Borhat Post
Office
It is a matter of
serious concern for the people of Borhat that the land allotted to the Borhat
Post Office by the Borhat Tea Estate in pre-independence period is reportedly occupied
by some circles with vested interest. The Borhat Post Office is one of the
oldest post offices in the entire North-East, serving the people of the region
besides dozens of tea estates of the region for over a century now. The Post
Master General of the NE Region should take note of the development and take
necessary action to free its two bighas of land from the unscrupulous land
grabbers. It is reprehensible that the Postal Department has neglected its
responsibility in preserving its nearly 100-year-old office premises, serving
the people of remote areas. This Post Office building should be re-built as a
heritage building. When there is a permanent plot of spacious land, why should
the department squander away people's money in rented quarters?
During my childhood days, I often visited this post office overlooking the Borhat Railway Station with elders from my native Chalkalia village. It was a busy office then. All the nearby tea estates, hospitals, Forest Office, Veterinary Office, Borhat High School (now upgraded to HS school), the offices of the Jaypore coal mines in Dillighat, and even people from nearby border villages of Nagaland sent their peons to receive and send letters and other business dispatches to distant places in the morning. The post office building built by the Borhat Tea Estate authority was a good one, though small. But due to negligence of the department, it got dilapidated and finally abandoned. Through your esteemed daily, I urge the Postal authority to reclaim the plot as early as possible and build a model Post Office there.
Manoj Kumar Borthakur,
AT Road, Sivasagar.
Brahmaputra threat
Through your esteemed daily, I would like to bring this to notice that the rising level of the Brahmaputra is a matter a bit too serious to be overlooked by the Assam Government. We all know that the river Brahmaputra has brought many floods and destruction from time to time. We all know that tea is the identity of Assam, as Assam is the only supplier of Assam Tea to the world. I would also like to bring to notice that nearly 15 tea gardens are situated near or around the river Brahmaputra, which was earlier used as a medium for easy transport of their tea produce. But the river is gulping tea land in a huge mass. The land hectares of the tea gardens around it are reducing on a large scale. A tea garden lost almost 33% of its plantation land to the Brahmaputra. Also, flooding and water logging in the garden sections is a constant threat to the garden managements and the workers living there as well. A few days ago our Chief Minister had a look at the condition. We hope to see speedy action in this matter. The tea gardens of Assam are looking forward to a miracle to happen.
Neha Singh,
Dibrugarh.
Bridge tragedy
A nearly 100-year-old suspension bridge over the Machchhu River in Gujarat's Morbi collapsed on Sunday (October 30). As per latest update, the total death toll has risen to 140; besides search operation is still going on. Eye witnesses said there were several women and children were on the British-era bridge when the cable supporting it collapsed, leading to few hundreds of people falling into the river water. A 170-plus people were stated to have been rescued and undergoing treatment at the hospital while a large number of them were reportedly in a critical condition. The occasion was Chhath Puja and scores of people gathered on the riverside to perform watery oblation and during that particular point, many people got into the cable bridge.
The tragedy is conceivably an act of negligence. The local administration should have anticipated a huge gathering on the occasion and made thorough arrangements for crowd management with reference to devotees' safety to avoid such an untoward incident. It is also said that the cable bridge had been renovated taking a period of six months at a cost of Rs 6 crore recently. It mirrors a failure of the authority concerned to keep a tab on negligence and substandard work on the part of the private firm assigned with the work contract as quality control has been shockingly compromised. What was a sacred occasion for the umpteen devotes and their near and dear ones turned into a terrible nightmare in a moment. The state apparatus cannot evade its responsibility and a thorough probe should be held, accountability fixed for an exemplary punishment to the guilty for this disaster!
Pannalal Dey
Guwahati
Negligence leads to tragedy
The gut-wrenching Morbi suspension bridge collapse, which consumed several precious human lives, could have been averted but for the utter negligence of the local administration. Prima-facie, the Oreva Trust run by the Ajantha Group must take the blame for reopening the bridge for the public without obtaining the clearance certificate from the local municipality. Also, reportedly the structural stability and load-bearing capacity of the bridge were not taken into consideration prior to its use. The public also should take partial responsibility for the catastrophe, as a group of around 25 persons, who were on the bridge, tried to swing and sway it without realizing the imperilment. When an under-construction flyover collapsed in North Kolkata six years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it "an act of fraud." Well, the same applies to the Morbi town bridge tragedy also. Dishearteningly, in the last ten years many bridge collapses had taken place in India, which shook the stability of the nation. As is customary, cash compensation to the families of the victims has been announced by the Central and State governments. But, is not the task of affixing monetary value to human life an awkward and intransigent one?
Ranganathan Sivakumar
Chennai
Unscientific test
Is this not an irony that the procedure banned nearly nine years ago is still followed in the investigation of a heinous crime like rape and on that basis a high court has also given a decision to acquit the accused? Now the Supreme Court has declared the accused guilty in the same case and asked for a complete ban on the unscientific investigation process followed to confirm rape as well as removing it from the medical curriculum. Certainly, this is an example of multi-layered negligence in the system prevailing from administration to judiciary. The judgement also gauged the level of awareness and sensitivity on such issues within the society. In the two-finger test or the virginity test, it is seen by putting two fingers in the private parts of the woman whether she is addicted to sex. But this method is not only unscientific and unnecessary but also violates the privacy and dignity of the woman. In 2013, the Supreme Court had said in a judgment that the two-finger test on rape survivor is a violation of women's rights. After this, the criminal laws were amended in 2013, in which while increasing the scope of rape, other methods of penetration were also taken into account. In 2014, the Union Health Ministry had also issued a detailed guideline saying that the two-finger test should not be done as it does not make sense in cases of sexual violence. Despite all this, it is not only continuing in the country but it is also being used indiscriminately in the legal process. Naturally, expressing deep displeasure over this, the Supreme Court spoke of action against the people concerned. It should be expected that after this the test will be closed. It is undeniable that behind the continuation of this trend lies the fact that in a country like India, even after the massive technological advancement, the knowledge-sharing process from the state capital to the remote corner of the state is still an uphill task. Thus, few of them still remain unaware of the Supreme Court decisions. Secondly it may not be possible for the doctors who came out of the medical colleges to leave immediately the remedy being adopted for years at the behest of the people. Again the patriarchal thinking is so deeply rooted in our society that its influence will go away only with the time.
Abhijit Roy,
Jamshedpur – 831017.