05 Dec 2022  |   05:32am IST

Letters to the editor ( 05 December 2022)

Need to keep a check on room boys

The tourist season in the State has just about begun. Goa happens to be a preferred tourist destination during the festive season. However, the alleged rape of a Russian woman at a hotel in Calangute has come at a time when Goa is desperately looking to shrug off the impact of the Russian-Ukraine war. 

It is learnt that the Russian tourist was allegedly raped by the two accused, both natives of Nepal, who were employed as room-boys at the hotel. While the police should be complimented for arresting the two men in quick time, it must be said that such incidents do not augur well for the reputation of Goa being a safe tourist destination.

It is pertinent to note that room-boys employed in hotels have excess to the rooms occupied by the guests. Hence they could be harbouring ulterior motives of committing theft and even rape of female guests who stay alone without a male partner as was allegedly the case in the present instance. It would thus be prudent to check the antecedents of those being employed as room-boys by the police from their counterparts in their native place.

Since most of those employed as room-mates could be migrants, it seems absolutely necessary to carry out their verification before employing them just like tenant verification is mandatory. All details of those employed as room-boys need to be submitted at the local police station.

Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco


Bhopal gas tragedy’s 38th anniversary

On the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984 a major industrial tragedy happened with the leakage of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh resulting in the death of about 3,300 people due to inhalation of the toxic gas.

At that point of time it was one of the biggest industrial accidents that many claimed was due to negligence and under staffed factory. Till today, most of the affected people have not received compensation. 

It is reported that in 2001, Dow Chemical has purchased the pesticide plant. The government of India has to pursue the matter and come to a just and equitable compensation package for those who have died and been affected by the gas leakage. 

Mere change of ownership of the factory does not mean that the responsibility for those affected has ceased. This accident should open the eyes of the world to prevention of such major accidents. Industrial accidents of such scale should be prevented at all costs.

Elvidio Miranda, Panjim


Plight of prisoners

President Draupadi Murmu has lamented the overcrowding of Indian prisons; she has said decongesting prisons is the need of the hour instead of adding to their number. Speaking at a conference, the President called for enhanced awareness among poor prisoners on their fundamental rights.

From 69 per cent in 2019 to 77 per cent in 2022, the number of prisoners in jails waiting for their trials to reach a logical conclusion has steeply increased. 

The top court of the land had, in 2020, freed many prisoners, nearly sixty thousand of them, on interim bail to decongest the prisons necessitated due to the Corona pandemic. Subsequently, ninety percent of them returned. Approximately 70 percent of the country's undertrials come from socioeconomically weaker sections. So, even after procuring bails, these undertrials may languish in jails unable to pay the bail amount. 

In Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar, the Supreme Court had ruled that arrests should be an exception in cases where the offences are punishable with less than 7 years imprisonment with or without fine. Several past verdicts of higher courts have advised the subordinate courts to bear in mind that Article 21 of the Constitution speaks about protection of life and public liberty as fundamental rights of a citizen. No accused should be deprived of this precious privilege.

In the Arnesh Kumar case, the two--judge bench of the SC had said that the power of arrest had become a lucrative source of police corruption. "Arrest first, proceed next" was highly despicable, the court had held. Mere registration of an offence does not mean that a person should be arrested, the SC went on to add.

Ganapathi Bhat, Akola


Better to be safe than sorry

We can only hope that the government has learnt the lessons after the botched-up Atal Setu Bridge across the river Mandovi and has cared to take corrective measures at the Zuari Bridge which is nearing completion.

The load testing of the Zuari bridge which is being done by placing 32 trucks having load of 32 tonnes each over the bridge is clearly not in line with the protocol and guidelines laid down for load testing of bridges by the Highways Specifications and Standards Committee. It is appalling and risky that the Zuari Bridge Contractor is using an outdated and substandard method of placing trucks on the Bridge when such load tests are not done anywhere in the world.

The proper specified procedures for load testing should have been adopted. In our rivers where we have heavy wind and challenging climatic conditions the bridge load test must go with intensive procedure otherwise such bridges will collapse or will show cracks just like Atal Setu which was inaugurated in a hurry while now posing a risk for those commuting on the bridge.

Similarly, the Zuari Bridge will suffer the same impact if the proper procedures are not adopted and with no records available to the public of how much load this bridge can carry when the Zuari River also has very high winds and adverse climatic conditions. The authorities must awake to this reality and ensure that the proper load testing is done.

The common sayings ‘Haste makes waste’, ‘Prevention is better than cure’, and ‘Better to be safe than sorry’ rings so true for our newly constructed bridges and roads, given their poor track record, the risk and inconvenience to people and waste of even more public funds to fix what is broken. While inaugurating the Atal Setu the then Chief Minister wanted to know ‘how is the Josh’. At the Zuari Bridge inaugural will this Chief Minister chant ‘Bhivapachi garaz Na’

Aires Rodrigues, Ribandar


A boon for air passengers

With face mask restrictions taken out for air passengers a provision has been made to use your face as a boarding pass at Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru airports and it will save a lot of time and avoid wastage of costly paper.

Passengers travelling from Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru will be able to use their face as a boarding pass from December 1 to enter these airports, to access the security check area and enter the boarding gate. 

Travellers will have to mandatorily provide their Aadhaar details to avail themselves of this service. The technology, however, is not available at airline check-in counters at the moment and is expected to be introduced at a later stage. The airport centres in India are slowly upgraded and have become flier friendly in many ways. Thus the waiting time of the air travellers is reduced considerably and helped airlines to reduce its staff strength to great extent. However, the major problem in Indian airline centres is that the authorities failed to have continuous power supply leading to the disruption of services. In the Mumbai airport fliers were fuming as cable fault trips to the airport after a fibre optic cable was damaged and departing from terminal 2 were delayed. 

C K Subramaniam, 

Navi Mumbai


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