Editor,
The first agitation (one day hartal/ bandh) against the Meghalaya Reservation Policy was held sometime in August 1973 by HSPDP, PDIC, Congress and scores of concerned citizens for deformities in the Policy like fixing no time frame for its implementation and the lack of clarity on many issues and the absence of many other details in the policy which they fear might affect the future generations of the state. This has proved true. The Reservation Policy, which was hardly a policy, but just an administrative order which came out, has earmarked 40 percent reservation in government employment and educational institutions for the Khasi-Jaintia category, 40 percent for Garo category, 15 percent for the General category and 5 per cent for other Scheduled Tribes of Meghalaya. Yes, over the last 50 years many Khasi-Jaintia people, especially the youth, were complaining that the policy was advantageous for the Garos in both employment and educational spheres. Strangely the NGOs, especially the KSU which deals mostly on the students and youth welfare, did not make any noise on this most important issue till date. Now the resentment is still looming large. When the order of the Meghalaya High Court was out in April last year ordering the Meghalaya government to stay appointments in various jobs until a roster system was finalised, the government job seekers were aghast.
Later a government order followed the High Court order which complicated matters and caused more damage to the already fragile relations between the tribes. The complicated Policy already had a debilitating effect on the Khasi-Jaintia category. Yes, the government did not follow the roster system while implementing the reservation policy because it did not have one which has not diluted the good intention of the policy. Now in strictly following the roster system in the Reservation Policy it cannot be implemented with retrospective effect. That is not the spirit of the High Court order on the roster system. It is meant to be implemented prospectively.
The Khasi-Jaintia leaders during the APHLC government and during the MDA 0.1 and 0.2 are responsible for allowing these Himalayan blunders to trample the dreams of their own present and future generations. Why can the present set of leaders, especially those recently elected, change/modify this outdated policy which has caused so much damage to the youth of the present generation? It is high time to look for merit and let the youth compete so that the best will come out successful. Or shall we rest content with mediocrity? What are our policy makers and rulers doing ? Where has their grey matter gone?
Yours etc., .
Philip Marwein,
Sr. Journalist,
Shillong.
Is humanity under threat?
Editor,
How would a person feel if he/she participates in a religious procession and gets mercilessly pelted with stones by some miscreants? This happened during the auspicious day of Ram Navami on March 30. There were reports of stone-pelting and arson attacks in many states across the country. One person each was killed in West Bengal and Maharashtra in that barbaric violence, while one minor boy was shot dead by the mobsters in Bihar. Similar reports of stone pelting and arson occurred during Ram Navami “shobha yatra” in Gujarat, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. What is shocking is that stones were pelted even by the women and children from the terraces of their buildings.
What is strange is that TMC supremo and the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, quickly rubbed salt into the wounds of the aggrieved people. She said that processions should avoid passing through the locality dominated by a minority community. This statement further aggravated the situation. It seems that the Bengal Chief Minister believes that we can protect the democratic ethos of the country by appeasing specific communities only. It may be mentioned that these kinds of vicious attacks on holy processions or gatherings, be it Hindu or Christian, or Muslim, by miscreants are a regular phenomena. One wonders what makes certain people see the followers of other faiths as their arch-enemies. Why are people becoming increasingly deluded into believing God loves those who hate other faiths? Are there errors in our holy scriptures, or are those who (mis)interpret the sacred teachings blameworthy? The more religious we are, the more fanatical we become. Does God not love those who love his creation and all human beings, irrespective of their beliefs, gender, social status, and nationalities? I believe we need to learn lessons of humanity first rather than about religions.
Yours etc.,
Salil Gewali,
Shillong
Whither India’s smart city project
Editor,
India is lagging behind in the development of smart cities as per the new report published and we are compelled to question whether the Indian smart cities are really smart? It is to be noted here that we have just successfully repackaged the citizens’ essential needs into a new project called ‘smart cities ‘
An index of smart cities globally was published by the Smart City observatory which is part of Swiss business school Institute for Management Development. It ranks 141 cities based on how they use technology to address the challenges their citizens face, to be able to achieve a higher quality of life. Singapore is Asia’s smartest city and the seventh smartest city in the world and Zurich is the world’s smartest city index in 2023. This is the third time Singapore has been seventh on the list. In 2020 and 2021, too, the city was in the same spot, while in 2022, the index was not released. The top ten smartest cities are a mix of European, Australian and Asian destinations. These are: Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Copenhagen, Lausanne, London, Singapore, Finland, Geneva, Stockholm.
According to the report the Smart City Index takes into account inputs from the cities’ residents on how technology has improved their lives. It combines both survey responses as well as hard data, to understand (and represent) the extent to which technology has helped achieve a higher quality of life for a city’s residents. Asian and European cities dominate the top 20 list of the 141 cities that have been surveyed, and of these 20, six have been constantly working towards improving their performance. These ‘super champions’, as the report calls them, are Zurich, Oslo, Singapore, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong.
The data has been collected from over 20,000 citizens, who were surveyed on about 15 aspects of living in these cities. Some of the questions included those on affordable housing, road congestion, green spaces, fulfilling employment needs structures and technologies built to address their concerns and how comfortable the respondents were with technologies such as face recognition and sharing personal data to improve traffic. It is worth mentioning that only four cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad are included in the ranking and their ranking is below 100 so in future the government should take necessary steps so that the world ranking may be improved and also more cities are included in this world ranking.
Now we also see the position of various smart cities in India and what the progress is in this regard. So let the efforts be continued to improve the ranking.
Yours etc.,
Yash Pal Ralhan,
Via email