MyVoice: Views of our readers 11th May 2020

Pitiful plight of migrant labourers

The tragic death of 16 migrant workers who were run over by a goods train on Friday morning near Aurangabad is a manifestation of lives of the poor losing any significance due to financial insecurity on account of Covid-19 imposed national lockdown. All those migrant labourers lost their jobs due to shutdown of factories. They are waging a daily battle for their survival with meagre or no money with them. They are undergoing one of the worst times in their lives and need a caring hand at their place of work. Unfortunately, the group of migrant workers walking on the highways and along the railway tracks in quest to reach back home belies the promises made to protect the dignity of their labour. The unfortunate incident has exposed the glaring lapses in the exercise to ensure the safe return of migrant workers and prove that the government has no plan to engage and rehabilitate them productively. The migrant workers are returning to their native places without any guarantee of coming back. This will certainly pose severe shortage of labours, slowing down economic revival.

K S Rao, Shreenagar, Thane, Maharashtra

Create awareness on cyber hygiene

Apropos Vinit Goenka's well-timed article published in your esteemed newspaper (May 9) 'Are Internet platforms adversely affecting children in India?' I barely agree to his personal thoughts.

Internet is a boon as well as a bane. In the wake of Covid-19, which has resulted in the nationwide lockdown that has left many children free from studies, they find free access to the Internet to browse the online content. One can doubt whether they truly go through the study material or watch the nudity, obscenity, violence, video games and some other forbidden porn material. There are stringent laws that can protect the rights of children. Despite these, some social platforms are displaying the unwanted and transmitting child pornography in electronic form. On a par with the lockdown, there must be a block of the websites containing extreme Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). The students of today are advised to follow the online classes. But it should be done under the strict supervision of the parents. How many parents are aware of the content their children are watching on the smart phones? It is time the government ran cyber hygiene etiquettes from Parliament to Panchayats to prevent children from falling prey to pornography. The social platforms which are earning huge revenue by sharing and circulating porn material should be brought to book without further delay in the larger interests of saving the Indian youth.

Tulluri Venkateswarlu, Chirala, Prakasam dist, AP

AP should act fast to prevent further tragedies

This is with reference to 'Is Vizag sitting on a ticking time bomb?' (My Opinion by V Ramu Sarma, May 9). In his column, Ramu Sarma has rightly pointed out many lapses, lack of efficient systems like sirens, lack of knowledge in staff stationed at such crucial reactors, storage tankers, defunct Pollution Control Boards etc. Moreover, the State govt giving compensation from taxpayers' money is surprising. Vizag land area is surrounded with hills and air heavily circulate within the valley regularly instead of dispersing to other sides due to surrounding hills. So the government should immediately shift all such chemical factories to elsewhere with stringent safety protocols, leak proof technologies and siren systems in place to sound alarms if there are abnormal storage tank levels etc. Also, the government needs to bring comprehensive chemical policy and industrial safety policy to avert such accidents through efficient and stringent procedures by various agencies. The government needs to focus on stringent environment protection, citizens' health safety aspects and others while giving permissions to Industries in FDIs, or permissions to factories, else huge loss of human lives may occur if small error happens in such industries. IITs, local universities and AIIMS-like medical Institutions need to do industrial safety checks, study and prepare safety audit process development in factories by periodical visits. Three-tier checks on industrial areas to control air pollution, water pollutions, gas leakages should be made. Third party expert teams – Pollution Control Boards, IITs and local universities should be authorised to do industrial safety checks and to develop or suggest required safety methods in case of leakages, accidents etc. Mock drills in such emergency situations also need to be conducted three times every year.

Vijay Narayana C, Hyderabad