hospitals (labelled as corporate) do have administrations that make the admission and discharge of the patient more efficient and effective by way of trained employees. The patient is taken care of as that involves life in the process of admissions, and the family, dependents and supporters of the affected patient will have to do the registration processes efficiently by the time the patient is treated. This is normally diligence. Hundreds of insurance companies globally and their reinsurers have more knowledge about this than any layperson. The public topic here about the cost of such aspects as premia or treatment is evident. The United Nations must adopt the resolution about the merits of cruise hospitals as they can absorb a multinational crew. The multinational crew, as much as running the ship, is also a multinational discipline on various specializations. These specializations can then improve the productivity of the teams that make a patient cure in non-critical aspects. Therefore, the cruise ship will manage the non-critical patients faster and enable the practices to improve safely and with safety. Postoperative care will happen on another part of the ship, which then allows the patient to be discharged by the time the ship returns to port. The advantage here is that the doctors and nurses can come in by rotation, and the time spent on commuting at home, the energy costs that run in hospitals, and all that can be comparatively cheaper than building more hospitals on land to accommodate a larger number of patients. Also, the doctors can be chosen and validated from any part of the world without any issues when it is managed as a world operation. The protocols and mechanics can be operated based on government funding, private philanthropic funding, or otherwise to begin the treatment of patients. Eventually, any non-critical operations can be done effectively. This paper does not go into the merits of costs or the merits of the difference between flying a patient and going back. The most important aspect to note is that a non-critical patient, when flown by aircraft and back, the accompaniment of the relatives of the patient is not as effectively managed as a patient on a cruise. The number of accompanying patients can be treated differently and isolated from the medical part by special compartments. Building operation theatres can be effectively managed, and once the patient is discharged, the visiting rooms can be more effectively managed than the rotation that happens in major medical centres. The doctors and the hospital crew can have their rest and leisure much better managed. It remains to be seen whether the cost-effectiveness will work out. For the moment, the National Health Service can view this as a critical point as tens of thousands of patients are waiting for care but not being able to receive it. By taking doctors from the Commonwealth or beyond by validating the processes of doctors as is done in the NHS, they need not devote their time to administrative purposes. This will have a more controllable aspect. The remuneration or fees can be flexible on the cruise because they are accompanied for a shorter period. They can contribute better without loss of their attention, accuracy, or the probability of risk, which they themselves are insured for. Therefore, the world community needs to shift the term medical tourism to medical management, or world medical management, for the treatment of non-critical processes. This will eliminate the current issues that non-critical patients should not transfer risk to the rest of the community as is now insulated. The multinational crew will look at human beings irrespective of nationalities and enhance the quality of medical attention. The entire organizational part, including the current trend for reducing the cost of administration and deliveries, would make it possible that cruise hospitals can be more cost-effective than land hospitals. This is due to the prohibitive costs involved in making brick-and-mortar hospitals compared to the conversion of current ships into hospital ships or equivalents. It is the preoperative and postoperative care costs that make it contained compared to the management of the same on land.

CASHEW MARKET: CHALLENGES & INSIGHTS Cashew production, the manufacture of cashew kernels, its by-products, and the journey to rightful consumption defy orderliness. It cannot be commanded. The increase in offered prices for cashew kernels has seen an unprecedented rate of rise of USD 2,246 per metric ton within just 15 working days. Prof. Peter Drucker, a less quoted and understood management teacher, conveyed that management is a convergence of data, information, and knowledge. The application of knowledge broadly can enable organizations to perform. It must be emphasized that both raw cashews and cashew kernels, along with their by-products, adhere to medieval business practices and classical economics. Attempts to fit them into 21st-century practices are commendable, but cashews, both RCN and kernels, will defy artificial intelligence while accepting applied intelligence. Both raw cashews and cashew kernels conform to the classical economics of perfect competition, where the slightest change in demand and supply alters the price. The question then is whether markets are organized. Both raw cashews and cashew kernels have defied market organization. Cashew kernels are a century-old product. Twentieth-century economists, both classical and later, have employed metrics and wisdom in developing theories. Each theory has its merits, but any wise person who generates a theory also points out its limitations. What is remarkable about raw cashews is that they are seeds waiting to transform into one of nature’s loveliest products—the kernel of an inedible nut. The nature of raw cashews is that they love freedom. Any interference in their journey causes them to deteriorate subtly. They do not perish; they decay. Human nature has a sense that value should not be destroyed, but it also permits the loss of value. Commerce always operates within a series of limitations, while imagination takes one beyond borders. It is perseverance, persistence, and sheer hard work that produce and present a kernel. Raw cashews appear hardy, but their molecules dance and play inside. The kernel is instantly edible but needs preservation and nurturing until every gram is enjoyed in consumption. The modifications that cashews go through are complex, making room for complications and the attention to them. There cannot be prescriptions until the diagnosis is completed. There cannot be predictions or forecasts until one completely understands. Interference by governments, unless proportionate and in genuine public interest, hurts all trades. These burdens affect any businessman, regardless of their shades of honesty. Delving deeply into cashews or any part of nature is pure joy. Crass commerce is part of our daily lives that one enjoys. People expect a lot. Here’s what is happening in the market: # Raw cashews were pressed below its true value; no equilibrium value in a neutral currency has been established. # Cashew kernels are now quoted on a bilateral basis, and contracts remain in jeopardy without settling at their true value. # Nature has restored equilibrium, wiping out excess supplies with lesser outputs this year. # Supply and demand in individual markets will cause prices to fluctuate. # Cashew fundamentals adapt through substitution; one cannot consume what one cannot have. Consumers vote. # The world has forward and spot markets. Spot markets are in a difficult position and will set the price. Forward markets will freeze. # Capital is always the winner. As mutual funds say, “past performance is not a guide to the future.” Cashew requires studies and is getting the necessary attention. Convergence is some time away. Arrive at your own conclusions and act nobly.

CASH CROPS OF CANARA Agriculture and horticulture are the main topics for any generation to address. Every individual must partake in food consumption to fulfil their daily needs. Mangalore has played a pivotal role, steering a transition from agriculture to horticulture and subsequently to services. Cash crops are defined as those grown in fields by producers, readily sold for cash, not meant for subsistence or direct consumption but as a sale for consumption by the whole community. The element of consumption is vital in any agricultural produce value chain, and the demand and supply of any product can vary significantly. Significant agricultural products like jute, cotton, and tobacco are also noteworthy. The Indian economic structure comprehensively covers a range of spices and normal cereal production, pulses, oilseeds, cotton, and similar items. Food will always be in its natural form, as evident in crops such as banana and papaya, which are now readily available year-round. This is due to modern techniques and skills employed, with better and better varieties and hybrids of every kind of agricultural produce based on agro-climatic conditions, irrigation, and nutrients. Regarding Dakshina Kannada, Mangalore has long been renowned for handling black pepper. Written observations suggest that black pepper exports occurred as early as 3 BC, mentioned in Greek records. This historical claim warrants validation, given Mangalore and neighboring communities’ active involvement in promoting international trade in various produce. As for policy, plantation regulation is overseen by the central government in consultation with state governments, ensuring a well-structured growing and delivery process. One should delve into all agricultural products, numbering over 325 basic species. However, variables, variants, and feature-oriented approaches in each of these contribute to the diversity in the production-to-consumption value chain. Mangalore has demonstrated expertise in conversion, as seen in the production of beedies using tobacco, tendu leaves, cotton thread, and paper. It has been at the forefront of knowledge in cashew conversion and coffee curing. In the 1960s, intrepid farmers in the district made rapid strides in arecanut cultivation, incorporating research inputs from CPCRI Vittal for coconut in Kasaragod. This led to the development of hybrid cultivation practices that yielded higher returns than paddy. By the 1970s, Bunder Mangalore was teeming with arecanuts, involving ecology, commission agents, traders, processors, baggers, and subsequent trade. Bananas, pineapples, all vegetables and fruits, and the uniqueness of mangoes are frequently discussed. Currently, tender coconut can be considered a cash crop. Plantation crops, such as coffee and tea, are defined in India. Consequently, the term plantation refers to extensive cultivation undertaken by individuals or groups. Legally, plantations are meant to be production places where regulations for labour management apply. All these activities, including cultivation, harvesting, and marketing, are undertaken by specialized individuals, the producers, encompassing tea, coffee, spices, and similar produce nationwide. Cash crops yield outcomes when further processed. For instance, coffee beans are roasted with chicory to create blended coffee powder for instant coffee technology. Mangalorean investors transitioned into coffee planters, transforming the town into a coffee curing station. Cocoa was introduced into the Puttur and Sullia regions of Dakshina Kannada. Cadbury India successfully implemented it as a backward integration measure. Campco, as a cooperative, efficiently managed this produce by introducing world-class machinery and continues to handle it successfully. Novel opportunities are emerging for developing cash crops. Essentially, cash crops are those planted and produced for selling by the producer, not for self-consumption or sustainability. The daily consumption habits of urban and rural people in our region will shape the future of cash crops. It is now taken for granted that discussions about common or improving beverages are shifting towards specialties, blending nutrition, wellness, health, and value-added components. This encompasses aspects like brands, trademarks, organized manufacturing, national production, packaging and distribution, supermarkets, convenience stores, and home deliveries. India is blessed with abundant natural resources, affirming the capacity to feed every Indian. Furthermore, the pursuit of comforts and luxuries by different economic classes significantly influences modern-day commerce. A legal distinction exists when one mentions a plantation crop. KCCI needs to address with organisations like UPASI to extend auction arrangements for tea at Dharwar or Gadag, the centres of Karnataka for price discovery and associate all cash crops in the auction centre. Mangalore would contribute in knowledge, data and information incorporated as part of skills in trading and commercial geography.