Will crimes against women end?
Close on the heels of the death of the Hathras Dalit girl after being gang-raped and brutalised, comes the news of the death of another Dalit girl from Balrampur, UP. According to the mother of the victim, her daughter had gone to seek admission to a college when she was abducted, gang-raped and dumped outside her house with broken legs and back. Shocking.
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According to reports, in the year 2019, 87 rape cases per day have been recorded. Add to this the number of cases which go unnoticed or unreported and you have a picture of how bad the situation is.
This brings us to the foremost question. When will such heinous crimes and brutality against our women stop? Be it a matter of absence of harsh enough laws, shoddy investigation or too slow a justice delivery system, there is a crying need for an end to such crimes and brutality against our women.
The govt authorities and legal luminaries should work together to bring forth an effective system that will put an end to such crimes against women.
Rodney de Souza, Assagao
Barter your waste for groceries
Amidst the gloom and doom scenario painted by the pandemic, two measures taken by the government need to be lauded. The first is incentivising recycling of solid waste by introducing a barter system by which citizens can exchange recyclable items for groceries. This scheme has been initiated by the Panjim city corporation in association with TERI.
This trade by barter will also promote ‘upcycling’ wherein solid waste thus collected is processed and converted to something useful; for instance, cardboard cartons are being converted to beds for Covid care centres. Though it is a pilot project the government could consider rolling it out in other step undertaken by the government is the creation of a pop-up dedicated cycling lane from Dona Paula circle to Ribandar on every Sunday during the month of October.
We can take a leaf out of Denmark’s and Netherlands’ playbook where a majority of the citizenry cycle to work why even their Prime Ministers commute to office on two wheels.
Vinay Dwivedi, Benaulim
Pop-up cycle lanes in city
It is understood that the state government has permitted the creation of a cycling lane from Dona Paula circle to the Ribandar-Merces junction on Gandhi Jayanti and every Sunday in the month of October as part of the ‘India Cycles 4 Change’ challenge. The permission has been granted by the authorities for a pop-up cycling lane for cycling events while at the same time the normal flow of vehicular traffic on the parallel and surrounding roads will not be obstructed.
As per the order all cyclists must wear helmets and cannot perform stunts during the cycling event. It must be said that if cycling is to be encouraged in the state, then roads need to have a dedicated cycling lane. Many citizens do not opt for cycling because it has to compete with other vehicles for road space which can prove dangerous.
Pop-up cycling lanes have come up in several Western countries during the pandemic as cycling provides a safer and healthier way for movement as compared to the public transport where maintaining social distancing is a far cry. It is understood that most of the cycle lanes built in London in the aftermath of the Coronavirus could become permanent.
If the trial run of pop-up cycle lanes in Panjim city is a success it could be made a permanent feature in the capital city and then implemented in other cities as well.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Logic of holidays on leaders’ anniversaries
“Do not declare holiday on my death, instead work an extra day if you really love me,” said Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who was Peoples-President of a country where there are too many political holidays on birth and death anniversaries of leaders both at central and state level including like birth anniversaries of Dr BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. Earlier UP government then led by Akhilesh Yadav even declared holiday on death-anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar
Every great leader always called people for hard work. Therefore best tribute to great leaders is to declare their birth and death anniversaries as extra-work day by increasing office-hours by half-an-hour on those special days.
Such a bold announcement quoting Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will not attract political resistance in name of vote-bank politics. System will automatically stop unholy political demands coming to declare such holidays for birth and death anniversaries of more and more leaders.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi
Decision making!
Successful people owed the same to quick decision making. The Central BJP has been harping on its ability-mistaken-to take quick decisions. We still see them hopelessly justifying the demonetisation and GST implementation. In the latter case, even stalwarts from Industry asked for more time to fine tune the GST Act but, with much bravado, the PM fixed a date. Quick decisions are different from hasty decisions.
Unlock 5 is planned from October 5. This is the time for hard decisions, but the Centre has abdicated this and allowed States to decide! Why? Surely an SOP must be given to States to come to a decision.
Flattened curve of positive cases and zero deaths must be the first criteria. Front page news of local papers shows September as the ‘killer month’ accounting for more than half the deaths in the State-a massive 233!
For Goa, there is no need to evaluate. But the clever Central BJP knows that Goa is ‘needed’ for other States to let off steam. Goa is their plaything and pliable local leaders are their brokers. TTAG, IMA, GCCI: it’s just money, money, money with zero responsibility.
R Fernandes, Margao
