Shame on Maharashtra

Antony square peg in a round hole
Apropos of ‘Indifferent Antony didn’t heed warning’ (May 2), it needs to be pointed out that the former Kerala chief minister never gave the impression of having fitted into his role as the defence minister, his acknowledged credentials for honesty, integrity et al notwithstanding. So, it is not surprising that he did not pay heed to the army’s complaints about the substandard Tatra trucks in 2008 or the Army chief’s recent oral plaint of a high-ranking army officer offering bribe to him. He should have taken a leaf out of the Sharad Pawar-Dr VS Arunachalam defence ministry team some years back with the latter, a physical metallurgist, fulfilling his role as the scientific advisor to the defence minister to the hilt. One wonders why the present scientific advisor to AK Antony did not apprise him of the poor quality of the Tatra trucks.

—V Subramanyan, Mumbai

Shame on Maharashtra
It is with shame, disgust and a sense of complete despair that one reads about poor farmers committing suicide. It is a disgrace to the nation, the state and its people who have the means to buy flats and cars worth crores of rupees but not a penny to help the poor farmers. All political parties tom tom about Maharashtra; they want to spend billions to put up a statue of Shivaji in mid-sea, but they don’t have the finance nor assist farmers. So much hype of going green but little concern for those who survive on farming. 

—N Thakur, Mumbai

Front page news
This has reference to ‘A day later, Assam can’t count its dead’ (may 2). This piece of news should have been on the front page rather than on one of the inside pages. It’s a disaster that has killed more than 300 people and it can’t be just regional news. Had it been an air crash it would have surely found place on the front page as the passengers would be rich people. Why this discrimination if you believe in true journalism? 

—Mahammad Abdul Karim, Mumbai

II
Our hearts go out to the innocent victims and their families. The tragedy is as much a reflection of a serious lack of safe and sufficient transport facilities in the country, more so in the remote parts, as the neglect and failure of the government in addressing the needs of the people. People have to depend on local, age-old and unsafe mode of transport risking their lives. Overcrowding is a common sight as people are forced to sit on the rooftops and cling to doors and windows of buses, trucks, vans and trains or fill boats and ferries chock-a-block to go to work or to buy their day-to-day essentials. Little do they realise that they have boarded on potential death traps, ill-fated and bound to their destination in the last journey of their life. Where the government fails its people in providing them safe and adequate transport facility, the local agencies step in to make profit unmindful of the dangers to the life of the desperate commuters. The much hyped economic and infrastructural development of the country come to naught when we turn our attention to the pathetic situation in the rural areas. Will the government wake up at least now and protect the lives of the people espousing whose cause it exists?

—Zulfikar Akram, Bangalore

Old road names matter
Apropos of ‘What’s in a road’s name? A lot’ (May 2), I compliment CP Arup Patnaik for ordering the use of old, familiar road names for public alerts, instead of the new names. This will make sense to road-users, and they will benefit from police interaction, as intended. Many old names of Britishers deserved to be retained in appreciation of their service to the citizens. Take the example of Bartle Frere, who then endowed Fort with excessively wide footpaths with the foresight that roads would later need to be widened. Or Ms Prescott, whose name once adorned the small road near JB Petit and Cathedral School. She had single-handedly promoted girls’ education and even raised funds in England to set up and run schools in South Mumbai for Indians. Our gratitude to and remembrance of such persons cannot be diminished by obliterating their names.

—Phiroze B Javeri, Mumbai

Blame it on MMRDA
Apropos of ‘Three brothers drown in BMC pit’ (May 2), why should only the contractor be made liable for the incident? Is this not a liability of the MMRDA? It is because of the inefficiency of this authority that the wall work has not been completed even after almost 7 years. Is there any guarantee that no more lives will be lost because of the non-completion of the project? The decision to erect a wall was taken after the 26/7 deluge, and accordingly, the required funds were also allotted. The purpose of this wall is to prevent future flooding as well as preventing people from dumping debris into the river. But with the pace it is being built, one would not be wrong in saying that we may see another flooding in the future.
 

—Jitendra Gupta, via e-mail

II
This is a clear case of death caused by negligence on the part of MMRDA and civic contractors. As a result of BMC/its contractors’ negligence and lethargy scores of innocent lives are lost by drowning in nullahs and gutters or falling through open manholes of storm-water drains or in trenches dug by utility agencies like MTNL, Reliance, etc.  A pedestrian cannot walk for 100 metres on a footpath without encountering a few open manholes or manholes with broken covers. Since incidents of drowning increase during monsoon when the streets get flooded, BMC should cover all the open manholes and replace broken covers immediately to prevent mishaps.

—KP Rajam, Mumbai