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Possession of immovable property

Sir,

Section (4) of the Jammu & Kashmir Migrant Immovable Property, (Preservation, Protection and Restraint on distressed sales) Act, 1997 enjoins upon all the District Magistrates (Deputy Commissioners in the valley) to take over the possession of the immovable property belonging to the Migrants within thirty days from the date of promulgation of the legislation ibid viz. 2.6.1997. And Section (6) of the Act empowers the competent authority (the District Magistrate of the district) to dispossess any person who unauthorisedly has taken possession of any Migrant Immovable property.

In the context of the provision of law in the State may I ask the higher echelons of the Government whether they know that no District Magistrate has complied with the provision of the law and taken over the possession of the Migrants immovable property except mine because as soon as I came to know the enactment of the law I enquired about it from the Dy. Commissioner Badgam. Despite my having wired several telegrams and posted registered AD letters no reply was received by me from the said officer. Consequently I met Jenab A M Naik then Revenue Minister who got things right and the then Dy Commissioner, Badgam, Mr G A Peer did the job.

So far as my information is concerned no District Magistrate has cared to do his job and bring the related provision of law into act. Though there is an obvious reason for this non-function of the officers but it will look rather impertinent for me to note down the cause for this non-action. Let the Migrants look into the provision of the law and act instantaneously rather than selling off the property in their Homeland. It will be disastrous for the whole community which started being hounded out since 1320 AD. They are Kashmiris and Kashmir belongs to them as much as it belongs to the ethnic majority.

Yours etc...
R K Sher
Jammu.

Unemployment problem

Sir,

The National Agenda of NDA Government appears yet to be a mystery, as no concrete things so far have been visible since its formation. Numerous commitments done with the people at the time of Lok Sabha Election, proved hollow till now. An important issue of National importance is the problem of unemployment and resultant poverty. The Centrtal Government has taken no adequate steps to eradicate unemployment in this country. Instead, it aggravated such problems by raising the retirement age of Central Government employees by 2 years i.e. from 58 to 60 years. Such step might have been taken either under financial bankruptcy or to please old employees at the cost of future career of the well qualified energetic and deserving candidates. Moreover, by the time most of them may become unfit for the Government job due to overage.

On the other hand, the extended retirement age has affected the young working staff very badly due to stagnation problem with regard to pay scale and rank. The result is frustration and discontent among such victimised employees.

The present Government has not even spared the poor class of people for whom it doubled the price of kerosene oil in one go. It is a well known fact that poor man cannot live without kerosene oil being otherwise cheap in comparison to cooking gas. But wonder, it is not presently available to them even at this higher price. What to speak of other basic amenities like food, shelter, drinking water, electricity etc. During the fifty three years of self rule about one fourth population of India is unsheltered and underfed. The main cause for this poverty is unemployment.

However, it is an opportune time to reverse the present retirement age order with no delay so that deserving and under employed persons can be employed in bulk and side by side vacant posts available in different departments may be filled up with no wastage of time.

Yours etc...
S L Koul
Bharat Nagar, Ban Talab,
Jammu.

A lesson to learn

Sir,

About two weeks ago Captain Shekhar Ghosh of the Indian army was killed while fighting terrorists in Kashmir. According to reports he was chasing 2 terrorists, and managed to injure them. The terrorists signallled as if they were surrendering. So Captain Ghosh asked them to put their weapons down. One terrorist acted as if he was putting his gun down, but instead lobbed a grenade which killed Captain Ghosh.

Although Captain Ghosh managed to kill both of them before dying himself, this loss of a trained officer is a terrible blow for our army.

Before the advent of outside forces, the Indian Kingdoms used to fight based on Dharma. No civilians or surrendering soldiers were attacked. But today the reality demands shoot first and ask questions later.

I hope our armed forces modify their methods and always make sure the terrorists are dead before exposing themselves unnecessarily. There is no need for any chivalry in today's kill-or-be-killed world.

After all, Adharma can not be fought with Dharma.

Yours etc....
Sangeeta Sinha
213/A Gol Bajar
Raipur ( (M.P)