To Sunday Shillong,
This is in reference to the article ‘It’s a one-way road’ published in the January 6 edition. I feel the article itself is too lopsided, more than the ‘lopsided’ story that it meant to narrate. I also feel that the reporter who wrote the article has never had the bad luck to travel by taxi. I think that he/she has comfortably taken a tour of the city in a vehicle tagged with the ‘Press’ sticker. I also think he/she does not have to drop two children to respective schools, which are only a few hundred metres apart but the ordeal of reaching one point from another is humongous, and probably he/she travels in the office car to office.
Every day, getting a taxi is like a dream come true. I am the father of two and earn Rs 30,000 a month. My wife is a private tutor and teaches 10 students between classes I and VI. She earns Rs 5,000 a month (surprising because most of her students are from economically weak families and some of them cannot even pay). I am not mentioning this because I want to gain sympathy or boast about surviving against odds but I want to make my point clear that there are many people in this world who are struggling to meet ends. It is not only the taxi drivers but there are small-time traders and petty vendors who earn probably less than Rs 300 a day and carry the burden of a large family.
The reporter should have tried to find out more about the passengers’ grievances than just focusing on the “plight” of taxi drivers, who think they are the kings and can harass passengers at any time of the day. At 8am, when you have to drop your children to school and then come back, there are no share taxis. At 10am too, on the way to office, one would never get a share taxi from Oxford Point or Laban Last Stop or anywhere in Laban. Even while coming back in the evening, they want more money because there is traffic congestion. Is it a poor passenger’s fault that there is traffic congestion? Why cannot the taxi drivers and their union leaders go to the ministers and administrative officials who are incompetent to fulfil their demands? If they want their rights, why cannot they go on a persistent strike and blockades and various forms of protests as it is always done? We, the normal people, would be suffering again, but who cares for the middle class? The taxi drivers cannot play the ‘poor’ card and try to grab attention. If they are educated then they should behave like one and be honest. If they are united, then they should fight for the rights together. If they are the victims, as they claim and as highlighted in the “one-way” article, then they should stand up against the real culprits who are victimising them and not the struggling middle and lower middle classes.
Thanking you,
DP Kharmawphlang
To Sunday Shillong,
Refusal by cab drivers to drop customers at designated places and charging inappropriately have become a serious issue in most of the towns and cities across India. Strict laws have been enforced but with little impact and customers continue to suffer across the nation. However, I would also like to highlight that not all cab drivers are devoid of morality and ethics, and often, many of them have extended exemplary services to many customers in need of help and immediate support. This is a unique South Asian phenomenon that ordinary citizens encounter with no real remedies for decades. The call of the time is the change in attitude and also curbing the negative roles of various cities and town-based taxi unions that which wrongly influence and encourage cab drivers to behave badly with customers to assert their influence on the streets. The political parties are also to blame for their alleged support to these union leadership as well as failure of administration to take proper action against faulty individuals. To make positive changes to take place, the administration also needs to provide security to cab drivers as well as protect them from exploitation by police and rude treatment by some aggressive and unjustified customers. I sincerely believe that both sides need to accommodate positive changes to receive improved cab service.
To Sunday Shillong,
The media has an important role in generating public opinion and awareness and keeping the public informed about both local and international news, including about environment. Disturbing images of human-animal conflicts, dead wildlife or trophy hunters with their prized trophy animals or brutalised body of wildlife have been surfacing in several reputable global media without any respect to public sensitivity. This only promotes poaching and illegal hunting among those who are always bent upon exterminating defenceless wildlife across the planet. My sincere appreciation to the editorial team and staff members of Sunday Shillong for their earnest sincerity in covering environmental news with local and global perspectives! This is an important but highly neglected service for making citizens aware of issues related to our ecosystem.
Thanking you
Saikat Kumar Basu