Editor,
Your photo news item (ST April 20, 2015) of garbage disposed off carelessly inside NEHU campus, has really shamed the NEHU authorities for their inability to maintain their campus. I am a frequent morning walker and I stroll around the campus, It really pains me to see that the campus is littered with broken bottles, plastics wrappers, waste paper, empty cans etc all around. I wonder how everyone has access into the University campus without proving their identity. Besides, local boys are allowed to play football inside the school play ground of NEHU Kendra Vidyalaya. In the process the walls, the paints, windows and surrounding of the school now resemble a remote, unkempt village school. All around the professor’s quarters and students’ hostels is yet another eyesore to behold as there is no proper waste management strategy. Waste is dumped everywhere. The NEHU authorities should take a call on this and stop this menace. Every individual resident of NEHU too should be manage their own garbage with responsibility. They have to put pressure on the NEHU Administration to ensure that garbage is collected and disposed regularly as is being done in other localities.
Your etc..
S F Lyngdoh,
Shillong -8
Master strategist Shah’s game!
Editor,
The BJP President is on a recruiting spree in the north-eastern states. He can be heard making promises galore in order to bolster his party’s ranks. One of the promises (and we have heard this one many times over the years) is the promise of “skill-development” of people from the region. This shows that Amit Shah hasn’t bothered to do his homework before coming here. Skill development without jobs, without investment, without industries – what nonsense is he spouting? What is skill development worth without jobs? What we really need is for BJP to push sizeable investments into the region, not skill development. We need multinational companies to set up bases here which will automatically improve the economic and employment scenario. We need BJP to make a genuine effort to create a conducive business atmosphere by working around local hurdles. And last but not least, we need BJP and its allies to stop pushing their communal agenda down the throats of minorities in the country! It is all very well for Amit Shah to come here and lecture us about what we need without thinking, but can he also educate us about the criminals and scumbags that are fast filling up BJP’s ranks in Meghalaya? BJP has been fishing in the troubled waters of Garo Hills (so too is the Congress with its money-for surrender policy) and hustling ex-militants into its ranks using central government agencies known for specializing in dirty tricks. So far they have been only partially successful. Will Mr Amit Shah speak to us about the kind of governance we can expect from a party which fills its ranks with killers and psychopaths? Let the BJP President address these concerns publicly, instead of making meaningless remarks about skill development. Personally I feel Amit Shah’s value as a master strategist is highly overrated, as can be seen from these latest gaffes.
Bryan Kharpran
Shillong -1
Baptism by SMS?
Editor,
On March 19,2015 I received an SMS from DM-098765 requesting me to give a free missed call on 18002662020 to join BJP. I did give a call thinking they would inform me their statement of objectives and ideology to enable me to decide. But then within seconds another SMS came giving me my primary membership no.1076475065. Now is this not ethically, morally and even legally wrong? As far as my little knowledge goes the BJP is not only a political party. It is also part and parcel of a system of beliefs and philosophy (RSS) where “the patriotism of all non-Hindus whose holy land is not in India is suspect and of an inferior status.” It also projects Ram as a symbol of national identity and the Gita as its sacred book. So do I become a member but with inferior status? By giving me and a host of others SMS membership without our agreeing to its belief system, is BJP not indulging in another forced conversion? Can no action be taken under the Freedom of Religion Act? From ghar-wapasi to SMS-wapasi!
Yours etc.,
Rasputin Bismarck Manners
Kolkatta