Editor,
The Meghalaya government should start more colleges in order to make higher education easily accessible to the poor, in the light of the high cost of education in the self-financing colleges especially in rural areas of the state. Education in the private sector has become a business proposition, and therefore self-financing colleges charge high fees, which the students from poor families cannot afford. Private educational institutions will definitely charge higher fees. The government institutions alone can provide education to the poor at affordable cost. Therefore, Government should start a scheme of free higher education for the poor. Moreover it would be of great advantage if it Government opens up colleges in every district of the state in order to provide easy access to higher education to the poor. Only then can we speak on inclusive education.
Yours etc.,
Phrangshai Hynniewta
Shillong-2
Positive response
Editor,
Your paper recently published a letter from this writer highlighting the lack of public courtesy by those attending visitors to the office of the Superintendent of Police. It is a welcome step that the police department through the SP Vivek Syiem acknowledged the weaknesses and asked for public feedback. This speaks well of the police department and the officer concerned for taking criticism in the right spirit and trying his best to improve the image of the force. We look forward to see that more such officers are posted to carry out their duties to society.
Yours etc.
Dominic S Wankhar,
Via email
Dealing with difficult people
Editor,
The best possible strategy to avoid difficult people with complex personalities and mercurial temperament and negative attitudes is to humbly avoid or politely neglect them. A vast majority of such complex personalities are actually suffering from serious personal attention deficiency issues. They will always try to be aggressive, quarrelsome, rude and disrespectful towards others; and mostly misbehave with their unfortunate victims to establish their authority or just to drag their much cherished mass attention. It is indeed extremely difficult and challenging to handle such individuals if they are in managerial or supervisory positions. It is this authoritarian socio-economic status that they mostly take advantage of to demonstrate their suppressed anger, frustrations, irritability to humiliate or insult their subordinates. Actually they are mentally ill and are in serious need of psychotherapy and proper medical attention. Based on my experiences I have found that if one bravely confronts such an individual directly and give him/her back in polite and courteous manner what they need to hear back from abused individuals, they backtrack and withdraw into their inner self and do not bother others. Of course one has to be careful that the situation does not go out of hand and turn more serious or complicated.
Yours etc.,
Saikat Kumar Basu,
Lethbridge, AB Canada
Guwahati the sports hub of NE India
Editor,
When little known Jalandhar turns hub for sports good, can the North East aspire to be the sports hub of India? It has started since the SAF games took place in Guwahati / Shillong in 2016. Guwahati has hosted various events from ISL to Elite Senior Boxing, FIFA U-17 and T20. The infrastructure has been built up and it achieved excellence by conducting global events. There are modern stadia for football, cricket, hockey and indoor games to claim its strong presence. Guwahati has hosted the IPL? India has formally put its bid for FIFA U-20. The World Youth Women’s Boxing Championship in Guwahati in November is the qualifier for Youth Olympics at Buenos Aires and Tokyo Olympics. The love for football in the North East is enormous where eight players represent India from Manipur in the Under-17. And the entire Jawaharlal Nehru stadium was occupied by one fourth of enthusiastic NE fans recently. The region lacks infrastructure not sports talent. Aizawl FC and Lajong FC have brought laurels to our region. Mizoram started promoting its center of excellence in sports curriculum. Now the International Olympics Committee has voted to add Karate in the 2020 Olympic. There is great potential in martial arts from the North Eastern region. Now Assam should take this opportunity to move forward to put Guwahati on the international sports map.
Yours etc.,
Kamal Baruah
Guwahati