Editor
The temperature for the 2019 Lok Sabha (national parliamentary) election in India is rising and is being felt both within the country and abroad alike as the whole world is waiting to see the final outcome with great interest. While both the ruling coalition and the opposition parties are making heaps of promises none seems to care for improving the poor healthcare infrastructure of the nation. People representing higher economic groups in India can afford to get advanced and quality medical treatments in upstart hospitals and nursing homes in India or abroad. However, the poor citizens of the nation who represent the bulk of India’s 1.2+ billion staggering population are heavily dependent on the existing government healthcare system. For a country of India’s size it will never be easy to provide adequate healthcare for every section of the society as yet. India needs to enhance her revenue generation through proper tax collection, debt recovery from wilful defaulters and corrupt industrialists, renters, feudal lords and politicians and bring more people under the tax brackets to increase the revenue base of the country. India needs to work towards building her financial assets to support a nationwide upgrade of health infrastructure. The task is challenging no doubt; but, not impossible! What is needed is a strong political will and a comprehensive economic and health policy to support India’s poor health infrastructure.
Yours etc.,
Saikat Kumar Basu
Lethbridge AB Canada
Playing with the Sixth Schedule
Editor,
The entire MDA cabinet seems to have taken off for Delhi, not so much to protest the Citizen Amendment Bill 2016 but to plead with the Union Government to allow coal mining to resume by circumventing the laws. In this the Sixth Schedule is being used as the golden key for unlocking the gates for an unregulated mining regime by using archaic methods. One is amazed at the brazenness with which this present government is acting. The trapped miners have yet to be rescued but the focus is already on opening up the mines again. What do we make of this Government? Is it not unscrupulous and as greedy as the miners whose case it is taking up with gusto? Perhaps it is the pressure of delivering on the pre-election promise of the BJP and its partner the NPP to remove the ban on coal mining which is building up now. Or they won’t stand a chance in the Lok Sabha elections and also the elections to the District Councils. That must be why this NPP-led Government is so desperate.
What has also come out very clearly after the Ksan mine tragedy episode is the divide in society between those who continue to support rat hole mining and others who oppose it and have opposed it for a long time. Environmentalists have been red-flagging this issue time and again but to no avail. In fact their lives are at stake for being whistle blowers. Today the Congress which is in the opposition is blaming the MDA Government but they have forgotten how coal was merrily being illegally mined and transported during their rule too. That was how a police constable was killed in Ri Bhoi district. The Congress cannot forget its own acts of omission and commission too quickly. They have to share the blame for allowing illegal mining equally with the MDA. So stop misleading the people of Meghalaya. We are not fools. We see, we feel and we will vote wisely this time. Alas the alternatives in Meghalaya are all tried and tested and none of the political parties regional or national are worth voting for.
Yours etc.,
SK Lyngdoh,
Shillong – 4