Hathras incident: Letters to THE EDITOR

Hathras incident

The tragic incident of Hathras in Uttar Pradesh is undoubtedly a big threat to the safety and security of the entire women community of the nation. Not only that, such repeated incidents taking place across the country at an alarming rate highlight the loopholes in the existing laws and policies and their implementation in controlling crime rates in the country. Though a section of people are trying to give the incident a communal shape, one should be very clear on the fact that such criminals have no religion. There is not a single religion, caste or community in this world that tells people to rape someone. Instead of creating controversies in the name of castes of the criminals and the victims, our society should devise out methods to impart efficient moral education to the people as well as to train our women to be physically and mentally strong enough to combat the criminals.

The government, from now onwards, must design and implement strictly various policies and laws that would ensure safety, security and justice to each and every women in the country. Also, these laws should be designed in such a way that such criminals receive extremely brutal punishments and remain as examples fearing which no one would dare to commit any such crime in future.

Bibhash Deva Nath,

Rangia.

Mobile theatre artistes

Like other sectors, COVID-19 pandemic has also badly affected the mobile theatre of Assam. Mobile theatre is an industry where each of the theatre group manages to engage 150 to 200 local Assamese families. But because of the corona terror no theatre group is able to come to the people and perform. And for this a great amount of sustainable loss has to be faced by the artistes and other workers along with the producers. The situation goes to such an extent that most of the artistes have to sell vegetables on the footpath for their livelihood. Of course, the condition of the glamour and established artistes is not such deteriorating like the common one though at the same time they have also to face the financial loss. The government should come forward to help the mobile theatre hall builders, settings boys, dance artistes, actors and actresses and even the cook and the drivers of the mobile theatres. If possible the government should eye on the producers also as the producers may fall into bankruptcy and this will destroy their attitude to run a theatre group. We should not create an atmosphere to let it die untimely as it reflects the indigenous people's happiness, sorrows and various cultures.

Harsha Mohan Sarma,

Chamata, Nalbari.

Reporting on crisis in conflict situation

During the time of crisis it is important to have sensible news but what generally happens is that the crisis is taken as the basic and the news becomes sensational. To this context we can have the example of COVID-19 crisis in India, which is affecting the lives of migrant labourers. On one hand certain reporters maintain the ethics but on the other hand there are reporters who go for reporting and show the problems of migrants labourers on the basis of their religion and thereby sensationalize the story. That's how the entire news spread among the common people and that makes one particular community more vulnerable. Now let me draw the attention towards the second topic that is conflict situation. To this context Indo-China conflict would be a good example to talk about. In the Indo-China conflict the duty of reporters is to report news which are based on facts but what we have seen is that many reporters put forwards their own opinion and judgement regarding the crisis. The role of the reporters is to describe the whole incident and not to make judgemental comments over the incident but what we saw is that most of the time the news became much opinionated and biased, even it was seen that certain army persons were invited by National news channel from two different countries. They were debating with each other in the news channel (basically fighting with each other) without holding any discussion over the main issue. This make certain community in India more vulnerable than the other. People belonging to a particular community are mocked on the basis of certain nationality like Pakistani or Bangladeshi. The role of the reporters is that the situation is not to create fake news because there are two type of conflict one is real and the other is created. The guidelines of PCI were given to preserve freedom of press and to maintain and improve the standards of the media. Freedom of press doesn't give license to a newspaper to malign a political leader or to publish fake news and defamatory writings.

Sanjoy Saikia,

Guwahati.

Wake up people

Nirbhaya, Priyanka, Manisha... The list goes on. Women of all ages, including newborns, are being abused and brutally raped. Lakhs of such crimes happen every year in India without justice being served. Here, the media is running with an agenda driven focus, which is evident to every aware citizen. Is this the future we want? Please wake up people, before it's too late.

Chandan Kumar Nath,

Sorbhog.

Handling of sewerage

The cleaning of sewerage is much needed in city as well as in town area. The steps for cleaning drainage and disposal should be taken up in winter season, but it is observed that the same is done in the rainy season. As a result, sometimes garbage taken out from drains is kept for many days in the side of the sewerage which later falls into the drain again due to rains. I would, therefore, like to request the authority concerned to look into the matter and take appropriate steps in the larger interest of public as it is a serious matter.

Putul Sarma,

Biswanath Chariali.

Hathras tragedy

In her dying declaration the 19-year-old victim of the Hathras sexual assault said that she was gangraped by four men. However, a senior Uttar Pradesh police personnel citing a forensic Science laboratory (FSL) report said the death was due to an injury on the neck and resulting a trauma due to it. Generally dying declaration are taken to be true even by the court of law. The way the UP police is handling the case some suspicion arises in the mind of general public. Even the body of the victim was not handed over to the family for the last rituals and the police burnt the body without allowing family members of the victim to be present. The UP government which came under severe criticism from all over the country has formed an SIT to inquire on the matter. It is hoped the SIT will enquire the matter without taking any side and submit a neutral report to the government so that culprits if any can be punished.

Bikash Barpujari,

Guwahati.

LIC should merge its nearing units

LIC of India has many of branches very close to each other in Delhi. Same may be the case outside Delhi. Many such nearing branches exist from the year 1956 when 245 private insurance companies were nationalised in public sector Life Insurance Corporation of India, this also being one of the reasons for nearing branches of LIC of India some of which are in very bad condition. While some areas have multiple branches, residents of many localities are deprived of nearing branch of LIC of India.

In present era of computerisation and online facility of accessibility of all policy records from any branch, not much office space and staff are required in branches of LIC of India. LIC of India should make a study of branch network throughout the country to start with metro cities, and merge nearing branches into a single branch to reduce undue overheads. It should be ensured that after sale service of all policies may be availed from any branch of LIC of India.

Land allotting agencies of State governments should provide small pieces of land at important places, where LIC of India may develop its own buildings also providing space for post offices and one branch each of some public sector bank and General Insurance Company even on rent. It will be better utilization of LIC funds. Rent going to private parties from government departments will then be income of public sector LIC of India. People will find newly developed premises for these essential services with ultramodern facilities and techniques.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal,

Delhi.