Row over birth place of Sai Baba
India now already seized with so many religious conflicts, courtesy pseudo-secular policies of long Congress regime for decades, is not in a position to bear more such controversies like now developed in Maharashtra Chief Minister announcing rupees 100-crore package for developing village Pathri as birth-place of Sai Baba that too when there have been too many theories about parents and birth-place of Sai Baba. Such unthoughtful announcement made Maharashtra Chief Minister to take a U-turn on the issue because of protests of Shirdi people.
There is no confirmation or firm religious faith about Pathri to be birth-place of Sai Baba unlike Ayodhya where there are no two opinions about the city being definitely birth-place of Lord Rama. Script-writers for speeches of President of India should also be careful in future because President in September 2017 mentioned Pathri to be birth-place of Sai Baba.
Madhu Agrawal
Reading preamble in schools creates a sense of unity
Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray making it mandatory for every school to begin the day by reading the Preamble to the constitution as well as singing the National Anthem should not be politicized but taken positively as it creates an sense of unity as well as nationality. Some may argue that it is to woo the supporters of Ambedkar who is the father of the Constitution or pleasing the Congress as the Preamble was penned by Jawaharlal Nehru who was the first Prime Minister of the country but we must look at the bigger picture of nationalism and unity which we must introduce to our children from an young age.
India has a rich history and culture that must be respected. Politicians will come and go and ruling parties at Centre will change but the communal fabric of our country should never be torn and we must be united come what may. Politicians sadly play dirty politics for votes but citizens should be united and be the judge for what is good for the country. Anything that unites the citizen of the country should be appreciated be it the singing of the National Anthem in cinema halls and school or reading the Preamble in school when the classes starts.
S.N.Kabra
MK Gandhi was not the only personality much higher than Bharat Ratna
It refers to Public Interest Litigation demanding Bharat Ratna for MK Gandhi wherein a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India commented that MK Gandhi was a personality much higher than Bharat Ratna. Such comments can be personal views of any member of public including judges of Supreme Court. But such comments should have been avoided being part of judicial proceedings because there are two schools of thoughts in this regard. While one school of thought recognises MK Gandhi as hero for independence of India through non-violence. But there is another school of thought which considers Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as the terror-force compelling Britishers to leave India through his Azad Hind Fauj. It is noteworthy that no Congress leader including MK Gandhi ever provided any legal help to great selfless Indian martyrs for freedom like including Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru etc to save them from being hanged by the then British rulers.
MK Gandhi misused his veto-power to undemocratically crown Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as first Prime Minister of the country, snatching the right of well-deserving Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for the post. Future happenings prove that policies of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru especially on Kashmir were disastrous costing nation heavily on defence of the country.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
EC should accept online nomination process
The Election Commission of India is accepting physical submission of nomination papers and withdrawal applications for both Assembly and General Elections. As technology now has outpaced the need for many paper based formalities, it is ironical that the ECI still adopts archaic paper-trail based system to accept nomination papers from the candidates. Hence even the candidates find it frustrating to file nomination papers physically while an online process will otherwise make it easy for them.
The process of submitting nomination papers under the physical presence of a returning officer may thus be replaced by a simple online nomination paper submission and further due verification/scrutinizing of online forms. The move helps to avoid the needless pomp and splendor of a candidate’s charisma displayed prior to filing a nomination and much before the polls itself. The voters on the other hand will be relived of the unnecessary hassles one has to face owing to such a grandeur including frustrating traffic chaos.
Varun Dambal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
