MyVoice: Views of our readers 25th September 2020

It's all God's wish

There has been a commotion over the declaration to be obtained from those who are not Hindus for entry into the Tirumala temple for the darshan of Lord Venkateswara. It has been an age- old tradition to obtain such declarations from those other than Hindus. But there were deviations too when prominent politicians, who were either ministers or chief ministers entered the temple without giving such declarations.

Apart from the ingratiating statements from loyalists, here one thing is very clear. In all Vaishnava temples, the devotees visiting are supposed to be the "dasas" of the Lord Vishnu. Even Sree Chittirai Tirunal Balarama Varma, the Travancore king has the prefix "Padmanabha Dasa" before his name and wanted himself to be known as "Padmanabha Dasa" and not Maharaja.

Thus it is clear that the Lord's will only prevails and He only chooses who should serve Him, irrespective of whether that person likes to do that or not and in the present case in Andhra Pradesh, it is the honourable Chief Minister, Sri Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was chosen by Him for this service.

And when such service was rendered, He ensured that it was published in the visual as well as print media across the length and breadth of the country as also in the media abroad. In such an event, whether or not a declaration is obtained from such a prominent person, will it make any difference?

S Padmanabhan, Nellore

Insulting comments by Swami

Swami Paripoornaananda's comments on the deaths of Indira Gandhi, YS are perverse and outrageous to say the least. He alleges that the said leaders had such ghastly deaths since they didn't sign the declaration at Tirumala temple. Similarly, Jayalalitha had betrayed the Kanchi seer and hence had a tragic end. This politician in the wool of a seer wants to fool the public with his gibberish. He is always found to be fishing in troubled waters by arousing religious passions.

Does he not know that God has no religion and is never unkind. He is personification of kindness and magnificience. Just because one had failed to give the declaration, does God punish one? The very fact that the CM had donned the traditional gear and performed the job expected of him. If he had no faith, he would have deputed someone else for the job. Is it a sin to have faith in all religions?

As a head of the state he had a religious tradition to fulfil by making an offering to the Lord and he should be allowed to do that without any fuss. As a Hindu, I feel insulted at the meaningless comments of the seer. He should tender an apology for insulting the memory of the great leaders like Indira Gandhi and Rajasekhara Reddy who were loved by millions of people cutting across religions. They died on duty while serving the people.

Vinay Bhushan Bhagwaty, Hyderabad

Introduce weekend shutdown

It refers to advice of Prime Minister for considering 1-2 days lockdown in his conference on September 24 with Chief Ministers of seven worst-hit states with corona-crisis. Number of new corona-cases in the country is increasing on daily basis now nearing up to one lakh per day.

This requires experimental complete two-day lockdown throughout the country on weekends starting from 10 pm on Friday till 6 am on Monday. Already such partial lockdown per week is prevailing in some states. Such an experimental lockdown will not affect economy because traders will be getting extra customers on rest of the five days in the week.

However, in such a scenario, uniform weekly-off day of Sunday may be there for all private establishments like it exists in Mumbai but not in Delhi. Rather traders will also be enjoying more time with family without any effect on their business.

Many private offices are also adopting system of government-offices for five-day week especially after corona-pandemic. Experiment of two-day lockdown throughout the country per week will reveal if number of corona-cases reduce on days of lockdown.

Subhash Chandra Aggarwal, Delhi

NDA has bulldozed Oppn

Three bills on labour codes have been passed by both, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in less than 24 hours time on September 23. At a time when opposition parties were abstaining from Parliament sessions as a mark of protest for unparliamentary proceedings on agricultural reforms that were passed by Rajya Sabha, these bills were introduced and completed the the process of passing in a hush hush manner without any discussion.

There have been severe objections from the working class not to modify the existing labour laws. Government of India paid a deaf ear to such objections. At least consultative meetings could find no place in the present regime.

Unilaterally bulldozing the legally available bulwark of workers, favouring the capitalists, by govt is nothing but jettisoning the responsibility. Already GDP of April-June quarter was contracted by 23.9% due no purchasing power in the market.

The thunderstorm in the form of new labour codes will further exacerbates the buying capacity of marginalised as they find it difficult to stick on a particular job for a considerable time. Reform should be to improve the stability of work for all- worker as well as the provider. Hence the enacted labour codes pave way for further income inequalities in the society.

G Thirupathaiah, Hyderabad

Mockery of democracy

This refers to "Monsoon Session of Parliament ends" (THI 24 Sep). The government has well planned to cut short the monsoon session by scrapping the question hour.

In a first of its kind, the ruling party BJP under the leadership of PM Modi has passed a democratic test inside the Parliament without answering the questions. In this process, they have also set a precedent for the students to demand examinations without questions and declare them as passed to get into the next level. A watershed moment for India indeed.

N Nagarajan, Hyderabad