1) City’s crumbling infra
Three days of incessant rains brought city infrastructure crumbling. The rain readiness claim by BMC appears a thing of the past and there is no ultimate solution to the persisting problems. Bombay High Court has taken a serious note of the blame game that has ensued between the Western Railway and the BMC over the Andheri bridge collapse. The road bridge at Grant Road was closed after a long meandering fissure was spotted and after repairs, the road was reopened. It was felt that it was only a surface crack and it is not a big deal for BMC to act. But the fear factor came up after a part of the bridge linking Andheri east to west collapsed on railway tracks following heavy rains. The government machinery failed to come up with their promises and the citizens facing all kinds of problem with the initial burst of rains. Bridges are collapsing and the corporation is not able to do anything because it has not bothered to carry out audits. In the wake of incessant rains, the roads became bad and the railways suffered a major setback and potholes and craters gave horrible time to road users. Rain readiness is just in the papers of BMC and no serious effort was taken to meet pressing problems during monsoon rains. It is total infrastructure failure in Mumbai.
– Nickhil Maniam
2) Negligence of Congress’ former PM from non Nehru-Gandhi family
It is significant to note that Congress party pioneer in giving big newspaper-advertisements on birth and death anniversaries of former Prime Ministers coming from Nehru-Gandhi family, does not do so for other former Prime Ministers coming from Congress. For example, there was no remembrance by Congress for former Prime Minister PV Narsimharao on his birth-anniversary on 28th June. Congress even deliberately never highlighted importance of its other leader Sardar Patel who if would have been crowned for his most-deserving position as first Prime Minister of India, could write a glorious trouble-free post-independence history of India. It is great of present central government that it has given due honour to Sardar Patel even though he was from Congress party.
If Congress is not taken as some political industry owned by a single family, it can revive its dominating position in Indian politics by crowning some undisputed capable personality as its President like was done by making APJ Abdul Kalam as President of India. There are several such known personalities in India who can definitely save Congress from a complete ruin. It will be in national interest too by ensuring an ideal democracy with strong two-party system abolishing role of black-mail and corrupt politics of regional political parties
– Madhu Agrawal
3) Brazil’s defeat in FIFA is a shock
Brazil’s shock defeat at the hands of Belgium was end of South American rule in world soccer as not a single nation from that part of continent made it to the last four of FIFA World Cup. Brazil dominated against Belgium but could score only a solitary goal against two netted by Belgium. South American nations including Brazil are good at dribbling skills but it was the precision ‘passes’ and finishing skills that saw the Europeans including Belgium dominating world soccer in Russia this year. Asian countries including Japan and South Korea played well and they should be a force to reckon within world soccer in the years to come.
World famous soccer players Ronaldo and Messi couldn’t live to their reputation of popularity as they go down in history without a FIFA World Cup trophy in their chest. Popularity has no bearing in a World Cup game and what matters is the ability to score in situation of pressure and tension!
– S.N.Kabra
4) Ban advertisements of cola-drinks
Mega-star Amitabh Bachchan once disclosed at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmadabad about his not advertising for cola-drinks after a school-student at Jaipur drew his attention about harmful ingredients in cola-drinks. It is significant that cola-companies voluntarily stopped selling cola-drinks in schools worldwide in view of increasing obesity in school-going children. Indian government should also not only ban advertisements but even sale of cola drinks in the country. Earlier also, soft-drink manufacturers were asked to remove an oil from their products which was found to be harmful for health.
It is time that Union government, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and soft-drink manufacturers should revive drinks like old and famous rose-flavoured ones, which can not only replace cola-drinks in India but even dominate global-market by breaking monopoly of harmful cola-drinks in tune with Prime Minister’s ambitious ‘Make in India’ concept. It will rather earn foreign-revnue for the country rather than Indian money being drained out to multinational cola-manufacturers.
– Subhash Chandra Agrawal
5) Legalising betting and gambling
etting and gambling ban could be counter productive and could be taxable and a source of FDI and there is need for betting to be linked to Aadhaar and PAN card to clear the mess. Since it is not possible to prevent these activities completely, effectively regulating them is the only viable option. In a move that will help the government keep a vigil on individuals indulging in gambling or betting, the panel suggested that transactions between gamblers and operators should be linked to their Aadhaar or PAN cards. In addition, the panel opined that the additional revenue generated should be taxable under laws like Income Tax Act, and the Goods and Services Tax Act. Thus, there is every chance of both betting and gambling legalised in India.
– C.K. Ramanathan
6) Mithi river making most of pollution
The dirty picture emerged as Mithi river is posing a problem of pollution in the heart of the city. The unsafe air we breathe is causing all the health related problems. The health issue crop up once monsoon rains is at its peak and this particular dirty river start over flowing in the streets of Kalina and other places. It emnates both Nitrogen dioxide, Sulphur dioxide and the quality of the air becomes bad to worse. Water related diseases like cholera, dengue, malaria and viral diseases cause hell of a problem and the citizen of Mumbai sufer as the polluted rivers pose many probems. It is high time that Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) should pay heed to the fact and clear the debris from the polluted river like Mithi and pave way for free flow of water. There needs to be a stricter compliance.
– Chitra Rugmini
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
