Editor,
The Rescue Mission being undertaken at present at the Ksan mine in East Jaintia Hills to save the miners or to recover their remains seems to be a futile exercise with each passing day. Now it is already a month and still there is no sign at all that the miners trapped inside the rat hole mine can be rescued. It is impossible for the fifteen miners to survive that long inside the water-filled rat-hole mines. According to me it is just a matter of time that the mission will be abandoned because the pumping itself is futile as the water refuses to recede and how can it recede when the water from the Lytein river is still being allowed to flow or seep into the rat-holes. The only way, if possible, is to divert the Lytein river rather than pumping out the water from the rat-holes and the main Box cutting or shaft. If the water of the Lytein river is not diverted it is futile to pump out the water. If this is not being the Government might as well call off the rescue mission for good.
Yours etc.
Philip Marwein,
Via email
After a month, miners still buried
Editor
What can we say about the rescue efforts of the Meghalaya Government vis-à-vis the 15 miners trapped in the Ksan mine in Lumthari, East Jaintia Hills. Having read the news in your paper every day since December 14, we are led to believe that the entire rescue operation was clumsily put together by an administration that is clearly out of depth. Add to that a State Government that seems to stumble from issue to issue and exposes its lack of maturity and experience. It is not easy to run a state. The elected who are now part of the cabinet are people who have had no exposure to public life or public service. Yes service…the word is alien to them. The bureaucracy and police seem to lack direction since the top rung of the government is directionless. What has Meghalaya now come to? Like Toki Blah in his recent article commented, we do lack real leaders with the vision and foresight to lead the state and its people to a new and challenging future. And leadership is to serve; not to be served. Right now we have only rabble rousers as politicians. They only appear when a populist issue emerges.
For so many months we have not heard any political party analyse and deconstruct the Citizen Amendment Bill (CAB) 2016 for the benefit of the lay person. The only thing we heard is that the Bill is to be feared. So we live on this fear psychosis from month to month and year to year and also cast our votes based on these fears. Our people here are not known to use their thinking and to look at an issue dispassionately. Everything must be like the rush of amphetamine for us to respond.
Now the mine accident issue is replaced by other more urgent issues. Even mainstream media has moved on to some new issue. But we in Meghalaya cannot forget 15 souls inside that dark hole which could well be their grave. Is the Government even bothered? We heard the Home Minister and other cabinet ministers have been vacationing; some in India others abroad. No wonder every person who has the money wants to be in politics. It’s so easy to make wealth and live it up. Why would anyone care for the voters? After all, they were paid money for their votes, weren’t they? The voters did not vote for development, for better roads, better health care etc. Some people in the urban centres perhaps did not take money for voting but they too extract their pounds of flesh in different ways. So politicians know how to deal with us. As a Christian I hope that the cries for justice from their 15 souls reach heaven and that those responsible for such inhuman mining practices and those who bungled in the rescue mission receive their punishment from a God who watches our every action. I wonder how those in the Government could even celebrate Christmas. Oh, but hang on, did I just not say that most of our ministers went on a vacation despite this tragedy? That’s how caring this government is. I hope they are taught a lesson soon.
Yours etc.,
Andrew Sohliya,
Via email
Vital medicines missing at NEIGRIHMS outlets
Editor,
It is very self-assuring to go on record saying that the NEIGRIHMS management has done a yeoman’s service especially for the needy sections of populace by way of opening two medicine outlets where the patients can buy prescribed medicines at a very affordable, discounted rate. These two outlets are situated at the entrance floor of this Institute, and have been functioning since a few years ago. At the initial stages it was very satisfying to say that we could get any type of medicines for the asking from the outlets in question. Of late, however it has been very exasperating because whenever urgent medicines are needed to be purchased from these two retailers we are being told that such medicines are unavailable. Conversely, when we step out a few feet away but within the periphery of this Institute we find another medicine shop and where all types of medicines are available as per physicians’ prescription but the same are being sold sans any discount/concession whatsoever.
Prima facie, it makes a discerning person skeptical about how such a coincidence can happen if that is a coincidence. Hence, I appeal to the incumbent Director of this premier health institute to exercise his authoritative capacities, in addressing the non-availability of life-saving medicines at the two said outlets. This action would go a long way in ameliorating the plight of the destitute patients who are in dire need of life saving medicines at the discounted rate.
Yours etc
Jerome K. Diengdoh
Shillong -2