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Disaster management

Sir,

Disaster-the demon, disguised as high, brutal, merciless waves ravages the low, humble, merciful coast, Disaster invades the flourishing green fields with its giant feet; disaster envelopes the peaceful brown huts in its hostile arms: disaster grasps the laborious farmer within its enemy tentacles-and swallows all lonely creatures who dare to obstruct its path. Disaster the devil exhausts its energy and abandons its victims but disaster the spirit rejuvenates its strength and haunts its prey. And so disaster prevails-on the bank, in the fields, in the hearts-in every nook and corner. Nothing but disaster is prevalent. Prevalence is disaster itself.

Disaster the evil force wakes up from its deep slumber-hungry and restless. He raises his monstrous head from under the blanket of the earth and the soil cracks, the seas roar, the mountains split up. The land moans with the pain of disaster and the sons of the land groan with their dying mother. Disaster the monster shook the earth, weakened the crust, agitated the waters and shocked the man. Disaster the lethargic devil submits to its drowsiness again, but alas disaster the fear awakens in the hearts of anxiety-ridden, desperate human beings. Thousands of men, women and children shuffle off the mortal coil, but disaster lives on.

Disaster sweeps the country in a single, fatal, horrific stroke. From the coastland in Orissa to the deserts in Gujarat, from the mountains in Kashmir to the island in Kanyakumari, disaster asserts its authority. Disaster the incurable nervous ailment afflicts the minds of our great leaders and they commit disastrous blunders. Disaster reigns at the centre and rules in the states. The whole nation bears the disastrous consequences of its disaster-prone temperament.

Indians invite disaster to call on them and prove excellent hosts by virtue of their pretence, inefficiency, inconsistency and negligence. We were neither born with disaster-management skills nor did we learn the survival technique from the west. Our disastrous flows expose us to disaster-disaster bares our vulnerability. Our disaster pessimism renders us helpless in the face of disaster. Ours is truly a sad tale-it opens with a disastrous action and closes with an equally disastrous reaction. As long as there is a catastrophe within us, there will always be one without.

Fellowmen, at last I have located the disaster alarm and as I press it, its shrill cry shatters the silence of the night and urges all and sundry to rise above their shortcomings and break free of their inhibitions. It calls upon us to respond positively to a negative indication and strive hard until disaster ceases to lurk menacingly on our lives.

Yours etc..
Sukhmani Khorana
e-mail-sukhmanill@usa.net

Frequent fires

Sir,

I want to convey that it is a matter of great concern to the whole country that within a year at three places the ammunition depots caught fire.

Last year at Bharatpur in Rajasthan whole of the ammunition Depot was burnt in a drastic fire. After few months, another ammunition depot caught fire in Pathankot. The latest one at Suratgarh in Rajasthan.

Rough estimates shows that more than 3000 crores of rupee of this poor country whose one third of population still lives under poverty lines was burnt because of these fires. Big portion of budget is allocated at defence every year and this is the hard earned money of the tax paying community. The matter which is very painful to the public is that whenever such things happens in defence, no one is held responsible. The enquiries are so secret that nobody knows the fate of such probe. One reason cited in newspaper about such fire was of high temperature which is not easily digestable. Reasons for such fires are some thing else and that can be brought out by a fair and impartial enquiry conducted by a civilian committee headed by experts in this field.

Yours etc...
Shashi Sharma
Pacca Danga Akhnoor.

Woes of OBCs

Sir,

The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India during its historic Judgement in the year 1992 on the Mandal Commission report has provided 27 percent reservations in Government services for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) comprising of 63 castes but our State Govt. has given only 2 percent reservation to these castes and rest 25 percent distributed to other groups of backwards under the grab of RBA and ALC which otherwise should have gone to the real OBCs. On one side, the government, opposition parties and other bureaucrats say every now and then that J&K is an integral part of the country but on the other side when the question of implementation of Mandal Commission Report and Supreme Court Judgement arises, all so-called secular and national forces keep mum for the reasons best known to them. Not only this, but when these OBC people apply for issue of OBC certificate to Tehsildars they are asked to produce copy of Jamabandi for identification of caste although all know that the people of these castes during Maharaja's were not authorised to hold a piece of land even for their living as a result of which they have to abandon the idea of getting said certificate. However, in case any person after facing great difficulties manages to obtain the said certificate, the same requires renewal every year thus putting him to face more hardships on such occasions in getting the same done due to baseless and unnecessarily requirements of the renewing authority i.e Tehsildars. As the OBC certificate is issued on caste basis there is no need of renewal as is being done in respect of scheduled caste certificate. I, therefore, on behalf of the OBC people appeal to the Chief Minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah to take personal interest in the whole matter and ensure early solution to the problems being faced by a major chunk of population in the state.

Yours etc...
B L Balwal
Udhampur
 
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