MyVoice: Views of our readers 29th Dec 2024

Incongruent calls to have more babies

A few leaders recommending people to have more children demonstrates their irresponsible attitude rather than their being rational and responsible to the post they are holding. Stalin's concern is the disturbing formula that takes population of the State to distribute funds collected from tax. Chandrababu is worried about losing number of seats in the parliament.

RSS spits venom against a community for having more children but asks for more children quoting demographic trend that depicts a declining birth rate. One wonders how all these leaders forget the plights of the people in bringing up the children in terms of providing them minimum essentials and reasonable education and healthcare even. 81 crore people are left to be dependent on free ration of 5 kg rice. The scenes of voting for pittance speak volumes of the level of poverty the people are forced to live with. Education and healthcare having been made commodities to mint profits, the government is forced to provide free insurance schemes for healthcare and mid-day meals to get children to schools.

Educated youth in crores are frantically running around for jobs and the government that lacks moral courage and political strength to control and monitor the educational institutions on the standard of education they impart is now coming with scheme to infuse skill to make the educated youth employable. The food inflation goes untamed in the background of static wage which in real terms declines. Promoting policies and programmes that end up in creating an island of the affluent in the ocean of poor who are lingering around in the livelihood plights leaving their children to live with malnutrition, wasted and stunted growth.

This is the picture when people are opting for one child norm. Think of a situation of people taking up seriously the most irresponsible call of their most revered leaders and have more children. It can only end up in chaos. These are the basic issues before the people. Throwing babies with bathed water and cutting the wounded arm instead of treating it are not solutions sought from leaders. Already the Quixotic decisions and actions of the successive rulers have plunged the people in neck deep livelihood prob-lems. Now, calling for more children is nothing but cursing the people for the sin of having given them power. Let leaders think of viable solutions instead of giving incongruent slogans.

–A G Rajmohan,Anantapur

Burdensome move on AP teachers

The AP state government has proposed an action plan for ensuring good results in Class X exams as laid down by SCERT. It includes study hours during Sundays and some Optional Holidays (OHs). The OHs for schools are generally availed by declaring holidays to entire school and not individually. Teachers are humans, too; they too have many personal pre-occupations, some of which are health-related.

Working without rest for the entire week is a burden both physically and mentally.

When many depart-ments are having five-day week, why for teachers, it is without a holiday. Teaching is a profession that requires careful planning and perfect execution. So, teachers need a free and undisturbed work environment. And more so, the best judges for students are the teachers who teach them every day and not the administrators who never had any look at the pupils in the school. The SCERT action plan is a big dis-turbance for school time-table.

Students also need some relaxation in between hard study hours.

How can they attend school for months together without a single holiday? It is a stress factor for them which may backfire at achieving good results in public exams.

It is high time the government took a relook at the action plan and asked teachers to prepare their own plan for class x exams as it asks for Lesson-planning and year-planning.

– M Chandrasekhar, Vontimitta, Kadapa dt

Single use plastic’s double whammy

Ref: ‘Single use plastic may cause danger.’ As we grapple with the twin threats of plastic pollution and antibiotic resistance, a recent study by scientists from the Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST), Mohali, has uncovered a disturbing link be-tween singleuse plastic bottles (SUPBs) and the spread of antibiotic resistance. This groundbreaking research has sounded the alarm, and it's time for us to take notice. The study's findings are a wake-up call, highlighting the unrecognised public health risk posed by nano-plastics derived from SUPBs. These tiny plastic parti-cles have been shown to facilitate the transfer of antibiotic-resistance genes between bacteria, effective-ly turning beneficial bacteria into carriers of these genes. This is a recipe for disaster, as it can lead to the spread of antibiotic resistance among pathogens. The researchers' use of environmentally relevant nanoplastics particles, synthesised from used plastic water bottles, adds a layer of urgency to their findings.

It's a stark reminder that our daily habits, including our reliance on SUPBs, have far-reaching consequences for our health and the environment. The study's authors have pulled no punches in high-lighting the mechanisms by which nanoplastics facilitate antibiotic resistance gene transfer. Their research has uncovered two novel pathways, including the direct transformation pathway and the OMV-induced transfer pathway.

These findings are a clarion call for action, under-scoring the need for a concerted effort to reduce our reliance on SUPBs and mitigate the impact of nano-plastics on our environment.

–Raju Kolluru, Kakinada