Mailbag

Shortage of teaching staff in High School Chiralla

Sir,

The young youth leaders visited Chiralla area of District Doda to have a spot view of the prevailing situation. The young leaders had local meetings at different places in which basic problems were highlighted. The problems of acute shortage of drinking water, in almost all the schools of the district. There is also shortage of teaching staff in the schools particularly in High School Chiralla. It was observed that only a few schools near the highway have required number of staff.

The leaders stressed the concerned administration of Education Department to taken immediate remedial measures to solve the problem by providing the deficient teaching staff. Pointing the example of High School Chiralla, where enrolment is 400+ and there are only three teachers in the school. So many times Hon'ble Chief Minister, Education Minister and Director School Education, Jammu have been requested, but all in vain. As far as CEO Doda is concerned, he has adopted the policy of not to do anything. Only to agree to do the things, but nothing has been done so far by him, with the result the most of the schools in the district are suffering without the requisite staff.

It is requested that the required teaching staff may be provided immediately to save the careers of the students otherwise the condition of the schools is going to worse and it will ultimately spoil the students and on the whole atmosphere of education department.

Yours etc....
Raja Ajmer
Distt. Doda.

Ignoring the facts

Sir,

I have thoroughly gone through the article Kosovo V/s Kashmiri implications for India, published in your esteemed daily on 26.9.99. The writer has intentionally avoided the facts to nourish his point of view. Had Yogoslavian Army acted solely against KLA, there would have been no mass exodus on such a large scale besides demolition of Mosques and human slaughter. True America lend a helping hand to Kosovars for it's vested interests as it refused to Kurds and Palestinians on the same ground. But weighing the miseries of Kashmiries sitting miles away in one's air conditioned rooms and magnifying vague rather hypothetic non-sense seems quite a futile exercise by the author. It is the wearer who knows where the shoe pinches, where making both ends meal by the sweat of one's brow becomes difficult, how can a common man think for the redressal of his rights violation. No doubt allegations of some human rights violation have remained unsubstantiated simply because the watch dog himself was skimming the milk.

Active support of Kashmiries to the ongoing militancy for ten long years cannot be simply brushed aside. What made them sustain militancy? Their resentment against arbitrary rule of the political set up and rigging of 1987 polls in which a decisive mandate was given to the Muslim United Front (MUF) in the valley. Then, had the money spent on anti militancy operations till now, spent on accommodating sixty thousand youths of pro-militancy period, this problem would not have aggravated.

Having learnt an unforgetable lesson from militancy, redressal would have been a perfect healer, but thanks to the self elected representatives who have further multiplied the problems. Yet their tall and hollow claims of transparency and efficiency stand by the test of time.

Yours etc..
Mohd Ayaz, Mughal
274 Mohalla Ustad,
Jammu.

No indepth study

Sir,

It was shocked to read an article 'Development of Hindi in J&K' by D.C. Sharma. The poor fellow has disseminated wrong information. He even does not know the basics of the organisations involved in the propagation of Hindi and its literature. I am pinpointing the mistakes the author has committed.

* There was no paper or magazine titled Vidya Vikas as refered in the article. It was Vidya Vilas.

* Poet Dattu belonged to Bhaddu and he started his career in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Dev and not during Brajraj Dev.

The author does not know that Hindi language and its writing started after 10th century and ample of literature, popularly known as Veergathayen, was written from 11th century. He picks up the thread from Bhakti movement which was the 2nd stage.

There are scores of pioneers in the field of propagation of Hindi in this state. In Kashmir only, we find Parmanand, Krishan Razdan, Thakur Joo Manwati, Haldar Joo Kukroo, Durga Prasad, Zinda Koul, Govind Koul Jalali, JD Zadu, Jia Lal Koul, Arjun Nath Raina, Dina Nath Nadim and the list goes on. They were the writers of pre-independent era.

Ramakant Shastri, Ramnath Shastri, Dharam Chand Prashant, Dinoo Bhai Pant, Ved Rahi, Shyam Lal Sharma, G.N. Koushik, Pt Hardutt Shastri, Ganga Dutt Vinod, Madhup and scores of others were doing lot of work in Jammu.

Hindi papers and magazines like Chandrodya, Mahavir, Vitasta Jyoti, Prakash, Kashyap, Daily Martand from Kashmir and Bharti, Usha, Ratan, Gulab, Dharam Marg, Yojana, Deepak Vasudha etc. were the magazines published from Jammu.

Organisations like Ram Shaiva Treka Ashram, Ishwar Shaiva Treka Ashram, Arya Samaj, SD Sabha, Jeewan Sudhar Sabha, Mahavir Dal, Hindi Parishad, Hindi Pracharini Sabha, Hindi Sanskrit Sahitya Manda, Hindi Sahitya Mandal, Sahitya Sangam, Yuva Hindi Lekhak Sang and scores of other organisations are there which did a yeoman's service to the language and its literature.

In the post independent era PN Pushap, Subhash Bhardwaj, Sutikshan Anadam, Pathik, Om Gupta, Ashok Jerath, Ramesh Mehta, Nirmal Vinod, Usha Vyas, Baldev Neelam, Neelam etc. did a lot in this field. Nothing is mentioned in this article about them. If he had no knowledge of the subject he should not have written the article. He should have consulted books like Kashmir Mein Hindi written by PN Razdan or Jammu Kashmir Mein Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihas by Ashok Jerath.

Yours etc.....
Tirath Singh Jamwal
Patoli, Old Janipur