Letters to the Editor: Vaccination drive for children

The destruction of the death envoy, the Covid-19, is yet to end in the country. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has issued warnings to many populous countries around the world focusing on the third wave of the pandemic. The third wave of the Covid-19 is also apprehended to have a huge impact on India. Experts have commented that the third wave of Covid-19 will particularly affect children. But even now the government and the people of the country are not aware. The third wave of the virus could be more dangerous for children in India as the Covid vaccine is not yet available for children in India. Moreover, the home confinement for the last two years has made the children of the country mentally ill.

Zydas Cadila's ZyCoV-D vaccine has been approved for use in India, but the vaccination drive has not yet started in the country. Meanwhile, thousands of children are infected with Covid-19 every day in the country. But why are not the government and parents aware of this despite clear warnings of dire consequences?

The government has not issued any strict guidelines for children so far. Meanwhile, the government is planning to open educational institutions in the country at the earliest. Who will take the responsibility for the safety of children if schools are opened? On the contrary, the children of the country have been mentally disengaged after being trapped in their homes for nearly two years. So at this moment, opening the school has become the demand of time. But children need to have good physical condition along with their mental health. Therefore, the government should immediately make arrangements to open schools and other educational institutions and start a vaccination drive for children.

So with a visionary long-term plan, we the student community urged the government to think about opening educational institutions and start a vaccination drive for children.

Niyar Deka,

Cotton University

Working-class movements

Through the columns of your esteemed daily, I would like to highlight the significance of working-class movements in India which have completed almost 100 years.

The working class of India has shown tremendous resilience against many hierarchies. There were almost 19 general strikes in the last three decades against the neoliberal policies.

The significance of these movements can be taken into account through the fact that the number of people has been increasing as new movements emerge with the recent one can be traced through the farmers' movements which also shows the glimpses of agitation of people related to the majoritarian working class.

An increase in the working class is the bi-products of development in technology and industries. As such, the movements are part of asserting the values of proper working conditions, decrease the prices of essential commodities from time to time.

Abhigyan Deka,

Guwahati

The Indian Paralympians

Through your esteemed daily - in the Letter to the Editor column, I would like to draw attention to the lack of media attention towards Indian Paralympians.

The Paralympic has been contested since 1960, and numerous Indian athletes have participated and even won medals in their respective sports. However, the media and public attention that they have received compared to other athletes is sub-par, to say the least. The Paramlyians have bagged individual golds in succession, for example, Joginder Singh Bedi competed in the 1984 Summer Paralympics and bagged three medals (two bronze and one silver), yet there is only a handful of information regarding him, or only a very few people have heard about him. Another example of this would be Devendra Jhajharia, the Paralympian who won gold for Men's javelin throw F46 on two occasions, one in the 2004 Athens Paralympic and the other in the 2016 Rio Paralympic. He also bagged a silver medal for Men's javelin throw F46 in the Tokyo Paralympic.

The fact that Devendra Jhajharia, even after winning two golds in Men's javelin throw: received very little media attention compared to Neeraj Chopra's win in this year's Olympics is a testament to how Paralympians are not given equal recognition.

This year's Tokyo Paralympic has seen Indian Paralympians rising to the occasion and winning continuous medals. From Bhavina Patel bringing in India's first medal in Table Tennis in Paralympics to Avani Lekehra becoming India's first woman to win gold in Paralympics as well as Olympics. It is indeed a moment of pride for every Indian: and I hope this time around, the whole nation cheers as our champions return home.

Debashis Konger,

Cotton University

Senior citizens' plight

It's quite pathetic on the senior citizens' part having to have the bitter experience of standing in a long queue outside most of the bank branches and in front of the counters these days. A few of them don't have old-age ailments like arthritis, lower back pain, orthostatic intolerance, etc. Sadly enough, let alone providing doorstep banking to the senior citizens and the differently-abled persons, as advised by the RBI, most branches don't even have separate queues for such people. Worse still, they are often made to visit the branch more than twice or thrice for their banking requirements. Besides, some employees seem to drag their heels in providing a banking facility when priority service needs to be provided to them. They very often turn away such people and hence make them feel marginalized.

As such, every branch should have an identifiable dedicated counter or a counter which provides priority to such people. Moreover, explicit mechanisms should be put in place for meeting their needs.

Dipen Gogoi,

Teok, Jorhat

Online learning & its advantages

I am writing this letter to your kind self to express my views on online learning that has become quite popular in contemporary times. Online learning has many edges over traditional learning. Students can access educative information at any time according to their convenience. Both students and teachers can take the benefits of online tutoring. Learner's time and money are saved.

Through the medium of your esteemed daily, I would like to appeal, especially to the students to make optimal use of online learning and make their future brighter.

Papari Nath,

Guwahati

Massage to the parents

Through your esteemed daily, I would like to draw the attention of the parents. Nowadays mobile phones are a very important device to our daily life, children are also using mobile phones these days very much. They're playing games or seeing videos on mobile much of the time of the day. Some of the children do not eat their food if they can't see videos on mobile phones and some forget to eat because of online games. Recently an incident happened that shocked us. A boy finished his life just because he did not get money from his parents to buy the 'season pass' of an online game. His parents never thought that he would take such a step. We have to think for our new generation that is depending on technology. Parents have to take steps to bring back the new generation from digital life to social life. Rather than letting them watch mobile phones, parents should tell them stories or fairy tales and bring them some comics books to read. These can help the children to change their habit of using mobile phones.

Nibeer Das,

Baksa.