Every state should be allowed to display cultural performance at Republic Day
Rejecting Maharashtra’s request of a tableau at the Republic Day Parade in the national Capital is revenge politics by the ruling government at the centre. Even Bihar and West Bengal has been sidelined for similar reasons which doesn’t augur well for the unity of the country. Every State should be allowed to display a cultural performance at the Republic Day parade irrespective of the government in any State which may not match the government at the Centre.
A successful democracy is living with differences and trying to solve every problem at hand. Our communal fabric is our strength and politicians should not divide the nation on the basis of any parameters be it religion or differences among political parties. We still have time for Republic Day and hope every State is accommodated to perform.
S.N. Kabra
Parliamentarians must pay from salaries for non-availed train-reservation
It is quite usual practice amongst parliamentarians that they make multiple priority-reservations in First-Class Air-Conditioned coaches of railways in different trains for a single journey to get benefit of last-moment change in travel-programmes, but evidently use maximum one reservation in a single train. This is because all railway-bills for multiple reservations so made are paid by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats irrespective of journeys made or not made by Parliamentarians. Such a practice results in depicting full-reservation to normal commuters desiring to travel in First-Class Air-Conditioned class of trains. It also tends to result in corruption where rail-staff unauthorizedly allows travel persons bribing train-staff to use luxury of First-Class travel in air-conditioned coaches.
System should be formulated whereby Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariats may for rail-travel of Parliamentarians only on their getting signed and rubber-stamped forms issued by Train-Ticket-Examiners -TTEs for their actually travelling utilised reserved accommodation. Cost of rail-reservation paid by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariats for unutilized train-reservation may be deducted from salaries or pension of Parliamentarians.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
