13 Dec 2017 | 06:13am IST
letters to the editor
A biggest surprise and a wedding full of suspense of the year 2017 of two celebrities Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma. What a love story full of suspense and a mutual understanding. This is a real example of love which is so pure and sacred and ultimately culminating into a marriage.
The whole country needs to salute and respect and wish the couple all the best for long and successful married life. This the couple deserves for whatever they could contribute for the country. Magnificent Bollywood star and a world class cricketer.
Chief Minister MrManohar Parrikar has said that he would love to use bicycle often, but is restrained due to the security cover he has been provided.
In this matter, I would like to reiterate that I have not been provided with any security cover, yet I am restrained to use the bicycle. My bicycle was idling outside my flat for the last two years. I might have used it hardly for a day. Recently, I handed it over to the scrap dealer.
You will appreciate that there is not a mm of space on the road for bicycle riders or you adore to look at us dying a dog’s death on the roads.
Arvind Kakodkar, Chicalim
The Centre's directive to state governments to penalise overcharging hospitals hasn't come a day too early. How many people have been at the mercy of such hospitals and their unscrupulous and often negligent doctors? And the nursing care is nothing to rave about. Unnecessary tests conducted, referrals to specialists without reason, admission to the ICU on the pretext of the patient being serious and then sudden transfer back to a room when the ICU bed is required by someone really in need or someone important.
What happened to the serious patient from that bed? Not to mention unnecessary surgical procedures and costly medication. And then there are the targets each doctor has to meet, all at the cost of the patient. Once admitted you are at their mercy and finally your body is not handed over till the dues are cleared.
Are hospitals a business? Does the medical and nursing profession have no ethics? Proper and affordable health care must be available to all, particularly to the poor.
Why should anyone be at the mercy of such hospitals and doctors? However, there are many good hospitals and good doctors and may God bless them and help others emulate them or stringent measures should be enforced and laws enacted to stem this rot.
The words of anguish spoken by the honorable judges of Bombay High Court, Justices Dharmidakari and Bharati Dangre in reference to the death threats to Deepika Padukone cannot be left on paper alone. This needs to be nipped and those responsible cannot and should not justify and condone this and other barbaric, savage behaviour.
We may at this moment think that this won’t happen at our doorstep. Alas! It will be too late then. So, we the civil society must step up and do our best to let our voices be heard. And not just that, but painstakingly inculcate good values and stand up whenever and wherever there’s a need and never turn a blind eye or look the other way.
India must wake up or we are doomed.
The way shameless goons have taken law into own hands in the country has redefined the "law". Law and "disorder" appears to be ruling the roost considering how citizens of the country are hacked to death for trivial reasons, and in full public glare. The murderers walk away nonchalantly as if they have done a service. The custodians of the law seem to be looking the other way busy with more "serious" obligations. The emboldened attackers are spreading hate and spewing venom like never before.
The murder of Mohammad Afrazul is terrifying to put it mildly but it looks to have become the dangerous norm in the country. An inept criminal justice system oblivious to repeated reminders is a big boon for the criminals.
But for a zealous media, most of the religious zealots, including the Rajsamand killer, would not have been apprehended at all. The barbaric act should awaken the common man, police, politicians and the judiciary out of their deep slumber. These collective conscience keepers of the society should strive to put a full stop to such crimes.
Somebody should bell the cat because India is in the danger of slipping badly in global perception. The leaping strides the country has achieved will come to nought by such mindless acts. An extraordinary Centre-State coordination, disregardful of the perennial vote bank and party compulsions, is the need of the hour.
Is Pakistan helping the Congress?
The low level of political discourse in the Gujarat election campaign has hit another low after PM Modi accused Congress leader Mani Shankar Ayer of colluding with Pakistan to win the Gujarat elections and to elect Ahmad Patel as the CM of Gujarat. There cannot be anything more preposterous than this.
In what surely looks like the PM is going the Trump way, he has denigrated the status of the PM of India to a laughing stock who is only good at gesturing and dragging his words much more than a skilled actor. Instead of talking about important issues affecting the people of Gujarat, the PM is spending more than half his speech criticizing Rahul Gandhi and the Congress which is a unproductive exercise and a waste of time of the PM and the lakhs of people who come to listen to his fiery speeches.
Gregory Fernandes is right is saying, “Don’t absolve BJP from blame” in his letter dt. December 11. If the BJP had some respect and honour for the post of PM, they would have asked their PM to abide by the decorum of the PM’s chair instead of justifying his actions and being accessory to the act.
A change in the Lord’s prayer?
Pope Francis has called for a change in the 'translation' of the Lord's Prayer. Over the course of centuries, the prayer given to us by the Lord Himself, has been translated from the original Aramaic into hundreds of languages and umpteen number of times in each language. Hence over a long period of time, it is but natural that something is lost in translation. However, in this case the meaning of one sentence seems to have changed to convey just the opposite of the intended meaning. Hence the Holy Father has very rightly called out this aberration. The line 'And lead us not into temptation' is not a good translation and rightly so as it implies that the father is pushing the son into temptation. "A father doesn't do that. A father helps you to get up immediately," said Pope Francis.
The French translation has taken note of this aberration in translation and has been accordingly changed to "Do not let us enter into temptation". The English translation follows the Italian version and if the Italian changes following the call by the Holy Father, it follows that a translation in the English version is very much on the cards.
The Lord's Prayer is the most oft-repeated prayer of Catholics. It is the first prayer a child learns and most probably the last prayer uttered in one's life. A change in the prayer, ever so little, will sound a bit discordant. Hopefully the English translation, if made, will make a smooth transition. To my mind ‘Lead us 'away' from temptation (instead of and ‘lead us not into temptation) would reflect the true meaning, with minimal change in the existing text.
Robert Castellino, Mumbai
