Letters to The Editor: Majuli’s growing ecological crisis demands immediate attention

Majuli’s growing ecological crisis demands immediate attention

Majuli, known as the world’s largest inhabited river island and one of the main centres of Assam’s rich cultural heritage, is facing environmental challenges that go beyond the usual problems of erosion and flooding. The island’s environmental stability is being gradually affected by climate change.

Changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, declining biodiversity, and shrinking wetlands are affecting not only the environment but also the lives of communities that depend on the region’s seasonal balance and ecological stability. Rainfall patterns have become highly unpredictable, making it difficult for farmers to plan cultivation. During conversations with farmers, they reported that farming cycles are becoming less reliable, forcing them to deal with uncertainty instead of following the regular routines they once depended on.

Another major concern for the island is the degradation of wetlands. These wetland ecosystems are often ignored until their loss begins to affect fisheries, groundwater, bird habitats, and rural livelihoods. Wetlands are vital for maintaining environmental balance, and their decline reflects a broader failure to recognise the importance of ecology in ensuring social and economic well-being.

Discussions surrounding Majuli often revolve around celebrating its cultural heritage and emphasising administrative recognition. However, such recognition alone cannot safeguard a climate-sensitive landscape.

What is needed is not just temporary concern, but long-term ecological planning. This includes restoring wetlands wherever possible, conserving biodiversity, developing climate-adaptive agricultural practices, and conducting scientific monitoring. The island’s instability is not only a natural issue; it also raises concerns regarding policy priorities, environmental planning, and how seriously fragile ecosystems are treated.

Protecting Majuli is not only about preserving its tourism or cultural heritage. It is about saving a fragile natural system whose collapse would have serious environmental, economic, and social consequences for Assam. I hope this issue receives immediate public attention and that the government introduces meaningful policy interventions to address it.

Dipshikha Khaund, Majuli

kabyashree10@gmail.com

Physical exercise: a necessity not luxury

Nowadays, we notice that people's physical activity levels have remained stagnant despite mounting awareness and policy initiatives. Today, physical exercise is even more essential than it was two decades ago. Long working hours, sedentary jobs, and the lack of open spaces, especially in urban areas, also discourage people from exercising regularly. The World Health Organization guidelines recommend 150 minutes of weekly and 60 minutes of daily physical activity. Sadly, today, more than five million deaths per year are attributed to physical inactivity across the world. About 1 in 3 adults and 8 out of 10 adolescents do not meet the WHO's recommended guidelines. There is an urgent need to democratise physical activity. Public policy must treat exercise as a civic necessity. It is imperative for the state government and other stakeholders to create exercise-friendly infrastructure such as parks, cycling lanes, and swimming pools in and around Guwahati and other towns and cities. They should also organise regular fitness-related events. Workplaces should encourage movement instead of sedentary work modes. Women and marginalised communities should have access to safe public spaces. We cannot deny the fact that burgeoning immobility is a reflection of society's unequal distribution of critical rights and resources.

Iqbal Saikia,

Guwahati

Stop dowry

The recognition of a modern society comes not from possessing engineering marvels, but from jettisoning traditional and anachronistic practices that are coercive, irrational, and commercialize relationships. Today, the prevalence of the nefarious dowry system reveals that human beings may have reached the moon, but when it comes to valuing women as life partners, we still weigh them in money. From being a custom, it has transformed into an incorrigible social evil that has converted marriage into a business transaction rather than regarding it as a mutual agreement.

Every year, approximately 6,000 dowry deaths occur in India, resulting in nearly 16 deaths every day. These are not just numbers; they are an appalling truth that exposes the tenebrous side of society, where both the educated and the illiterate behave like dacoits when it comes to demanding money from women for the continuation of marriage. Whenever a woman is killed for dowry, it reflects the harsh reality that women may have been empowered today, but not to the extent that guarantees their security and dignity. Many such killings go unreported or are falsely labelled as kitchen accidents or suicides. Education and employment may have significantly improved the status of women in society, but they have not prevented people from treating them as sources of money when matters of marriage arise.

The death of model Twisha Sharma in Bhopal, allegedly described as a dowry death, is no exception. It exposes the bitter truth that despite having strict legal provisions to protect women’s lives and dignity, the system has repeatedly failed to set examples strong enough to end such killings within domestic spaces for money. By allowing such crimes to continue unabashedly, we stand in the same line as the perpetrators. Today, dowry has weakened the institution of marriage. It is a form of beggary that has reduced marriage to a commercial transaction. Apart from police intervention, the active participation of civil society in eradicating dowry is paramount, so that no innocent person is killed for failing to meet the monetary demands of avaricious in-laws.

Kabir Ahmed Saikia,

Jorhat

kabirsaikia040@gmail.com