Saving energy

Saving energy
In an interview Ajay Mathur, director general of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency stated that the Indian Government has introduced a scheme called Bachat Lamp Yojna under which CFL lamps are made available to houses at Rs15, the cost of a normal bulb (‘We have achieved a lot at Copenhagen’, DNA, January 5). The company that sells the CFL at a cheaper rate earns carbon credits and recovers the balance cost by selling those credits in the market. This is a piece of good news. I wonder why our various electricity generating and distributing companies do not take up this scheme?
—MD Kini, Mumbai

Quick resolution
Apropos ‘Congress won’t punish rebel Telangana leaders’, (DNA, January 8), the solution for the Telangana issue would be would to impose President’s rule in Andhra Pradesh after dissolving the assembly so that the party can buy time for the decision till repolling is held in the state. The present CM K Rosaiah should control the situation. The Congress president should be bold enough to decide quickly 
—Achyut Railkar, Mumbai
 
II
Taking a cue from the “success” of the Telangana agitation, the demand for a separate state of Vidarbha has been revived (‘Vidarbha leaders take cue from Telangana’, DNA, January 5). The activists spearheading the agitation have decided to cut across party lines and fight for the cause. This reminds me of a similar situation about five and half decades ago when a number of leaders in Maharashtra came together to form the Nag-Vidarbha Andolan Samiti, with the sole purpose of carving out a separate state of Vidarbha with Nagpur as its capital. The present day scenario seems to have similar overtones.
—Arun Malankar, via email

End ragging
It is matter of grave concern that ragging has become so rampant. There is also legislation in place in the form of Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act 1999 but it has apparently not been implemented in the spirit in which it was actually introduced and intended for. The act of ragging itself has taken an extremely hideous turn.

Several careers have been destroyed and lives have been put into jeopardy as a result. The legislation also needs to eliminate scope for delay in justice and the penal provisions ought to have more teeth to make any impact. Unless such harsh measures are taken, such crimes will continue unabated.
—Deepak Agharkar, via email
 
Good reporting
Apropos ‘Liberty to liquidate WorldSpace’s India Biz’ (DNA, January 7), thanks DNA for bringing out the WorldSpace saga to the fore. We, the listeners also got a feeling of breach of trust as we heard it first from the media but nobody from WorldSpace bothered to communicate to us though we are their creditors since we have already paid for our future subscription. The government should see to it that justice is done to all the concerned.
—Sandesh Vartak, via email

The neglected gender
The battle of the sexes is as old as humankind, apparently, but while R Jagannathan gave it a nuanced perspective with his article ‘Boys need special focus’ (DNA, January 7), the letter by Swarup Sarkar (‘Special treatment’, DNA, January 8) seems to belong to the old school of male chauvinism. The only reason that we have a special ministry for women and child development in India is because of the atrocities of the past. Once our female infanticide, female foeticide and natal mortality numbers come down and our female literacy numbers go up, such a ministry will no longer be required.

The rest of society, however, works full time to ensure that men are neither neglected nor ignored. Incidentally, India is one of the few countries in the world which has a skewed male-female ratio with more women and than men and also like other Asian societies has high suicide rates for women compared to the west. Perhaps we all need more gender sensitisation.
—Reema Barua, via email