Editor,
On record, I would like to state that I have no personal grudge against my fellow humans who are working hard to earn a living and bring food to the table for their families. In fact, I have always been sympathetic towards the plight and predicament of the hawkers and vendors. For more than a decade, I have been using this platform urging the state government to safeguard the rights of hawkers as citizens of the state. I have been vocal about the need for the hawkers to be allowed to trade freely without being disturbed while at the same time stating that hawkers must not be encouraged to set up shop and spread their wares at any convenient space they find like footpaths or the middle of the road to cause inconvenience and “disruption to the lives” of others.
I do not even subscribe to creating a hawkers’ zone in any residential space as it is inconvenient to the residents just as I do not agree to converting any parking lot into a hawkers’ zone. This is no solution at all. Just as the residents have the right to their locality, the general public who own both public and private vehicles have a right to be provided with places and spaces to park their vehicles. A concrete and more definite space must be identified for the hawkers but why choose a space that would inconvenience others? Why not help identify more viable spaces?
Promoting public transport is all very well in order to ease traffic congestion. Perhaps it is much needed but as of today, the ground reality is that the number of vehicles plying on the road are increasing on a daily basis while parking spaces are scarce. Like it or hate it, the truth is as long as there are new vehicles hitting the roads daily, the more is the need for parking spaces just as much as there is need to expand and widen the roads. Hence to convert a parking lot into any other space for any other purpose is unwise. If parking lots are to be used for other purposes then where do we park? Just as the hawkers must not take away our footpaths and require to be given their own space to carry on their businesses, similarly, vehicle owners cannot park their vehicles just about anywhere disrupting the flow of traffic leave alone getting their cars clamped or towed. Hence the need for parking lots!
Most definitely a balanced approach is required but to make space for one by disrupting the other is no balance at all. Yes, we must find solutions and “promote fairness, inclusivity and sustainability in our city,” but certainly not at the cost of inconveniencing others.
In 2016, the High Court came up with an order to remove hawkers from footpaths and metalled road and a Committee was constituted to identify any alternate land to accommodate street vendors.
Open spaces available with the Meghalaya Transport Corporation, the ground floor of the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority and the parking centre opposite State Bank of India were identified. I am thankful that these places have not been converted into hawkers’ zones and hope they never will for reasons stated above. Giving something to one entity by depriving the other is no solution. Hence, while a hawkers’ zone is required so is the crying need for parking spaces.
Yours etc.,
Jenniefer Dkhar,
Via email
Need to counter disinformation
Editor,
Anjan was my classmate in school. He expected a good result in the School Final examination. But when the results came out he did not find his roll number on the list of students who passed the examination. He went missing. Later his body was found floating in a pond. Yes, he took his own life but this was not the climax. When our marksheets reached our school, it was found that Anjan not only passed the examination but also did fairly well in it. This was my first encounter with death. Also, it was my first experience about how deadly false information could be.
Whenever I hear something about false information, his memory still haunts me. Both misinformation and disinformation are false information. While misinformation is incorrect information, disinformation is deliberately intended to mislead. They are as dangerous as murderers. Whereas misinformation can cause involuntary manslaughter, disinformation acts like voluntary manslaughter.
We will now move from 15-year-old Anjan to 32-year-old Azam who lived in Hyderabad. He was an IT engineer and an employee of Accenture. He along with his three friends set out from Hyderabad to meet a relative and attend a function in Bidar, Karnataka in July 2018. On their way back, they stopped for tea near a school at Murki village. When they saw children returning home from school, they offered them chocolates. Local residents took them for child lifters as rumours about child kidnapping had been circulating for months on social media. They started gathering at the spot. Sensing the danger, they got into the car and drove away. But by then some villagers clicked their photos, the image of their car and circulated them on WhatsApp groups. When they reached the next village, they found the road had been blocked. The villagers dragged them out and started beating them mercilessly. Azam died on the spot while his friends sustained critical injuries.
While commenting on Azam’s murder, Rema Rajeswari, a Superintendent of Police said, “India is already vulnerable due to religious and caste fault lines. When you add WhatsApp to the mix, things can easily spiral out of hand.” Pratik Sinha, the editor of Alt news, a fact-checking outlet blames lack of media literacy and government inaction for the spread of fake news.
What they said had been echoed in the 2024 Global Risk report which was released last month. It had identified false information as the biggest concern for India. As per the report, the risk of disinformation in India is higher than many advanced as well as developing countries.
A dangerous piece of disinformation has been doing the rounds to damage the very fabric of Indian society. It is an apprehension that Muslims would outnumber Hindus in India as they have a much higher birth rate than Hindus. The Pew Research Centre, Washington DC published a study in June 2021 which was based on India’s census reports and the National Family Health Survey. The study was conducted on the changes in religious composition of population, fertility rate, migration and conversions. It found the religious composition of India’s population since Partition has remained largely stable, with both Hindus and Muslims showing not only a marked decline but also a convergence in fertility rates.
The study says that religion is not the prime factor affecting fertility rates. It appears from the study that the difference in fertility rate lies in region and not in religion. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh showed a total fertility rate (TFR) of 3.4 and 2.7 respectively in contrast to a TFR of 1.7 and 1.6 in Tamil Nadu and Kerala respectively. Whereas the fertility rate of Hindus has come down to 2.1 and that of Muslims has declined to 2.6.
Every citizen of India needs to highlight the truth whenever she or he is confronted with false information. This is absolutely necessary now to preserve our personal integrity as well as the integrity of our country.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata