Letters to the Editor: Stoic silence

Darul Uloom Deoband’s Arshad Madani very recently said that if the Taliban are terrorists, then Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru too are terrorists.
Letters to the Editor: Stoic silence

Stoic silence

Darul Uloom Deoband's Arshad Madani very recently said that if the Taliban are terrorists, then Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru too are terrorists. To defend the Taliban, people like Madani can go to any extent. Now, if the same statement was said by any other person, one can imagine the outrage and protest by Congress nationwide. As expected, there was no noise from Congress over the statement of Madani. They have acted as if nothing was said by the controversial figure. This is because Congress doesn't want to disturb their vote bank. With Uttar Pradesh elections hanging by a few months they cannot afford to displease their loyal vote bank even if people like Madani insults Gandhi and Nehru.

This same Madani in a press conference held in New Delhi's Constitution Club some four years back threatened to burn Assam if any Muslim person's name is deleted from the final+ NRC. The same press conference was attended by some of the noted so-called think tanks of Assam like Dr Hiren Gohain, Haider Hussain, Manjit Mahanta, Abdul Mannan and Apurba Kumar Barua. The so-called think tanks did not utter any word against the provocative speech of Arshad Madani. They just choose to remain silent.

Julie Bhuyan,

Gaurisagar.

Internet

The internet has become the sine qua non in our lives. The Internet has joined "Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan" and is now the fourth basic necessity of our life. With the internet, knowledge is up for anyone's grab. Recently I came across an advertisement encouraging small kids to take upcoding. There is no harm in learning something but dealing with such complex things at such a tender age is not healthy. Every kit comes with a different set of talents, let them bloom naturally.

Noopur Baruah,

Tezpur

Tata to acquire Air India

It is good to know that Tata placed a bid to acquire Air India, along with SpiceJet Chief, Ajay Singh. This comes after the government decides to privatize and sell a 100% stake in the loss-making national carrier. If Tata wins the bid it would improve the services, facilities and can pay its employees better. It would also mark the return of Air India to India's largest conglomerate after 67 years, which founded it as Tata Airlines, in 1932.

Aaditya Dutta,

Dhubri.

Renaming West Bengal

Only old-timers know that since the western part of pre-independence undivided Bengal came to India, the state was named West Bengal, and East Bengal turned into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The Central Government should accept the demand of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the immediate passing of a long-pending resolution of the State Assembly to rename the state as BANGLA, thus removing ever-confusing Prefix West. The proposed name will be one-worded. It will not have abbreviated forms like UP, MP, HP, AP etc.

The Constitution should be amended, whereby names of all institutions, including High Courts named after states or cities, may get auto-changed with a change in names of state or city. The names of Bombay High Court and Madras High Court remain the same despite renaming of respective cities as Mumbai and Chennai decades back.

There has been a gradual change in names or spellings of cities, with the process still incomplete despite more than seven decades of independence. Distorted spellings of 'Jullender' and 'Simla' by British rulers in India as 'Jalandhar' and 'Shimla' got rectified. But spellings of cities like Delhi and Bareilly as per actual pronunciation are still to be modified. 'Delhi' is a distorted version of 'Dehli', meaning Entrance in English. Many other countries like Bangladesh and China have already respelled the names of their capitals as per actual pronunciation. There are too many Rampurs and Bilaspur in India that require renaming to avoid confusion. New names can be after heroic characters of Ramayan and Mahabharat. The Union Government should also adopt a single name Bharat for the country, abolishing the British-given name like India, in tune with a unanimous resolution once passed by the UP State Assembly.

Madhu Agrawal,

Delhi-110006

Equal pay for work of equal value

Many of us may not be aware that women earn approx 77 cents for every dollar men earn for work of equal value – with an even wider wage gap for women with children and at this rate, it will take the next 257 years to close the global gender pay gap. It has been found that women are concentrated in lower-paid, lower-skill work with greater job insecurity and are under-represented in decision-making roles. The most important thing is women are also in full-time unpaid jobs like managing homes as women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. When men and women are working then why is there a gap when it comes to salary or pays?

We have seen how our world is changing. It is changing fast, through innovation, increasing mobility and informality. But it needs to change faster to empower women, whose work has already driven many of the global gains in recent decades. When we look at the global data then we shall find that women still predominantly occupy jobs that pay less and provide no benefits. They earn less than men, even as they shoulder the enormous—and economically essential—the burden of unpaid care and domestic work.

The global community has prepared a roadmap for development or what we can say as SDGs or Sustainable Development Goals or Agenda 2030. SDGs have committed to the economic empowerment of all including women. Every woman should enjoy her right to decent work and also get equal pay or maybe even more than men if needed. To ensure that no one is left behind, SDGs address the need to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Furthermore, the SDGs promote decent work and economic growth by seeking full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. Mainstreaming of a gender perspective is crucial in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Like many other days, the International Equal Pay Day, celebrated on 18th September, represents the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value. It further builds on the United Nations commitment to human rights and against all forms of discrimination, including discrimination against women and girls.

As discussed earlier, across all regions, women are paid less than men, with the gender pay gap estimated at 23 per cent globally. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls continue to be held back owing to the persistence of historical and structural unequal power relations between women and men, poverty and inequalities and disadvantages in access to resources and opportunities that limit women's and girls' capabilities. Progress on narrowing that gap has been slow. While equal pay for men and women has been widely endorsed, applying it in practice has been difficult.

Achieving equal pay is an important milestone for human rights and gender equality. It takes the effort of the entire world community and more work remains to be done. The United Nations, including UN Women and the International Labour Organization (ILO), invites Members states and civil society, women's and community-based organizations and feminist groups, as well as businesses and workers' and employers' organizations, to promote equal pay for work of equal value and the economic empowerment of women and girls.

It is not impossible, so if planned and executed then things can be made realistic though it might take time. The most important step would be having policies of different governments where they ensure equal pay. We can enforce laws and regulations upholding the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. Let us also ensure that businesses do their part to close the gender pay gap. Let us bring amendments to laws if needed which do not encourage work for women as women can work just like men in different sectors. We have to also focus on other areas like gender mainstreaming to generate awareness so that in the end equal pay can be made possible for all.

Ranjan K Baruah

Ganeshguri, Guwahati,

Of wearing outfit

The selection of wearing an outfit is promptly symmetric to the level of comfort it provides to the wearer. However, in the past few days, there has been a debate on what costume one must wear to a certain place or any occasion.

In a recent case spread all over social media, a female student in Tezpur was prohibited to sit for her entrance examination because she wore shorts to the examination centre. Later, she was asked to fasten a curtain and only then she was permitted to appear for the entrance. The authorities asserted that not wearing shorts to the examination centre is a matter of 'common sense.

This is just an instance of enormous limitations the female countre of the society confronts in terms of selecting a suitable costume. An outfit tends to define how we withstand and speculate about any specific occasion or situation and in an equivalent manner, it comes along with a choice and selection of wearing it which, I presume should be the consent of the individual wearing it.

At the same time, it is understandable enough to put up with things a bit slow and foresee an evolution but in an unhurried manner only on the condition that transformation is acknowledged, irrespective of the duration it carries.

Anjali Chandak,

Cotton University.

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