MyVoice: Views of our readers 15th May 2022

Restoration of lost glory, a tough task for GOP

"The elusive resurrection route for Congress" (May 14) is truly and effectively reflecting a dispassionate 'Bold Talk' with guidelines to downsized, downtrodden and decimating once upon a time flourishing Congress party right from independence. It lost its shine and glory on account of its delusive decisions, infightings, high corruption, groupism, lack of unity and integrity and so on which destroyed its core business of oneness, communion even at the need of the hour.

G-23 Congress group's suggestions were paid deaf ear. There is no charismatic national leader after Indira and Rajiv and Rahul Gandhi could not step into their shoes despite his emotional quotients at times. He could not stand himself as a proven personality to convince the voters in the past elections. Congress's weakness is the sole strength of Bharatiya Janata Party which is now wielding the absolute power absolutely uncaring and unmindful of several serious and strenuous issues devouring the righteous problems being faced by denizens of this nation.

The notable point is that Prime Minister Modi has become very popular around the global nations. This plus point supports him to become stronger and stronger to continue at the helm for some more years to come. Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister stressed the need of strong opposition for survival of democracy. When? In 2024? Doubtful !

Congress core leaders opposed the proposed plan of appointing poll strategist Prashant Kishor trusting on their ability and agility to face and win over their strongest political opponents in the ensuing 2024 parliamentary elections. Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia are not seen attentive for resurrection of buried party. If they have missed to visualise the perilous situation to shape it better, they again become slaves to their surroundings. Unfortunately, there is none daring to replace Gandhis at the top of the party nor Gandhis are keen to propose a suitable leader to run the team. It is a sad state of affairs in the grand old party.

Revival means - restoration of lost glory. No remedial measures are taken so far. This has led a few youngesters deserted the party and embraced BJP. Like a chameleon, political parties must change their opinions, strategies, shifting dynamics, moving around people, listening to them, making promises, etc., are most essential. Cadbury's chocolate example is in the right earnest to show how to survive and withstand in the competitive world. Efficiency is not only sufficient in the absence of effectiveness.

Doing right things is efficiency and doing things right is effectiveness. BJP had a two MP record holder in the country at one time and now what it is, is known to everyone. Lashing on Modi government should not be the only criteria in all the forums, but what best they can do for betterment of the nation in all fields should be focussed in order to convince the public at large without indulging in criticising political adversaries. Otherwise, it is labelled as incendiary politics. Of course no political party is a clean pearl.

Dr NSR Murthy, Secunderabad

The Congress party has to really go into depth as regards the reasons for its country- wide failures in not getting even an Opposition status in the Parliament as well as in the state legislatures. Not only this, it should also ponder whether it can give a scam-free government which is more characteristic of the national party for a long time . Sonia Gandhi the Congress president has rightly advised all the party members to ' mend their age old ways of infighting and criticism ' to come out of this bad period and to move aggressively unitedly with the objective of improving the standards of living of the poorer sections of society.

Everything is possible in ' politics ' and as a party which has seen the country through the periods of Independence struggle the party members ( especially the seniors ) should face the ensuing electoral battle of the year 2024 as a ' do or die ' situation which will be the last resort for the party to stay in Indian politics. For this to happen , the members should stay with the people in villages and not in towns.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao, Hyderabad

Provocative attempts to polarise Indian society

Many monuments in our country such as Taj Mahal, Kutub Minar, Charminar,Gol Gumbaz etc reflect that they are the finest examples of Indo- Islamic architecture and they are the pride of Incredible India. It is fact that most of the monuments in India were constructed by Islamic rulers. These all monuments are fetching crores of rupees through tourism for Government of India. The Taj Mahal - it is India's iconic monument of eternal love. Many foreign visitors visit India only to see Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal is seventh wonder of world.It is India's gem, a gift to world which attracts lakhs of tourists and creates employment. Taj Mahal is an internal part of our culture . One shouldn't delve deeper into the details why and how Taj Mahal was built, but what is important is that it was built by the wealth and hard work of India's farmers and labourers.

Now some say that there was a Shiv temple on the spot before Taj Mahal and claim that 22 rooms closed in the Taj Mahal contain the remains of the demolished Shiv temple. What do these people want? Do they want to demolish Taj Mahal and built a Shiv Mandir? What is guarantee that there are remains of Shiv temple behind the closed doors?.

Over the years, several BJP leaders have repeated and amplified un historical claims that Taj Mahal is infact a Hindu temple that was built much before the reign of Shah Jahan and is "Tejo Mahalaya" not Taj Mahal. P.N Oak in his controversial book "Taj Mahal,the true story" argued that the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz's tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva ,then known as Tejo Mahalaya.

PNOak's arguments are fictional and there are no proper proofs . Whereas there are many proofs that Taj Mahal was constructed by the great Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan in his "Shah Nama" and "Badshah Nama" clearly wrote about the construction of Taj Mahal. In his Shah Nama it is written that the land where Taj Mahal was constructed was purchased from Raja Jay Singh by offering hefty amount.

It is good to note that Allahabad High Court rejected the plea to inquire into the history of Taj Mahal, saying that it was not for a court to probe the monuments antecedents or what it's 22 rooms hold. When Babri masjid was demolished Supreme Court has said that it was the violation of law. Then the Supreme Court gave assurance that further no Masjids and Islamic monuments should be demolished on the pretext that previously they were Hindu temples or monuments. The list of demolishing masjids and Islamic monuments is increasing day by day and there is no limit for it.

One side our countries economic condition is in bad state,petrol cost has reached Rs 110 ,LPG crossed 1150 and unemployment is reaching its peak. The country's social fabric is being totally damaged, communal tensions are growing, the atrocities on minorities are growing, rupee value dropped its lowest level comparing to dollar. To divert the common man from above issues the Taj Mahal, Mughals,Gyan vapi Masjid etc issues are created.Government and our PM should intervene and stop this unnecessary controversies.

Zeeshaan. Kazipet

this has reference to the controversial news "Taj Mahal in Communal Cauldron" published in The Hans India.If the author PN Oak is right in his book saying that "the Taj was indeed a Hindu temple built by Rajput kings " the Taj Mahal would remain a symbol of Indian secularism. In Taj there is a grave. There is thus a common philosophical message signifying love and life which are inseparable from humanity, alive and death. Let people of both faiths accept that God is above religion. And let a Shiva lingam be placed on the grave inside Taj, and allowed to perform both pooja, aarati and namaz.

R Sarva Jagannadha Reddy, Tirupati

Crash of the titans in IPL 15

Two premier sides in IPL, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings are out of IPL 15 and two new teams Gujarat Titans and Lucknow SuperGiants are in contention for the coveted trophy. Mumbai Indians fared very badly from the beginning like the previous years, but could recover well through home matches in the past. This time the lady luck did not favour them even though all the matches were played in and around Mumbai. It was sad to see the team falter to deceive and a win against CSK was only the redeeming feature of this year's IPL matches.

On the other hand, CSK's struggle is phenomenal with odd wins, which made them a dark horse for the final slot and failed to inspire a new set of players and a new captain. Of late, the new captain quit the team with a lame excuse to escape from further blame. It was painful to see CSK knocked out of this year's IPL. It is for the first time such a thing happening. By missing out on players like Faf du Plessis and Josh Hazelwood, the team is further weakened.

It all starts from the openers and runs up to the middle order and missing out key bowlers. Mumbai Indians were also sailing in the same boat failing to retain Trent Boult and Hardik Pandya. In all, this year's IPL lacked the string without these two top teams. To add to the misery, power cut in one of the matches and the poor standard of umpiring all exposed our weak link in organising a tournament of such a huge proportion.

C K Subramanian, Navi Mumbai

Torrid time for Indian economy

Apropos, "Inflation zooms to 8-year high of 7.79% in April", (The Hans India, May 13). Amid a global economic slowdown triggered mainly by the Russia-Ukraine war, ever-rising food and fuel prices have pushed India's retail inflation to an eight-year high, while consumer food price inflation has shot up to its highest mark in 17 months. This underlines the enormity of the challenge the government is facing now.

Making matters worse, core inflation, which factors in the costs of goods and services excluding those from the food and energy sectors, has reached a 95-month high.

The going is exceedingly tough for Indian economy, and no immediate respite seems to be in sight, raising the likelihood of another hike in repo rate by the RBI — the second in as many months. Also, the international Monetary Fund (IMF), leading brokerage Morgan Stanley and other entities have downwardly revised their forecasts for the country's GDP growth in the 2022-23 financial year.

The revival of demand and consumption, both lacklustre as of now, holds the key to putting growth back on track. Inflation has a direct bearing on the purchasing power of the people. The more they cut down on spending, the more the investor sentiment will weaken.

Even as the RBI tightens the purse strings, the onus is on the Central and state governments to provide some relief to the masses. For a start, there is a need to build consensus on reducing taxes on petrol and diesel. Also, India's Atmanirbharta goal will be put to the test as global supply chains continue to face disruptions.

Reducing dependence on imports, wherever possible, can spare domestic prices from frequent fluctuations. Sustaining exports amid geopolitical upheaval is another task that demands long-term attention in order to turn the tide.

N Sadhasiva Reddy, Bengaluru

Soaring heat waves pose multi-dimensional threat

It has impacts on health, ecosystem, agriculture, water, energy sources and different sectors. In fact, India's efforts to ease the crisis are not in proportion to the challenges posed by heat waves. Consequently, we face the same crisis every year

Satellite images of land surface that indicate temperature between 55 and 60 degree Celsius over areas of north-west India lend credence to the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) recent warning that extreme heat was gripping large parts of India and Pakistan. In fact, this unusual rise in temperature has perplexed the scientists who have been observing the climate change across the world.

The Central government has taken some steps to monitor the heat wave conditions and review the health emergency preparations. On the other hand, at the time of such a crisis India needs more than that. The National Meteorological and Hydrological departments are working in unison with health and disaster management agencies to implement plans for dealing with the crisis. In fact, without a comprehensive approach the crisis created by extreme rise in temperature cannot be resolved.

Heat wave poses amultidimensional threat. It has impacts on health, ecosystem, agriculture,water, energy sources and different sectors. In fact, India's efforts to easethe crisis are not in proportion to the challenges posed by heat waves. Eventhough information about high temperature is given by IMD every year, the government fails to devise and implement comprehensive plans. Consequently, we face the same crisis every year. It is a fact that heat waves are related to climate change. On the other hand, climate change alone is not the cause of heat waves. Given that 60 degreeCelsius can damage infrastructure and cause serious health problems to living beings, we need to be alert. We need to change our life styles to suit extreme heat. Working hours, study time, construction of buildings and other ways of our lives need to be adapted to suit extreme heat conditions.

Venu GS, Kollam

The latest findings of NASA expose the grave reality that our beautiful planet earth is heating up at an unprecedented alarming rate, resulting in tripling global warming during past 20 years and thereby inflicting irreparable damage to environment. The emergent need of hour is to limit the amount of heat that radiates to space altogether. Thus, gone are the past glorious days of pure and pure water, on account of anti-developmental activities of mankind in the name of so-called developmental activities. The present generation has clearly failed to fulfill its solemn duty to hand over Mother Earth devoid of ruin to posterior generations..In fact, periodical Global Environmental Conferences were merely time-wasting gimmicks, devoid of worthwhile follow-up actions by the member-nations. What a pity!

B Veerakumaran Thampi, Thiruvananthapuram