Editor,
Recently Meghalaya Governor, Tathagata Roy, has undertaken a tour of Garo Hills beginning from North Garo Hills, to gather first- hand knowledge about the development or lack of development of the western sector of Meghalaya. During his visit to the districts of Garo Hills, he held meetings with the Deputy Commissioners and the district heads of different departments to know about the progress of various developmental schemes sanctioned by the central government. Many officers were on their toes and in fact many were wary about such review meetings with the Governor as they were not used to such meetings before. The meetings presumably went off well and the Governor got valuable information about the real state of affairs of the Garo Hills.
Kudos to the present Governor for visiting the districts and we hope that his tour must have benefited him and will help to pull up the lackadaisical officers serving in that part of the state. We appeal to the Governor to tour other districts of the state as well and to follow up the different schemes and help speed up developmental activities in the remaining districts of the state. This will not only help him to gain wider knowledge about the state and the large number of pending projects but will also help the development of the state as a whole because touring and reviewing by the head of state will make a lot of difference.
Yours etc.,
Philip Marwein,
Via-Email
Kashmiri’s are Indians too!
Editor,
All those who tried to divide India by killing our soldiers at Pulwama in Kashmir must be punished in accordance with the law of the land. Also, all those who are trying to divide our country by giving hate speeches ~ painting all the Kashmiri Muslims as terrorists and by assaulting innocent Kashmiri students in various parts of our country, must be punished accordingly. In this hour of darkness, we need to be united and show the world that we are united. We need to show solidarity with the law abiding Kashmiri students, shopkeepers who have been residing in various places of India to tell the world that Kashmir is an integral part of India and Kashmiris are our brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, some anti-national elements have been creating a wrong impression by attacking Kashmiri students and shopkeepers in some parts of our country. They have been trying, as it were, to justify the cause of the rabid organisation who is behind the dastardly killing of our jawans.
The forty CRPF personnel who were killed in the Pulwama attack represent the unity in diversity of our great country. We have Kashmiri Muslim (N Ahmed), Bengali Hindu (S Biswas and B Santra), Punjabi Sikh (S Singh, MS Attri, J Singh and K Singh) and tribal Jharkhandi (V Soreng). Also we have our brothers from MP (AK Kaochi) to Rajasthan (J Ram, R Lamba, NL Gurjar, H Meena and B Singh) to Assam (M Basumatari) to Tamil Nadu (Subramanian G. and Sivachandran C.) to Himachal (T Raj) to Kerala (V Kumar V. V.) to Uttarakhand (M Lal and V Singh) to Karnataka (Guru H.) to Odisha (MK Behra and PK Sahoo) to Maharashtra (S Rajput and R Shivaji) to Bihar (S Sinha and RK Thakur) to UP (AK Yadav, PK Tripathi, A Kumar, VK Mourya, R Vakeel, P Kumar, R Yadav, KK Rawat, P Singh, S. Babu, AK Azad and M Kumar) among them. Indeed, Pulwama martyrs teach us what India is all about.
Moreover, we cannot tag all German Christians as terrorists for the Holocaust against Jews. Similarly we cannot tag all Indian Hindus as terrorists for the 1984 riots against Sikhs and 2002 riots against Muslims. In the same manner we cannot tag all the Kashmiri Muslims as terrorists for the terror strike in Kashmir.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Via email
Don’t punish all Kashmiris
Editor,
After the Pulwama tragedy there has been a tendency to demonise all Kashmiris and to label them as terrorists and anti-nationals. But it seems that is the intent of a few people in this country who claim to be fired by a nationalist fervour. Such people believe only they have a claim to patriotism. This is not true at all. Large sections of Kashmiri’s do not subscribe to the jihadist agenda and just want to move on with their lives. It is also true that militarisation of the valley has radicalised large sections of youth who are indoctrinated with the idiom of hatred and fear fed by terror mongers from across our western borders. Vigilance along the border needs to be enhanced and the country’s anti-terror module must be re-imagined in the light of present realities. Rather than alienate all Kashmiris it is important to isolate the enemy and not give them any quarter. That’s how other countries have tackled terrorism within their soil. Knee-jerk reactions show our own immaturity. Patriotism is a noble virtue that is inculcated in the home at a tender age. Are we even doing it?
RN Singh,
Via email