UK reliance on Indian docs to rise post-Brexit
However, Mehta said the data used in the UCL study was until 2013 and a new standard put in place in all hospitals was changing the situation. Since 2014, all NHS organisations are mandated to follow the Workforce Race Equality Standard that seeks to ensure employees from minority ethnic communities receive fair treatment in the workplace.
According to latest General Medical Council data, only 695 new Indian doctors registered in Britain in 2016, following the dwindling numbers per year since the high of 3,640 in 2004.
Mehta said that under a new programme, Indian doctors will come to Britain on a rotation basis for two or three years and return after gaining experience. “We are partnering with the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and other Indian universities to send new graduates. It is a win-win situation for both : the UK gets doctors to fill vacancies and India benefits from its doctors’ training here,” he added.
You can call it a Ram Janmabhoomi of a different kind. About 750 km away from Ayodhya, in Paschim Sanabadh in Bankura district of West Bengal Lord Rama is ‘born’ almost every year in different avatars. All male children are christened in a way that carry “Ram” as a prefix or suffix to their names.
It’s a practice that is being followed for about 500 years and even youngsters are not keen to break it even in this age of fancy names.
The area has also come to be known as Rampara. All the 150 males who live here have Ram before or after their names.
“When our forefathers began to reside in the area they set up a temple of Ram who is our “kul davata”. We love him so much that we have made him a part of out name,” said Rammay Mukherjee, a local who runs a music school in the memory of his father, Ramkali.
Rammay’s grandfather Ramballav had six sons and all carried the word Ram in their name. The other three bothers of Rammay are no exception.
“We are just not bothered about the swirl of politics and controversy . It’s our own identity and we do not want to break it,” said Ramcharan Mukherjee, a youth in his twenties
“We were told that according to the 2011 census, there are 3,626 villages in the country that are named after Ram. But we are yet to hear of any village where all