Letters to the Editor: Dharapur-Palashbari Road

Through the column of your esteemed and popular daily, I would like to draw your kind attention regarding the poor condition of roads and drainage in Dharapur-Palashbari road under West Guwahati constituency.

The condition of roads and drainage is getting worse in my locality. Decaying roads lead to multiple issues faced by the population leaving them homeless during monsoon season. Roads are in their worst condition due to which water-borne diseases occur frequently. Aged people and children face tremendous problems while travelling.

We have complained a lot of times in the municipality, but no action has been taken yet.

Deepraj Das,

Cotton University

Gentlemen CMs

Right now, we, unfortunately, have a few CMs who break all decorum and decency. In this regard, we can straightway point fingers at Mamata Banerjee (CM West Bengal) and Uddhav Thackeray (CM of Maharashtra). The duo has disgraced their electors. Their sole objective is to earn some cheap publicity which is their main forte to be in power. But there are a few like Nabin Patnaik (CM of Orissa) and Himanta Biswa Sarma (CM of Assam) who still stand tall among these court jesters. Nabin Patnaik, whose government sponsored the Indian Hockey team for almost a year before the Tokyo Olympics, is almost left unnoticed by our media. Patnaik is always a very silent worker with utmost dignity and composure. Yes, yours truly as a proud Asomiya can boast that our Chief Minister also belongs to that same category.

I wish them well.

Drishyaa Chowdhury,

Guwahati.

Health is the
way to life

Youths are the future of our country, so they should be protected from the disease, illicit behaviour or other illegal acts that happen today.

Health is man's greatest wealth. Health is the way. There is no other way to heath.

According to WHO, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Health is that quality of life that enables the individual to live most and serve the best.

The greatness of a nation is dependent to a large extent on the total fitness of each of its citizens. Mental states are of great importance for the maintenance of health. So, everyone should make an effort to keep his mind in peace, free from mental storms. The mind is like a pendulum, it cannot remain at rest. If the mind strays to one end or the other, it must be brought back to the centre. So, we have to carry out the programme of conduct by which health can be recovered and maintained.

Besides physical exercise, yoga, pranayama; the other factor that has a tremendous impact on health is food. Energy comes from the food we eat. We can classify food as positive and negative foods. Negative foods are highly concentrated, very rich in carbohydrates, proteins and fat, which is difficult to digest.

Positive foods have plenty of cellulose or roughage and high water content. Hence they are easier to digest.

The negative foods are acid-forming and thus promote ill-health. Positive foods are medicine for health.

So, we must have to change our lifestyle and open our minds, change our attitude and approach to life or lifestyle.

Shruti Chaya Goswami,

Cotton University.

New equation

A new royal combination has emerged in the political horizon of NE India with the resignation of Sushmita Dev from Congress and subsequently joining TMC. This unexpected move of Sushmita Dev took the entire Congress higher-ups by utter surprise leaving aside our poor APCC. In an interview, Sushmita Dev expressed no regret for her long association with Congress. Then why did she resign even though she was the president of ALL INDIA MAHILA CONGRESS, a very prestigious post? The reason is very simple. She is a very highly ambitious lady who started realizing that her ambition to be the PM or CM is bleak if she stays with Congress as now the Congress is almost a dead horse. Sensing Mamata Banerjee's rise after the WB Assembly poll she joined TMC hoping that she will get a ticket from TMC for Tripura a state from where her father was an MP for a long time and became a cabinet minister.

The Sushmita-Mamata royal combination has now set its eyes on Assam, a state like West Bengal where TMC might get the same support from the same linguistic minority community. Already TMC has started wooing some likes Akhil Gogoi and Naba Sarania to name a few who believe in appeasement policy to be in power by any means. The combo pack of both the tutored by modern Chanakya, Prasant Kishore will be a force to reckon with unless they both betray each other. With our local Chanakya leading the saffron brigade from the front it will be an interesting battle.

So let us wait and see who has the last laugh.

Dr Ashim Chowdhury,

Guwahati.

Ayurvedic doctors prescribing
allopathic medicine

According to the ethics of medical science, all ayurvedic doctors have to prescribe ayurvedic medicine but most of the ayurvedic doctors in Assam prescribe allopathic medicine outside the ethics. However, the Gauhati High Court has allowed and ordered ayurvedic doctors to prescribe only 20% allopathic medicine. But this 20% allopathic medicine is in case of emergency of the patient. However, some ayurvedic doctors have unfortunately disobeyed the High Court order. I would like to know whether it is against the law for an ayurvedic doctor to prescribe allopathic medicine to a patient.

If it is against the law for an ayurvedic doctor to prescribe allopathic medicine to a patient then why no action has been taken by the Central Government? This sensitive issue should be taken seriously by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi.

Heramba Nath,

Kamrup.

Negative impact of gamers or streamers

Online videos games are games that offer live interactions with other players and are available for PC, Mobile, VR, etc. Nowadays android versions of video games like Battlegrounds Mobile India, Gerena Free Fire, Call of Duty, Among Us etc., are the most played games among young stars and children. There are other PC video games like Valorant, Apex Legends which are trying to enter in mobile games market because there are more mobile video games players than PC video games players. Games are now organizing e-sports tournaments, a form of competition using video games. They invest more money in e-sports to attract more people to play their games. Playing online games is a fun and sociable way to spend time, encouraging teamwork and developing skills.

There are two kinds of people who market the games to attract more players. They are professional gamers and streamers. Gamers are those who play a particular game and win tournaments while streamers are the content creators who create content online or live on YouTube and other gaming platforms. They live a fancy life and show it to the people who follow them and also influence them to play games to become rich and live a fancy life like they are living and in recent times it is seen that most of them are children who are being influenced by them. Some streamers also promote violence by using abusive words in streams and videos.

In comparison to advantages, there are more disadvantages to online video games. Advantages like video games can improve learning, life skills and can improve brain function. But online video games promote violence as it can be seen that players lose self-control and lead to use abusive words. Games are designed to be addictive and can negatively impact players' social life and other aspects of their lives. They are mostly children who get affected by video games.

There are so many examples of children who died because of online video games addiction. For example, on 4 February 2021, a 16-year-old boy from Puducherry called Dharshan, who was studying Plus Two died after playing games for hours; on 31 July 2021, a 13-year-old kid from Madhya Pradesh died by suicide after losing Rs 40000 in Free Fire. There is a recent example that promotes violence such as a YouTuber called Paras Singh racially abuses Arunachal's MLA calling him 'Chinese' in response to a letter which the MLA addressed to the Union Government demanding to disallow the launch of the game "Battleground Mobile India (PUBG)" which sparks massive outrage. I think gamers and streamers or influencers are playing a major role in all these types of violent behaviour.

Now, makers are implementing new rules and regulations to make their game safe. But is it safe? Are the rules and regulations really useful? Is it not the duty of parents or guardians to have their parental responsibility upon their child whether they are involved in good things or not? Why do the gamers and streamers only make them involved in promoting the games or for business purposes? Why not focus more on positive impacts rather than negative impacts?

Bhaskar Nath,

Cotton University, Guwahati.

A drugged world

According to World Drug Report 2021, a total of 275 million people consumed drugs worldwide last year. Many countries, including India, have seen a rise in the use of Cannabis during the coronavirus pandemic. The world has seen a 30% rise in the use of drugs last year when compared to 2019. According to the latest global estimates, about 5.5% of the 275 million in the age group 15-64 have consumed drugs at least once in the past year. These figures elevate the eyes to the forehead. The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown caused 114 million people to lose their jobs in 2020. It is seen that when people go through emotional turmoil they fall back on drugs so that they can stay away from all the emotional tugging going on in their minds. All these crackdowns on drug peddlers and drug mafias are all good for now but to uproot this social evil, employment generation is the only way out.

Noopur Baruah,

Tezpur.

UNO need to revisit

The fall of President Ashraf Ghani's government a few hours before the Taliban army's capture of the Afghan capital Kabul on August 14 and the subsequent formation of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan poses the biggest threat to its neighbours particularly India. This dire incident has exposed the inherent weakness of the UNO in failing to convince the world community of the lurking danger from the dreaded terrorist organization like the Taliban for world peace. Founded in 1945 the United Nations Organization (UNO) was committed to maintaining world peace and security in post Second World War-ravaged world. In the present scheme of things, the Big Five in the Security Council (the USA, Russia, the UK, France and China) call the shot. Each of them has veto power which has given them a status symbol for using in furthering one's influence as consensus is a prerequisite for arriving at a decision. The SC is ideologically divided into two-the western democracies consisting of the USA, the UK and France and the other is under a communist regime predominantly based on a single-party system. They are at loggerheads on the international dispute on ideological preoccupation as is already clear that the militia rule in Afghanistan has been sort of legitimized by China; while Russia has announced that they are engaged in dialogue with the Taliban. So, no consensus on the Afghan imbroglio is hoped for in near future.

The emerging situation calls for a qualitative change in the present status of the Security Council. The world community must rise to the occasion and endeavour to carry out important changes fast in demand with the present reality. First, the SC should be enlarged with all fifteen non-veto temporary members being made permanent members. Second, the veto power should be withdrawn. Third, dispute resolution should be made in the spirit of consensus as far as practicable. So far as seen the UNO remained a caged bird. The present aggression by the Taliban calls for a global ban on the Taliban and its associates until the Taliban is finished for all-important world peace and security.

Pannalal Dey,

Guwahati.

The Quint: Anti India

The Quint is an English and Hindi language Indian general news and opinion website founded and owned by Ritu Kapur and Raghav Bahl. This website has always been backstabbing the nation for decades. In the name of secularism, they have always backed a particular religion and from 2014 they have always shown a soft corner for any terrorist organization that is out to harm India. Some days back, The Quint made an article on the world's most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden projecting him as a good husband and father. The same website carried series of articles on Osama Bin Laden after he was executed by USA Navy Seals. Their main motive was to create an ambience that the USA did wrong by killing him as they wanted to tell the world that Osama Bin Laden was a highly qualified person or intellectual fighting for the causes of oppressed ones. When Kulbhusan Jadhav was about to be sentenced to death by a Pakistani court projecting him as a RAW agent and ran a media trial to show that he passed on vital information of Pakistan to India. Pakistan even quoted a report of The Quint website at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to press that Kulbhusan Jadhav is a RAW spy.

Now, The Quint is trying to whitewash Delhi rioter Shahrukh's crime and tell the world how good he is like a son and friend and he just used the gun to disperse the crowd. The fact which the entire world saw was that Shahrukh carrying a gun in his hand and was pointing towards an on-duty policeman.

The main objective of such a website like The Quint is to project the terrorists as noblemen and justify the act of terrorism. It is pernicious as active terrorism. The Union government should react and uproot such anti-national websites from our soil.

Julie Bhuyan,

Gaurisagar.

Make provisions for differently-abled

The Chowk Bazaar, Tezpur which was fully damaged by a big fire in may 2021 is going to be converted to a big complex. The government has decided to construct it and develop it into a multi-storeyed complex. As a resident of Tezpur, it will make me very excited to see my very lovely Chowk Bazaar in a new shape in near future. But there is a point that makes me upset sometimes. In the context of Assam, we hardly can find some provisions for the differently able persons, especially for the orthopedically disabled in the educational institutions, public malls, halls etc. Being a son of a differently able mother I frequently face the problem in many places while accompanying her…

So, I urge the government and the authority concerned that they must provide some special provisions like a ramp, special toilet facility etc., in their new constructions in the Chowk Bazaar, Tezpur and all other new constructions also.

Aditya Ankur Nath,

Tezpur.

Revised SOP

Through your esteemed newspaper, I would like to bring the attention of the people of Assam regarding the enforcement of the new SoP in the State. The Assam State Disaster Management Authority issued the SoP for both urban and rural areas, which will be followed from 5 am on the 18th of August. Though improvement can be seen regarding the increase of the Covid-19 cases, yet some restrictions are to be followed. Most importantly, the Inter-district movement of private vehicles is allowed, except to and from Kamrup (M). Students from Medical College, GNM, Nursing courses are allowed to start their classes, others will remain suspended till further notification. Likely, a few other features were also mentioned regarding the exercise of power. So, it's a humble request to all citizens to obey the rules and regulations stated by the State government.

Bhitali Das,

(bhitalidas02@gmail.com)

I-Day celebration and social activities

Nayanpur Unnayan Samiti (Bye Lane 02) observed the 75th Independence Day of India at Nayanpur with different programmes. The programme started with the assembling of all members, including elders and children of the locality. The national flag was hoisted by Shyamanta Konwar, president of the society. Mr Konwar spoke on the occasion after singing the national anthem. In his speech, he mentioned the importance of the day and appealed to the members and others to contribute positively to society. It is to be mentioned that this kind of activity has been done for the first time in the locality and elders of the locality thanked the organizers for taking up the initiatives. It is to be mentioned that society has been conducting different social activities, including food distribution for the poor and needy, conducting cleanliness programmes, conducting free sanitization programmes and also arranging for vaccination for the elderly of the locality.

Ranjan K Baruah,

(bkranjan@gmail.com)