Letters to the Editor: Rahul Gandhi’s Lecture

Cambridge and Oxford are two revered universities which are known for their proficiencies in all fields all over the world. One’s passing out from one of these two universities is usually respected. An Oxford or Cambridge degree is a rare honour.

Very amusingly, the very Cambridge university recently invited Rahul Gandhi, a discarded political figure who was rejected by voters in his ancestral bastion of Amethi in UP, and happens to be a most controversial figure in India’s political scene because of his irrelevant statements and actions, and who has become a liability to the veteran political party of Indian National Congress. His loyalty to the nation is also very doubtful. He was recently invited by some unknown journalist association to deliver a lecture in Cambridge University. In his usual style, he began his tirades against his own country and even dared to question about Indian democratic system forgetting that his own grandmother clamped ‘Emergency’ on the nation in 1975 when she was the PM of the nation. In his lecture, while praising BBC for the documentary regarding PM Modi, he forgot that his grandmother banned BBC in 1975 for anti-Indian stand before the world.

Lanu Dutt Chowdhury,

Guwahati.

Gender discrimination

It is unfortunate that gender-based discrimination is having a negative impact on Indian women’s healthcare, especially in rural India. According to a research conducted at the AIIMS, New Delhi, out of 2,377,028 patients who visited the hospital from January to December 2016, only 37% of women got access to healthcare as compared to 63% of men. Therefore, some desperate changes are required to achieve the well-being of healthcare for Indian women and gender equality. Encouraging women to take ownership of their health and hygiene assumes paramount importance. Because of lifestyle or ignorance, women’s health conditions have taken a leap, especially during the Covid pandemic. Biologically, women deal with more health issues than men. Improving healthcare services along with education can be the most important intervention to make women aware of their rights, and also prevent them from becoming easy prey to severe emotional and mental disturbances. Providing employment opportunities for women will also create a positive impact on women’s health concerns. Female healthcare providers can play a crucial role in educating the society to recognize women’s health and nutrition needs as well.

Another important aspect of gender bias against Indian women is their labor participation. A number of underlying causes are responsible for this- juggling work and family responsibilities, sexism at work place, wage disparities, unsafe working environments and so on. While all these reasons are important to address, the scenario also needs to be studied from the perspective of the traditional roles women have played in the society for centuries. Along with promoting inclusiveness and transforming gender relations within workplaces, empowering women workers to access their rights and advocating for behavioral change, there is also an inherent need to address gender justice within families. One without the other will be like leaving a glass half-filled.

Sivakumar Kumar

(siva19kumar@gmail.com)

Malaria

Malaria has always been a major disease in India till today. Large pools of stagnant water left behind by heavy torrential rainfall and flash-floods and ignored by the authorities have become the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Jubel D’Cruz,

Mumbai

Sino-Indian relations

China’s aggressive posture on the South China sea and the Indian Ocean has propelled friendly nations to join hands to thwart its designs. The standoff between India and China has become the much needed trigger for friendly countries to support as well as seek India’s cooperation on common interests. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) is one international forum that glues four friendly countries to one another. United States, Japan, Australia and India initiated the Quad to keep China on its toes. Its recent meet at New Delhi didn’t deviate an inch from the group’s known stand and objective. The foreign ministers of the four nations reaffirmed the Quad’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Rule of law, sovereignty and territorial integrity and peaceful settlement of disputes were emphatically endorsed by the group. Health security, climate change and energy transition were rightly at the very top of the Quad foreign ministers’ discussion agenda. The four, with hitches that is expected of a global body, have been able to sustain a momentum that no country can ignore. Quad member nations are leaving no stone unturned to aid India on several fronts so that India is armed to the teeth, in defence and other key sectors, to counter China. External affairs minister S Jaishankar, a couple of years ago, said that the Quad “fills a very important gap” in contemporary times, and he is so right.

Dr Ganapathi Bhat,

Akola (Maharashtra).