Editor,
It was a good decision by St Mary’s HS School to start fee collection from students by way of online method where all account details are given including each students virtual account number. After having paid online students / parents are again asked to get a verified form from the Bank that the payment has been made. This defeats the whole purpose of online payment. Please look into the matter. The verification can be done at the school’s end by accounts persons as each student has been given a virtual account number.
Yours etc.,
A concerned parent
Name withheld on request
Shiv Sena’s greed for power
Editor
It is disgusting that Shiv Sena is aiming for something which is nothing but an act of betrayal. Here the principles and ethos of the party are sacrificed. The “chair” of Chief Minister is what the individual parties in Maharashtra are wanting very badly. And because of this the Shiv Sena has severed its ties with its all-time ally BJP which emerged with the largest number of MLAs. Is it not the BJP with which Sena made the alliance before the elections? So why the bitter feelings after the poll results? Many past elections were fought on this mutual understanding. Sena had always taken pride and bragged about its power and clout as because the BJP was behind it. But now very contrary equations and chemistry are on display. NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena are sharing the seat of power ideas as opposed to the expectations of the electorate.
One believes it’s Congress and its High Command which the Shiv Sena Supremo, Late Bal Thackeray always disliked and ruthlessly held them up to ridicule. It was because they hold opposing ideologies. But now his son Uddhav Thackeray is kneeling down and seeking the helping hand of those rival camps to walk the party through for the chair of Chief Minister. Going by the flood of comments on social media, this party has ostensibly fallen from grace. BJP is not a holy cow either. It is equally good at flexing its muscle for the sake of power.
While Maharashtra is already under President’s Rule, the NCP and Congress are now exploring all possible means to back Shiv Sena. Uddhav Thackeray only wants to see his son Aditya Thackeray being the Chief Minister of one of the richest states in the country. The trend is not at all healthy. Everything is now clear that the cherished values of democracy in India are fast eroding. In majority of states in the country, only “particular families” are ruling the roost. This is a bigger threat to the fundamental values of the country. The NATION is no more controlled by the government of the people, nor is it for the people. It is the government of those particular families which is formed for the fulfillment of shameless greed and narrow aspirations of those particular families.
Lastly, it is the common people who are always at the receiving end of the leaders’ whims and tantrums. The country is no longer in safe hands.
Yours etc.,
Salil Gewali,
Shillong
Stop belittling Gandhi
Editor,
It is intriguing though not interesting that an Odisha government booklet described Mahatma Gandhi’s death as an accident. This incident has already triggered a row as both Congress and ruling BijuJanataDal(BJD) members on Friday condemned the matter in the state Assembly. There have always been certain elements in the country that glorify the act of the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi and the great works done and the ideologies preached by Mahatma Gandhi are being portrayed badly to belittle his high stature. Gandhiji had his own unique ideas breathed into his deeds, which made him a real mahatma. The non-violence struggle he always mooted and practised during the freedom struggle movement in India had earned him more accolades than criticisms.
The adoption of non-violence struggle by Gandhiji was something unique and all others pooh-poohed its applicability in the Indian struggle at first. But Gandhiji proved that it was possible at the practical level too by winning independence for India.
Gandhiji loved everyone and respected every religion crowning his character with the most enviable trait of loving his opponents too. Thus, he was not an ordinary mortal but was an extraordinary man with a lot of qualities. Truly, he is a Mahatma (great). It is a fact that he was assassinated on January 30, 1948 by a religious fanatic named Godse and this fact is being distorted by some unscrupulous elements in the country. If everyone had loved our Father of the Nation honestly, incidents like this would not have happened.
Yours etc.,
TK Nandanan,
Via email
Shocking misdemeanours
Editor,
It is really shocking that when we have been celebrating his 150th birth anniversary, Mahatma Gandhi has to commit suicide in a question paper of a school in Gujarat and thereafter again has to die in an accident in a school booklet in Odisha! None can hide the heinous crime committed by a fanatic called Godse. Unfortunately, there are people in this country who even want to build a temple in memory of Godse because they fail to realise who Gandhi really is. Mahatma Gandhi is more than his symbolic glasses. He is an embodiment of plural, secular India. He must not be reduced to only a champion of sanitation.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata