MyVoice: Views of our readers 6th November 2024

Transgression by ‘Glorified Clerks’

The formation of “Mallu Hindu Officers” in Kerala is fraught with ominous implications. The officers behind it have come in for a lot of flak, and rightly so. It is wholly inappropriate; it is grossly violative of the general code of conduct for IAS officers and it is inconsistent with the secular character of the much-vaunted civil service. Evidently, some of the country’s top bureaucrats do not seem to subscribe to and share the Supreme Court’s view that ‘secularism is a basic feature of the Constitution’. IAS officers occupy the top echelons of civil service “to serve the people”, all manner of people at that, and not to declare, affirm or assert their religious identities or form groups on the basis of religion on the social media or double up as representatives of any faith. We have heard of the RSS infiltration into the machinery of government, but the creation of a media group exclusively for “Hindu IAS officers” is something hitherto unheard of. The government should view the transgression as ‘professional misconduct’ affecting the sanctity of civil service and take action against the officers who erred. It should nip the problem of “sectarianism in service” in the bud.

G David Milton, Maruthancode, TN

Appoint adequate number of PETs first

In order to encourage sports in AP, sports authorities must sort out the sports personalities from school level. (AP government to adopt new sports policy - Hans India, 5-11-2024). Encouraging medal achievers with incentives is not enough to ignite the new generation sports persons. The AP government must appoint PETs in all private and government schools to encourage sports aspirants at the school level. In order to do this AP government must increase the PET posts in upcoming DSC teachers recruitment and make the students participate in all level competition in the country.In their new sports policy government must spend money equally from root to top level sport persons.

D Ravikumar, Visakhapatnam

Thought-provoking article on trees

Apropos: “Over 1 in 3 species of trees are in danger” (Nov. 5) is very touching, especially a tree hung with a label “ save me”. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has a meaningful drive to conserve plants and thus the ecosystem and nature and life. It is worthnoting that if trees are cut and damaged the life dependendant on them like the birds, frogs, humans etc are in a loss of very survival. The tribals who live intertwined with trees and make forests their house in a broad sense true to be denoted as Girijans: people on the hillocks meaning forests are on the hills. In inviting multinational companies to start pharma or other companies at the cost of displacing the vast habitats of multitude of population and countless deforestation is the big question imperiling the ecosystem.I don’t name the rulers who bore the brunt of such devastating eco imbalance but they had wrath of nature as we all know.Nature is our mother and trees are our brothers and sisters and without them we cannot live happy and purposeful lives.

Dr T Ramadas, Visakhapatnam

Why not separate teams for tests & IPL?

In cricket India were on top as well at bottom. Let’s take both in good spirit. Having said that, as a non player, I want to say that our players can play only for money and future players are focusing only on IPL to get a big auction for a big price. There was a time when cricket was played to win. We had players who were experts to face both spin and fast bowling. Our trio - Prasanna, Bedi and Chandra - was dreaded by all cricket-playing nations. Facing spin requires techniques which we are probably missing now as most are coached to hit the ball more runs within 20 or 50 overs. Maybe the BCCI should now develop a team India which can play for the country and test matches and another one for fast cricket and IPL only for monetary benefit.

N Nagarajan, Hyderabad

***

The Hans Editorial well played on Team India’s utter defeat in all three cricket test matches against New Zealand (Is New Zealand the new Pakistan for India in cricket? Nov 5). Indian batters are bowing their heads down in Shane now. Will chances not come to rise their heads up after exhibiting their talent in the coming seasons? Sometimes, success may not be within our reach despite hard attempts but it will embrace at times with little effort. Encouragement heavily needs when one is in deep desperation. New Zealand or Pakistan or anyone in the field are neither superior nor inferior. As rightly said defeat is only the other side of victory.

Dr N S R Murthy, Secunderabad