MyVoice: Views of our readers 5th January 2025

PM puts forth fallacious argument

We couldn’t help detecting the fallacy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s argument that ‘some people are trying to weaken the social fabric by spreading poison in the name of caste’. It was clearly intended to pull the wool over people’s eyes and keep the overarching appeal of Hindutva undiminished. Modi should know better than to say that the proponents of social justice were sowing divisions in villages. It was the caste system, introduced about 3000 years ago, that brought about division of labour and la-bourers in a graded order one above the other in social status. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is really anti-caste and pro-SCs, STs and OBCs, he should demonstrate it by taking steps for de-sanctifying and annihilating caste.

G David Milton, Maruthancode, TN

Poor batting put paid to India dreams

Out of five test matches in the name of Border Gavaskar Trophy played in Australia, the host team won the series with 3-1 while one was washed away by rain. Indian bowling is at its best while batters were flattened in scoring runs due to carelessness. Renowned batsmen Hitman Rohit and King Kohli damaged their reputation with poor batting. They know pretty well all types of balls in their long experience yet failed to handle them to their advantage. Rohit Sharma himself dropped from playing in the fifth match saying he is not in good form. Finally, to say, lack of consistency in all batsmen has successfully handed over the series to Proteas.

Dr N S R Murthy, Secunderabad

Brace up for any HMPV outbreak

Against the backdrop of rising cases of respiratory illness, particularly due to HMPV (Human meta pneumo virus) in China, India should get ready to face effectively any eventuality. For that matter, the world cannot afford to lose its precious time again, as it lost in case of corona pandemic. Then the WHO hadn’t risen to the occasion and played to the tune of China in downplaying the menace in early days, only to find the world in deep trouble later. With such an experience, every country should get prepared for the worst. India should start assessing its health facilities, manpower and carry out mock exercises in order to make itself battle ready. Without raising the panic button, it should conduct awareness pro-gramme on respiratory etiquette in public.

Dr DVG Sankara Rao, Vizianagaram

World’s largest spiritual congregation

Sub: Editorial – World set to witness largest spiritual confluence (Jan. 03). The country will witness one of the mammoth human congregations at Mahakumbh 2025 at Prayagraj, beginning from January 13. Elaborate arrangements have already been in place to provide hassle free holy dip for the devotees and other various akhada groups, with safety, law and order in mind as the whole event is closely watched under the CCTV. The Mahakumbh will have so many other religious and public entertainment facilities that are unheard of before. These arrangements contrast with what happened during an earlier Kumbh Mela stampede that had happened during the SP government in UP in which numerous pilgrims were killed in the stampede owing to sheer failure in crowd management by then Akhilesh Yadav’s rule.

K R Parvathy, Mysuru

No price cut for 14.2 kg house cylinders

The government-owned oil marketing companies (OMC) have slashed the prices for commercial 19-kg LPG cylinders in various metro cities, effective January 1, 2025. The price cuts ranged from Rs 14 to Rs 16 per cylinder. However, there is no relief for users of 14.2 kg domestic LPG cylinders which remain un-changed. The hotels and restaurants in the country have reason to feel happy due to the price reduction of commercial LPG. Hopefully, this price cut will help them to effectively manage costs and offer better prices to customers.

S Sankaranarayanan, Chennai

Govt move on digital privacy welcome

Govt notified the “Draft rules for digital privacy” under Digital Personal Data Protection Act. It proposes to require parental consent for creating social media accounts for children under 18 which will also clarify the role of parents. This is a positive step. Ensuring that personal data is used by fiduciaries only with individual consent and for a specific purpose will help protect digital privacy. Given the increasing popu-larity of social media, the govt authorities may also leverage social media platforms to offer welfare, edu-cational services procuring documents via Digilocker.

P V Prakash, Mumbai