MyVoice: Views of our readers 2nd May 2021

Smothering dissent is a failure of democracy

It is deplorable to see political leadership in our country resorting to coercive measures to control perceptions of people with an intention not only to hide its unpreparedness to the much anticipated Covid 19 second wave but also to obfuscate its inept and inefficient handling of the crisis which forced tens of thousands of people to pay heavy price with their lives and livelihoods where some unpalatable grim world records have been established by India. (SC warns against silencing people - THI, 1 May).

The timely warning of Supreme court that it would amount to contempt of court on the part of governments if cases are filed against people who seek help through Social media/Internet in the treatment of patients infected with Covid 19 is commendable and it upholds the constitutional right of people in a democracy to question the government.

A good government would always tender apologies to the people when its missteps make people to face distress and hardship of an unprecedented scale. Shockingly, we are now seeing a government which is intimidating distraught people to not express their grievances openly and to not complain about administrative lapses in providing medical care to the affected which is nothing but an ugly manifestation of its hubris and arrogance.

The fact that the political leadership found itself sinking in a deluge of questions posed by some High Courts and the Supreme Court with regard to its failure to be ready with all medical essentials presents a poor picture of political ineptitude which is nothing but its failure to take opposition parties, people, scientists, experts into confidence to put all logistics and infrastructure in place to battle the imminent Covid 19 second wave.

Any country can't afford to go with misplaced priorities which leads to waste of tax payers' money. It is disgusting to see our policymakers spending thousands of crores of rupees for erection of statues, construction of new parliament building (Central Vista project), places of worship even during the days where flailing economy is causing immense financial loss.

Appallingly, India has so far witnessed its top leader encouraging personality cult and concentration of all powers in PMO which paved the way for constitutional values, human rights and democratic norms being violated at a disturbing frequency. Verily, it is the ability, honesty, efficiency and talent of all bureaucrats, intellectuals, leaders and other stakeholders who collectively contribute to the effective functioning of government machinery, autonomous institutions, constitutional watchdogs and independent judiciary which would raise the standards of governance.

For that to happen, the citizens should be mature enough in exercising their electoral choices and should be courageous enough to question and punish the elected political leaders for their misdeeds. This is the only way forward for strengthening democracy in India and to make it an economic giant in the world.

Narne Raveendra Babu, Hyderabad

Night curfew is a futile exercise

The State Government of Telangana has extended night curfew for another week. Is night curfew enough for containing the Covid pandemic ? This is the million dollar question haunting the minds of common public in particular.

The unabated increase in the positive cases every day, it is not enough only if night curfew is imposed. At night after 9 or 10 pm., more than 90 per cent of the people stay at home only and they hardly go out for the fear of corona. People working in the night shifts stay at their office only. Hence there is absolutely no doubt about the spread of coronavirus in the night.

One witnesses the scenes at wine shops, mutton shops etc., from 9 am onwards where people throw all the rules out of the window to purchase their favourite stuff . The permit rooms attached to the wine shops are the common scenes wherein people sit side by side and consume liquor without any fear. In RTC buses also , particularly during the peak hours in the morning and evenings , there will be no standing space even. The seven-seater autos and sharing autos hitherto carrying only two or three passengers are now again plying with more than the permitted capacity. Under these circumstances the State government should ponder over at least clamping of week end curfews instead of night curfew and levy hefty fines on the spot to the offenders , to contain the spread of corona virus at least to some extent.

Anthony Fauci , Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden Administration and top epidemiologist , USA has righty suggested complete lockdown for a few weeks in India as an immediate step to contain the spread of coronavirus as its deadly second wave shows no signs of receding.

S Ramesh, Hyderabad

Applaud this IAS officer, don't punish him

In a recent viral video where an IAS officer is seen stopping the wedding functions that were taking place in the curfew hours, some people are mocking at this behaviour. When Anil Kapoor did the same in the movie 'Nayak' people applauded him for his prompt decisions. But now when something like this is done in real life , people are unable to digest . The IAS officer was doing his job as those people were violating the Covid 19 night curfew rules. Many police officers ignore such things if they are given bribe or any recommendations or orders from top authorities. He too was made to apologize for such behavior , after BJP MLAs wrote for his suspension, which is not a good example. Such actions done by police officers in support to the normal public must be encouraged rather than discouraging him. Such strict officials are hard to find these days .The officer rightly said that people are violating rules knowingly and anything that puts the general public at risk is not acceptable.

Mehar, Kazipet

Protect Covid patients from exploitation

At 600-plus Covid cases per day, the Indian Government took very seriously and immediately imposed lockdown across the country with a short notice of 12 hours last year. But this year, even after the daily cases crosses 3.5 lakh per day, the inaction of the Government towards implementation of lockdown and moreover conducting elections is rather shocking. This has paved the way to the hospitals especially the private, to act as per their wish and earn money and as such there's more cost to the vaccine, blackmarketing of Remdesivir medicine, high costs and more deaths in the private hospitals.

The Remdesivir medicine costs Rs 35k to Rs 40k as against its original cost of Rs 3500, but has no guarantee whether the medicine is genuine or not. Since the bottle after the usage is not being crushed, there's every chance of misuse and duplication. I request the Government and media to repeatedly announce to crush the injection bottles after using it.

T Sri Kumar, Hyderabad