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Punish the guilty
Apropos the tragic fire at Erawadi in Tamil Nadu, which claimed
the lives of 25 mentally retarded persons, why did the District
Collectorate not take any steps to prevent such conditions in
this camp? Was the District Collectorate aware of the actual
state of affairs? Should not the district administration be
held responsible? In the earlier days, the concerned Chief Minister
would have accepted moral responsibility and resigned. These
days it is impossible to expect such high standards.
The government has asked the police to swing into action against
those who were running the centre where the accident took place.
But it is the responsibility of bureaucrats and ministers to
supervise the functioning of the district administration. They
have failed in their role of watchdogs.
Above all, what about the Department for the Handicapped, where
a senior IAS officer is posted as commissioner? What is the
responsibility of this department and what kind of monitoring
has this department done? 25 families have been left behind
who will suffer in silence for a long time to come. A few thousand
rupees extended to them by the government in a blaze of publicity
will not solve their problems.
The real tragedy is that nobody is held accountable, even as
accidents such as these occur at regular intervals in one form
or the other. The best that the government can do is to take
to task those officials who have failed in their duty. This
would alone ensure that such incidents do not occur once again.
-- N S Venkataraman, on e-mail
Probe US-64
The handling of the UTI crisis and the irresponsible utterances
of the finance minister have shaken the confidence of investors
not only in UTI but in all other government schemes as well.
The US-64 scam showcases Mr Sinha’s total apathy. Instead of
assuaging the fears of millions of small investors, he has blamed
them for not watching the market trend. Mr Sinha forgets that
these investors are not speculators and that they had the utmost
confidence in US-64. Which is why genuine investors did not
resort to a run on UTI, as was done by big corporate investors.
Had they done so, UTI would have virtually collapsed.
Interestingly, Mr Sinha agreed to bailout Madhavpura Mercantile
Co-operative Bank (MMCB), but has refused to extend the same
to UTI. Is that because MMCB lies in Home Minister L K Advani’s
constituency? The BJP, which boasts of transparency, should
appoint a judicial public enquiry commission with adequate powers
to impose punitive action.
-- S N Nadkarni, Mumbai
Coloured education
Saffronisation of education is bad but can we condone the leftisation
of the same? The loss of power enjoyed for decades by a well-known
leftist cabal — it used to control all the decision-making educational
bodies of the government and universities — has hurt it too
much. In the process it forgets that for years it churned out
books written in red ink.
Today when the world over people are finding their roots in
ancient knowledge, this group believes that bringing out the
good things of the past is communal. By the same yardstick they
should be criticising the education system followed in madrasas
which only teach what was envisaged 1500 years ago.
The cabal fails to explain that despite this ‘communalisation’
Hindus have not reacted to incidents like the killings of peaceful
Amarnath yatris. Obviously some others are as narrow-minded
as trishul-wielding VHP sadhus.
-- Brijbihari Gupta, on e-mail |
