Editor,
Through your esteemed daily I would like to thank the SP Traffic for imposing new traffic rules in Police Bazar and G.S. Road. The residents and shop owners of the area are grateful as this order will greatly benefit the shoppers and residents of the area. I congratulate the Police Department and hope this order will continue for the welfare of all.
Yours etc.,
S.L. Singhania
Shillong -1
RIP Lukha
Editor,
With seven cement plants mushrooming on two plateaus that send their waste to the Lukha and with its symptoms in 2007 never investigated, Lukha it is regretful to say has now passed away. The 2019 monsoons did help the River to some extent and temporarily pleased the people of Lumshnong and Brishyrnot etc., to arrange a fishing competition and to try to cleanse the River. But nature has its own handicaps. It is known that gypsum is CaSo4 and the presence of sulphuric acid cannot be ruled out. The findings of St. Edmund’s college team of Zoology department in 2007, when the River first turned blue (which made me joyous as I thought the blue was a result of Copper Sulphate), is tragic. The pH count was 3.5 so there is no chance whatsoever for aquatic life to survive. This compounded with P.PM (Part per Million) at a minimal of 4 pH. Mahseer, the fish of my dreams could live only when the PPM is 7 at the minimum. Let me also tell Physicists not to come to the conclusion about copper though Meghalaya would be extra rich especially with the US planning e-vehicles. Why Meghalaya did not respond to the findings is difficult to comprehend. But whatever the case may be and irrespective of the findings a poor river cannot live in the ICU forever. The Wahumkhrah is gone; the Umshyrpi is about to go. What next?
All this reminds me of a song : There is a river called the river of no return / Sometimes it’s peaceful and sometimes wild and free. Let me add “Lukha is no more save in our history/ Swept on forever to be lost to the eternal sea (Bay of Bengal).
Yours etc.,
W Passah,
Via email
Assassination of Soleimani & unintentional disasters
Editor,
Major General Qassem Soleimani, aged 62, an Iranian military officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed when US drone fired missiles into a convoy while he along with Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis, militia commander of Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) was leaving the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on January 3. Soleimani was the commander of the al-Quds Force which is an elite unit of the IRGC responsible for extraterritorial and military intelligence operations directly reporting to the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While he was hailed as a hero, brave and a charismatic strategist and loved by his troops in Iran, the US designated al-Quds Force he led as a foreign terrorist organisation was responsible for killing Americans and their allies in several attacks on US bases in Iraq in recent months.
The al-Quds Force under his able commandership became the architect of Tehran’s proxy conflicts in the Middle East. It had established bases in Middle East even supporting the non-state actors. Trump administration said his killing is a ‘decisive defensive’ action to protect US personnel stationed abroad. A day after the airstrike, US President Donald Trump said that action had been taken ‘to stop war’, ‘not to start war’ while defending the killing. However, Iranians believe that the killing of Soleimani is ‘tantamount to opening a war front’ and there shall be military actions as revenge.
In the aftermath of Soleimani’s killing, US-Iran tension got heightened including the military escalation. Iran fired ballistic missiles targeting at least two US army bases in Iraq. Iran claimed to have killed many US and coalition forces, which the US has denied. In the name of revenge, Iranian defence system shot down the Ukrainian passenger jetliner killing all 176 people on board on January 8 a few minutes after taking off Tehran which was bound for Kiev. Victims were mostly Iranian, Canadian and Ukrainian. Iranian military commanders feared the passenger jetliner to be an incoming American cruise missile and shot it down as a hostile target. Iran admitted the tragedy saying it was an ‘unforgivable mistake,’ of ‘and termed the accident as a ‘human error’. Commentators argue that Iran could have taken the precaution of halting civilian air traffic as it had already begun missile strikes against US and coalition forces in Iraq. But Iran didn’t take the required precautions and hence its missile otherwise meant for hostile target killed the innocent people on board. It testifies to the failure of the defence system and its management which Iranian military commanders could have prevented instead of firing missiles in haste. Iran could not prevent the stampede that occurred on 7 January amid a funeral procession for Soleimani in the Iranian city of Kerman killing over 50 and wounding several hundred.
This accidental shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner is not the first case. There are several cases of so-called ‘unintentional’ killing of people on board in the history of commercial aviation at different points in time. Increasing militarized zones in the world and military escalations amongst countries even in peace times are putting human lives in jeopardy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with tremendous grief and loss said ‘plane victims would be alive if not for US-Iran tensions’. He asked for clear answers about what happened to the aircraft and even insisted to make sure that such tragedy never happens again. World leaders need to take a close look at the matter of shooting down of passenger jetliner and devise a scientifically proven solution of avoiding such unintentional accidents.
Yours etc.
Gendra Galla Narzinary,
Barpeta, Assam