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Victory campaign
India's victorious campaign on their way to the Cricket World Cup continues. Team India has proven its superiority by defeating the best teams in the world in every format of cricket. Despite scores big and small, the winning goal propelled the Indian team forward. Now, as India moves ahead on their path to the finals, taking the remaining matches seriously, they will have to continue their winning streak until the finals. If this happens, this will surely be the golden era for Indian cricket, which will be unforgettable. However, the team's hard work also needs a spot of luck.
Nawaz Ashraf,
Guwahati
Handle leopards with care
Amid the tigers and the cheetahs, the beautiful Indian leopards are often forgotten. There has always been huge confusion about the number of leopards in the country. As of 2020, the leopard count is estimated at approximately 13,000 within forested habitats in tiger range landscapes. The number may be much higher if non-forest habitats and elevated areas are taken into consideration. Also, social media posts have needlessly exaggerated the "fierceness" of the beautiful creatures that ordinarily do not attack human beings unless provoked. Deforestation and destruction of wildlife habitats have forced the leopards to stray into towns and cities. A couple of days ago, the spotted animal that ventured into an industrial-residential area of Bengaluru was shot dead by forest officials who failed to capture it alive. Although these spotted animals are known to be flexible to changes, their habitats are needlessly being tampered with. India needs more sanctuaries and groundwater to prevent the animal from straying to human dwellings. Landscape fragmentation, electrocution, poisoning, and road accidents have proved lethal to the leopards. Stringent laws have to be put in place to preserve them. The provisions of the law need to be refurbished to ensure that the leopards stick to their natural homes—the rainforests. Poachers need to be dealt with severely to protect the animals from going the way of their famous brethren, the tigers.
Dr Ganapathi Bhat
Akola
Do people use dustbins properly?
No, some people can turn any place into a dustbin. It is not about the correct use of the dustbin but about the effective use of the dustbin. The first thing is the discipline of not throwing garbage anywhere. Nowadays, many people keep garbage in the side pockets of their bags. And the rest will throw it near the dustbin. Despite having dustbins, throwing garbage outside pollutes the entire area, and the foul smell emanating from it also causes many diseases in people. Therefore, the existence of the law will not change anything; what will bring about change is its proper implementation and enforcement. There is a need for proper education, which is lacking. We are not taught basic manners and etiquette in school or at home. And the root cause of this is a lack of compassion! We live in the world of the "kya farak padta hai" and “sab chalta hai” mindset. So, install as many dustbins as you want; cleaning should start from within!!
Chandasmita Kashyap,
Gauhati University, Guwahati
Erratic timing of Jal Board water supply in Guwahati
I would like to draw your kind attention to the erratic timing of the metered water supply by the Jal Board, which is creating huge problems for the citizens of the city. Since it runs on meters, the consumers cannot keep the line switched on as water would come anytime and overflow the underground reservoirs, and they will be charged astronomical bills for the overflowed water going down the drain! The consumers are forced to make hourly trips throughout the day to the connection pipes inside their homes to check whether the Jal Board water has come for the day or not, creating a huge inconvenience for housewives or elderly people and an impossibility for families where both spouses are working! This is quite unlike the old municipal water supply, which used to and is still coming early in the morning at a fixed time! This erratic timing of the metered Jal Board water supply has forced consumers to retain the old GMC water supply connections, whose water supply is not only insufficient but also dirty because of the aging 60-year-old water treatment plant at Panbazar! It has thus defeated the very purpose of citizens spending money to take Jal Board water supply connections. So I appeal to the Jal Board officials to fix the time of water supply to the early morning hours for the convenience of the consumers.
Dr. Krishanu Krori
Lachitnagar
Allegations by Mahua Moitra
As per sources, TMC MP Mahua Moitra used unparliamentary words, with allegations against the chairman of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, Vinod Kumar Sonkar, and other members. His comment came after the All-India Trinamool Congress MP, as well as various opposition members on the committee, walked out, alleging that the chairman and BJP members were asking her undignified, demeaning, and personal questions. A BJP member of the committee, Aparajita Sarangi, declined to elaborate on what transpired in the committee room, to which Moitra had been summoned by the committee to record her statement and hear her answer to the allegations made by her former partner, Jai Anant Dehadrai, and a businessman friend based in Dubai, Darshan Hiranandani. Moitra was her usual fiery self, though she claimed while leaving the Lok Sabha that she felt humiliated and was seen to have tears in her eyes. She was still fuming, it seemed, at the “unethical” questions she was asked. While the proceedings of the Ethics Committee are confidential, given the members’ parliamentary privileges, political circles continue to speculate on the line of questioning, of course. The nature of her ‘relationships’ and her travels to Dubai were some of the areas that the questions apparently focused on. Since Hiranandani’s affidavit makes no mention of the initial charge from Dehadrai—that she took a bribe of Rs 2.2 crore to ask questions about Gautam Adani, apparently in order to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi—the charge appears to have fallen through. The more serious charge against her is that she shared her parliamentary login credentials with Hiranandani in Dubai, who used them to key in the questions on her behalf, ostensibly because he was a competitor of Adani’s. In a letter she wrote to Sonkar on Wednesday, November 1, Moitra pointedly said that the Ethics Committee had framed no rules on who could and could not access the portal. She also claimed that since 2019, the Committee had formulated no code of conduct either. What’s more, she wrote, the committee had not even met in the last two years. She was clearly insinuating that the committee was going out of its way to gun for her. While there is evidently much sympathy and support for Moitra on social media, the explanation that a former vice president of J.P. Morgan and Chase posted in London needed secretarial assistance to key in her questions has been unconvincing.
Bhagwan Thadani
Mumbai
SC says RTI will become a ‘dead letter’
Looking into the present position of the Right to Information Act, the Supreme Court has commented that one day it will become a “dead letter,” and it is expected from the government that it will heed the warning of the Supreme Court on the dilution of RTI to protect people’s right to know the information.
There are a large number of vacancies in information commissions across the country, and these are to be filled, and the Supreme Court had warned the government. Directing the central and state governments to take necessary action, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Monday asked the department of personnel and training in the Union government to submit a report on the number of vacancies and the number of appeals and complaints in all the commissions. The RTI Act, which completed 18 years of existence earlier this month, has an uncertain future, with the spirit behind the Act weakening and the machinery to implement it breaking down steadily over the years. According to a report prepared by the independent non-government organisation Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), the system is almost dysfunctional in many parts of the country.
The weakening of the system has occurred in many ways. Requests under the Act for information, complaints, and appeals have been rising steadily every year and are now at an all-time high. Many information commissions are not working at all, as new commissioners were not appointed after the incumbents completed their terms.
It is also noted that the government’s attitude towards the law has become increasingly negative and restrictive at all levels, which will be clear from the following facts: in three states, information commissions are completely defunct, and in five states, they are headless. There are seven posts lying vacant in the Central Information Commission, where only four commissioners are working. The credentials and suitability of persons appointed for the positions of commissioners have also been questioned.
There are 3.21 lakh appeals pending with the Central and State Commissions, the backlog is rising, and there is an inordinate delay in the appointment of new information commissioners at all levels. As per the data submitted to the Supreme Court, the CIC is currently functioning without a chief and has seven vacancies with only four commissioners working, and these will retire by November 6. The aim of the RTI law was to provide information that was of public interest and relevant to citizens who sought it. It is basic to democracy. But the right is being undermined now. The government has amended the law to downgrade the status of commissioners. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, has made it impossible to seek personal data, even if it holds public importance. Many states do not have the facility to file applications online, and where it is possible, it has been made difficult. The RTI law had empowered citizens like few other laws had, but that power is now being eroded and taken away, which is not a good sign for a democratic country like India.
In its previous order, the Supreme Court also directed the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the State Information Commissions (SICs) to ensure proper implementation of the Act. The Supreme Court underscored that power and accountability are interconnected. This directive was issued by the apex court as part of its judgement in response to a plea seeking the effective enforcement of the provision of the Right to Information Act, which mandates that public authorities proactively disclose crucial information regarding their operations. Repeated interventions by various courts to enforce the provisions of the RTI Act highlight a concerning trend. The increasing number of lawsuits at both the CIC and SICs indicates that the public is being denied access to information following RTI guidelines.
It is well known that the RTI Act was enacted to bring transparency and accountability to the system, and any denial of information runs counter to the very essence of the RTI Act. The right approach will be to ensure that the public has access to essential information without the need for formal requests, promoting a more open and informed society. One of the objects of democracy is to bring about transparency in information, contain corruption, and bring about accountability. But achieving this object does not mean that other equally important public interests, including the efficient functioning of governments and public authorities, the optimum use of limited fiscal resources, the preservation of the confidentiality of sensitive information, etc., are to be ignored or sacrificed.
The object of the RTI Act is to harmonize the conflicting public interests, that is, ensuring transparency to bring in accountability and contain corruption on the one hand, and at the same time ensure that the revelation of information in actual practice does not harm or adversely affect other public interests, which include efficient functioning of the governments, optimum use of limited fiscal resources, and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information on the other hand. Now it is expected that the government should follow the instructions of the Supreme Court contained in the present order as well.
Yash pal ralhan
Jalandhar