This refers to the report ‘Davorlim girl Rachel Gomes keen on returning to Ukraine for completing her studies’ (Herald, March 3) regarding the safe return of Rachel Gomes from Ukraine to Goa. Kudos to Rachel and her parents for the foresight they showed in their timely action resulting in a smiling Rachel back home and her parents in a relaxed mode. Rachel’s action raises a few questions which the authorities would have to answer to the students and their relatives. Questions that show absolute lack of foresight and concern for our youngsters abroad who were compelled to go in search of education because our institutes in India could not accommodate them. Questions that have resulted in untold suffering of the youngsters on the roads, at railway stations, being kicked and manhandled for no fault of their own, youngsters with no food and proper facilities that have fallen sick in the extreme cold of Ukraine and have even died and not forgetting the anxiety and sleepless nights suffered by the parents and relatives at home due to the apathy of our leaders and government servants abroad who failed in their duty of reaching out to the students and Indian citizens.
This is a time where India needs to know that if Rachel and her family could foresee that the clouds of war were on the horizon in Ukraine as early as in February what was the Government, the MEA and the Indian Foreign Offices in Ukraine doing other than waiting for the war to start? Why were pre-emptive steps not taken to evacuate our children in good time? Even as the students left their institutes and hostels in search of safer grounds, how is it that the Indian Embassy and the Consulates never took an early check on the students’ positions at the universities and arrange to give them proper guidance, arrangement for evacuation and travel out of Ukraine and thence facilitate their travel home if necessary? Did our foreign offices make any attempt with the local authorities ahead of the emergency to help our youngsters? The authorities shamelessly ask the Indian citizens to walk out of Kharkiv if they cannot get transport (Herald March 3 Pg 7). Looks like-post demonetisation and post-COVID walking out of troubled situations is beginning to become a way of life for us.
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It is in such circumstances that a national airlines and shipping facilities are of paramount importance even if they cost the nation during peace times. Using some shipping lines to evacuate our people out of the port of Odessa to some friendly neighbouring countries would have ameliorated the agony and the angst of our people. Passenger ships can carry as many as 3000 persons or more at a time. The sight of politicians making propaganda in an aircraft with some 200-odd students to get political mileage while thousands are denied entry into trains in freezing cold; looks not only preposterous but even sad. Looks like for some politics is more important than people. Martin Luther King had said, “We need politicians not in love with money but in love with Justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with Humanity”. Do we have any?
