Editor,
Apropos the news item in your esteemed daily (ST April 2, 2011) captioned, “13 year old girl gang raped in city hotel,” we appreciate your coverage of such an inhuman act of crime perpetrated on a minor. This type of perverted act needs to be condemned by all. However, while the news report specifically mentioned the name of the community to which the facilitator of the crime belongs to, the same was not done in the case of the victim and the accused persons. We feel that such kind of reporting is biased and should be avoided in future. We strongly feel that the law must take its own course in awarding capital punishment to all those involved in this heinous crime.
Yours etc.,
C Vanlalhriatpuia
General Secretary
Mizo Students’ Union, Ricky Z Renthlei
Secretary
Young Mizo Association, Shillong
Let’s fight corruption
Editor,
The hunger strike by Gandhian Anna Hazare can be described as another historical chapter in the history of independent India ever since Gandhi stood up against the ills and malpractices of the British, which unfortunately we have inherited. As he rightly stated this is India’s War of Independence against corruption and it has rightly gone down well with the masses. It is true that in Meghalaya when we achieved statehood we felt that governing our own would bring about changes in all spheres but everything turned out the other way round. I believe that all communities in Meghalaya should come out totally against corruption by our state politicians and also other government officials.
This cancer of corruption should end before it swallows the entire society ruining generations to come. It is a shame that being a Christian state,
a section of our politicians and officials are just ‘Christians’ in name, while their actions speak differently. The fight against corruption must not end in only sermons and political rallies but must continue to come out like the recent arrest of a government
officer. Surely such public actions would make others feel that what belongs to the masses must rightly go to them. .
Yours etc.,
Dominic S.Wankhar
Shillong-3
Anna Hazare for Meghalaya
Editor,
As somebody said ‘India does not have democracy, it has an elected monarchy’ and a monarch does not have to heed to popular demands. With the sun king he can say “I am the Law, I am France.” Strains of it we once heard from a guy from the North East: “India is Indira and Indira is India”.
After all the anguished outpourings against vandalizing the ‘Tara Ghar’ property (including one from MoEF), we still get the news from the monarchs of Meghalaya how Tara Ghar is waiting for the new Assembly House and that too at a whopping cost of more than 260 crores (surely there will be cost overruns). Almost the same amount the bigger and more prosperous Tamil Nadu spent on its new Assembly complex. (ST 8/4/11) What takes the cake is that we are demanding a100% handout from the Central government. Yes we have an endemic financial crunch and for a quite a few years, on and off, we have not been able to pay our elementary school teachers. We are told that if we clean up one government guy we can easily get around 2 crores (the cost of missing ‘entertainment equipments’ plus what is demanded for a fictitious ‘chicken coop’ (from the official residence of the very imaginative government functionary) Repeat the process with ten other flunkies we might get enough to keep the hearth burning for the poor teachers.
Other state governments mostly generate the money they need for their grand schemes within. They are productive. Non productive states cannot be spendthrifts with somebody else’s tax money. We cannot keep our heads very high with a begging bowl in hand. Maybe we badly need our own Anna Hazare to bell the fat cats gleefully licking their chops ‘ex Cathedra.’
Yours etc.,
John Jayakumar,
RRTC Umran
Of corrupt BDO and dinosaur’s egg
Editor,
Browsing through the Shillong Times I could not help but make a couple of observations. (1) The B.D.O. of Mawryngkneng made one mistake while trying to pocket public money – he did not get himself elected as a representative of the people before doing so. If he had done it as an MLA/MDC he would, for sure, have got away with it. (2) This has to do with the ’10 million year old dinosaur egg’ displayed at Lady Keane HS School – dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago so it would be rather difficult for us to be in possession of a 10 million year old egg. Perhaps the school should have the age of the egg rechecked.
Yours etc.,
DM Pariat,
Shillong -3