Editor,
It is indeed appreciable and a relief to see the Shillong Municipal Board clean up the roads on a war footing and lifting up a huge pile of garbage near CRPF camp leading up to Golf Course where the K.J.P Synod Sepngi General service will be held this Sunday. What made me think and also all those who long for a cleaner Shillong is why a cleaning drive is taken up only when such big gatherings are held, or when important personalities , PM, or Sonia Gandhi visit Shillong. When the Prime Minister made his visit before the election, roads got repaired overnight, thanks to the PWD engineers who were awakened after a deep slumber. It is understood that we can make a cleaner Shillong if the authorities with all their commitments continue to do at least once a weekly cleaning drives on a war footing. I would request the SMB to continue to do the good work and create awareness amongst people to maintain cleanliness.
Your etc.,
Reward Rymbai,
Via email
Cricket an over-glorified game
Editor,
In his letter, ‘Why undue importance to cricket” (ST 4th March 2013) D Mawrie suggested that besides Cricket the media should pay equal attention to other sports especially football. I do agree with him because in a country with more than a billion people with varied levels of interests, football would be the ideal sport for India in which people of all class can participate. With billions of followers all over the world and with the number of playing countries under FIFA far exceeding the number of member countries of the United Nations and also with thousands of football clubs all over, one can imagine the international respect that India would gain in the world of sports if it can participate in the World Cup football finals. Unfortunately, this seems to be beyond reach. It appears that the cricket fad will continue because little importance is given to football. This country gives more emphasis to Cricket a sport which is played by just about fourteen countries of which the majority are insignificant sporting countries barring England and Australia, where, in any case , cricket is never considered as the number one sport. Frankly I do not have much pride if we win in cricket against those countries which are minnows in the world of sports. Come to think of it, if only these limited number of countries plays football, India would have every chance of occasionally being world champion in football too. On the other hand, there is also every possibility that India’s world ranking in cricket would diminish significantly if the many major sporting countries seriously take up the sport. How popular is cricket in India is also indeterminate as only international matches attract crowd while the matches in the local tournaments are often played in empty stadiums. The attraction to the IPL Cricket and the University Cricket matches seems to be more because of the glamour and the entertainment and also of the fun of being there with the right crowd. Further, with few Cricket clubs around the world, only few Indian cricket enthusiasts will ever have the opportunity of becoming professionals. So why glorify Cricket only ? Perhaps it is because of the seeming obsession of the game by the influential circles which perhaps also explains the extensive coverage of the game by the Indian media . In fact, the Indian television news channels are playing spoil sport by focusing too much on Cricket thereby gradually influencing the mass to reach out to this game and in the process killing other sports. I personally have nothing against Cricket. I love the game like every other game. However, I am concerned that unless we set right our priority in sports , we will keep on losing the opportunities of having our national anthem played in the many international sport arenas forever.
Yours etc.,
KL Tariang,
Via email
Why only politics and events?
Editor,
Apropos the letter “Why undue importance to cricket” ( ST, March 5, 2013) by D Mawrie, I fully agree with him and would like to put forward the following. It is true that the sports page is full of cricket news only without giving any importance to other sports and local sports. The same also applies to news items in the front page and third page, which are mostly occupied by politics and event related news items. It is sad to read only politics in these pages while the other news items are mostly events that are organized around Shillong town and rest of the state on a daily basis. I don’t discount the fact that the job of a daily is to disseminate information but what about investigative news items, breaking news and those that you call in journalistic terms “offbeat” news. The present format makes dull reading whereas the order should be to balance various kinds of news and present them to the readers. I don’t know if your scribes and the other hierarchies upward are only interested in politics and events but the increase in the number of pages from 8 to 12 at the moment has benefitted the advertisers more since the readers aren’t getting to read the kind of news I have pointed above. You can also see the other local dailies operating in the region and how they balance their presentation of news items. One last thing about the neighbourhood page that comes out every Tuesday is that it only mention bad roads, scarce water supply and public transport woes. What about consumer issues, redressals, complaints, black marketing of PDS supply, fuel, cylinders and the non-functioning of various public service departments? These are my humble views as a reader.
Yours etc.
Aiban Lyngdoh
Shillong – 3