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Freedom of Speech
Recently while surfing the social network site Facebook, I suddenly came across a scene where I saw one person shouting at the top of his voice, accusing our CM of using unparliamentary words and threatening him with dire consequences for the ongoing eviction drives. From a police source I came to know his name. His name is Samanur Ali, an encroacher of Paikan RF with past criminal records. While doing so, he was even shouting ‘Nara e Takbir,’ a slogan shouted by the Kashmiri separatists in Kashmir.
It happens only in India, as our constitution has given the right to Freedom of Speech to bona fide Indian citizens sans basic responsibility.
Dr Ashim Chowdhury,
Guwahati.
Unprecedented drought in Assam
Through the columns of your esteemed daily, I wish to bring to light the distressing drought-like situation prevailing across several regions of Assam.
Despite traditionally being blessed with rich greenery and abundant monsoon rains, Assam is now facing an unexpectedly harsh and prolonged dry spell. It is painful to witness vast stretches of farmland lying barren, the soil cracked and lifeless during this critical cultivation period. Driven by hope, many farmers had transplanted paddy seedlings anticipating rainfall, but now they stand helpless as their crops wilt and the soil hardens under the relentless sun. The rapidly receding water levels in rivers, ponds, and other natural sources have begun to affect not only agriculture but also drinking water access and livestock care.
Though the state government has acknowledged the crisis, the response on the ground must gather more urgency. Relief and mitigation efforts should include immediate disbursal of drought compensation, streamlined crop insurance settlements, and introduction of low-cost irrigation solutions such as treadle pumps and solar-powered pump sets under schemes like PM-KUSUM. Furthermore, promoting community-based water-sharing systems through Farmer Producer Organizations can provide corrective measures.
I urge the authorities to treat this situation with the required seriousness to extend timely support to the affected communities. At the same time, this crisis must prompt all of us to re-evaluate our relationship with the environment. The present drought is not just a climatic anomaly—it is a warning signal about the consequences of ecological imbalance and water mismanagement.
Dr. Kumar Chandan Jyoti,
PDUAM Dalgaon, Darrang
Eye hospitals in Nepal
I have had lots of information for a long time about the treatment of eyes in the eye hospitals of Nepal. I understand that many people always go to Nepal for the purpose. I could not suppress my keen desire, and on March 16, 2025, I, with my wife Taru Kalita and son Pranjal Kalita, started our journey to Nepal. We took a room in Guwahati Hotel near some eye hospitals. The workers of the hotel arranged our food and lodging in a good and disciplined manner. The proprietor, Pradip Sarmah, and his wife, Indira Sarmah, are amiable in nature. On March 17, my wife, Taru Kalita, was admitted to Mechi Eye & Aesthetic Hospital Pvt. Ltd. I was very surprised to see excellent behaviour from the hospital workers. I notice their appreciating services to every patient. The prominent doctors like Monica Karmacharya, Bibhusa Thopa, and Roshan Khannal treated the patients to the best of their abilities. My wife, Taru Kalita, is an example of such treatment. During two different periods, both of her eyes were to be treated in the hospital. Now we are highly satisfied that my wife is going to be fully recovered, as the said doctors discharged their duties wholeheartedly.
During this period we enjoyed some sights of the area. We were extremely happy to see the natural scenes of Kanyam, one of the beautiful places in Nepal. We were shocked to have an experience of the tremendous Hanging Bridge in the hills area. We also visited some religious places in different spots.
From such experience I can heartily say that these arrangements will uplift the India-Nepal relationship. Moreover, those connections will develop health tourism between India and Nepal. Thanks to the successful doctors and workers of Mechi Eye & Aesthetic Hospital, Nepal.
Purna Ram Kalita
Nalbari, Assam
Trolling business
In folklore, a "troll" is an ugly creature depicted as a giant or a dwarf. Taken literally, a troll is a person used to unsettle famous personalities through malicious propaganda. "Troll" has become synonymous with berating a person on social media. Trollers are increasingly becoming dangerous to the affected individual and the society as well. The fashion to pin down a person for his/her religious and caste leanings, party affiliations, and dress code has literally turned out to be the order of the day. Film stars, politicians, sportspersons, and businessmen are targeted the most. Trollers expect a repartee from the affected so that they can continue with their nonsensical comments.
While some of the affected persons shrug their shoulders and move on, a few take the fight back to the trolls. But is it time to adhere to certain special guidelines on social media to prevent trolls? Merely blocking or removing the troller from the list may not address the gamut of the issue. Social media platforms are trying their maximum to minimise the side effects of trolls and are also enhancing their privacy policies. Trolling cannot be allowed to become a profession where abject humiliation and wicked sarcasm gain legal currency to discredit a person.
Dr Ganapathi Bhat
(gbhat13@gmail.com)
Sustainable solutions for city’s waste
The July 18 editorial, 'Revolving door of Guwahati waste collection,' has rightly said that though Guwahati, the capital city of Assam and gateway to the Northeast of India, has emerged as the cleanest capital in the region, it ranks at 44 among 95 big cities of the country in the category of 3 lakh to 10 lakh population in the 2024-25 Swachh Survekshan. So, there is no room for complacency as the city, which stands at a critical juncture of progress and challenge, continues to grow and modernise, but sadly it is grappling with underperformance in cleanliness, hygiene, and sanitation. The challenge continues to grow bigger and bigger every passing day due to a lack of adequate citizen-led initiatives to keep the city clean. It has been seen that our well-educated city residents quite often ask in the morning if the by-lane and road have been swept, but they never ask themselves if they have stopped throwing garbage, plastic bottles, and everyday waste into its corners. It's time to shift our preconceived notions and attitudes. We have to widen our eyes, look around, and try to learn the hard-earned lessons from the eight-time declared cleanest city, Indore, where adoption of a multi-pronged approach of engineering a major behavioural change in garbage segregation at home and other sources into six different types of waste through multi-compartment garbage carrying vans has yielded fruitful results every year. The practice helps avoid mixing segregated waste. It also improves waste processing for revenue generation and produces compressed natural gas to power the fleet of buses. If we do not want our city to remain trapped in a revolving door of waste collection and dumping, then we have to train the garbage collectors to adhere to the colour codes during door-to-door collection without further delay. At the same time, residents have to make it a habit to carry cloth bags with them while visiting the daily markets to reduce the use of plastic carry bags and stop treating drains as dustbins. The authorities should undertake frequent and surprise raids of markets, shops, stockists, and suppliers across the city to strictly implement the ban on single-use plastic. Today, Guwahati stands at a crossroads facing the challenges of solid waste management. The issue highlights the need for sustainable urban planning and execution of various cleanliness projects and active citizen participation in addressing the city's garbage disposal and environmental challenges. The choices made by citizens today will determine the city's future. Therefore, we need to focus on behavioural change among residents and garbage collectors alike. We need a modern scientific waste processing facility, as the solution to the chronic waste problem of the city does not lie in expanding the waste collection capacity to prevent air and water pollution. The GMC authorities must take note that cleanliness can not be measured by the volume of waste collected unless segregated collection is incentivised in outsourced garbage collection. Unless the city residents look at the entire gamut of cleanliness as their shared responsibility, the aspiration for Guwahati to move up the national ranking list will not be easily fulfilled. The GMC authorities' transparency in the system will be a bonus to earn both confidence and cooperation of the taxpayers in making Guwahati a liveable and worth-visiting city.
Iqbal Saikia,
Guwahati
India must rise above differences
Although India has achieved both independence and republic status, it is one of the most corrupted and polluted nations in the world.
Unemployment is at an all-time high. The majority of the states in India today are fighting among themselves, and people, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, and religion, are being persecuted for no fault of theirs, while the ministers and the politicians are misusing the common man’s hard-earned money, which they contribute to the nation in the form of professional tax, income tax, etc., for their own personal gain. Unless and until we rise above our differences and petty squabbles, India will not become a prosperous nation.
Jubel D'Cruz,
(jubeldcruz@yahoo.com)