1) SC and HC’s RTI-related judgements online
It refers to the Central Information Commission (CIC) fulfilling a long-pending requirement of putting RTI-related verdicts from the Supreme Court and High Courts on its website separately for verdicts from Supreme Court and High Courts under four different formats on each web-link. But two item-numbers (2) and (3) are common on the two web-links: https://cic.gov.in/supreme-court-rulings and https://cic.gov.in/high-court-rulings. It will be more user-friendly if two web-links may be merged for easy accessibility for users. Moreover link in respect of ‘’Some Case laws on frequently asked questions” needs modification so as to include decision-output of the mentioned court-judgements under the link. It should be ensured to regularly update newly incorporated web-links.
CIC should also put a regularly updated subject-wise compendium of DoPT circulars on RTI. Such a compendium was last compiled by DoPT in the year 2013 and was found very useful. But since DoPT is not bringing an updated version of the compendium, CIC should incorporate it on its website with the provision of an auto update on the issue of any new DoPT circular.
– Subhash Chandra Agrawal
2) More rains, Mumbai marooned
Maximum city looked marooned after three days of rain and disaster struck railway passengers on a train. Mumbai was placed under high alert and Navy was on standby to avoid further disaster. Hundreds of passengers were rescued from stranded Mumbai bound trains and the electrical sub-station in Vasai was under water causing a black out. Mumbai grows length and breadth with much infrastructure and the city’s rain woes exposed BMCs rain readiness promise totally. With more and more high rise buildings are coming up in the city without proper planning there is little room for rainwater to flow off streets. However, the corporation is not insisting for rain water harvesting as compulsory to the builders, the situation is becoming bad to worse. Low lying Parel, marooned Hindmata, rain water surrounding Sion all pathetic scenes of the commercial capital. Unplanned growth is the reason for all the miseries and monsoon rains cause innumerable deaths and cause extensive damage to the properties. It is a matter of shame that the disaster management cell in place is helpless. It is time to set right the corporation by filling the potholes and prepare for laying concrete/rubberised roads by starting the work from September so as to complete it before June and pave best roads for the tax payers’ money.
– C.K. Ram Nath
3) ‘Tata’ Mistry!
It was a shot in the arm for the Tata group and victory for corporate governance as The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) dismissed Cyrus Mistry’s petition challenging his removal as Tata Sons Chairman. Professionalism is the order of the day and any wrongdoings need to be punished. Cyrus acted against company’s interest by disclosing certain information to the media and other agencies for personal gains for which he was sacked by his Board. The NCLT judgement is noteworthy as it would dissuade other such wrongdoings in the corporate world.
Ratan Tata is a respectable name in India’s corporate history and pointing fingers at his honesty and integrity by Cyrus was unwarranted. It is a victory for Ratan Tata who should now sue Cyrus Mistry for damages. Cyrus Mistry on his part should apologise to Ratan Tata and not take the ongoing case to the next level to save his face. It seems to be an clash of egos but sanity should prevail and shareholders’ interest should never be compromised, more so from the House of Tata’s and Mistry which hitherto stood for Corporate excellence when it came to honesty and integrity in the past!
– S.N.Kabra
4) The Justified demand of renaming Allahabad as Prayag
It refers to the justified demand of UP Minister Sidharth Nath Singh to rename Kumbh-city Allahabad as Prayag. Allahabad was the distorted name given city by Mughal emperors having invaded India in the pre-British era. Even now Allahabad is also known as Prayag. The Dual naming of cities causing unnecessary confusion is also not proper. The Study should be made about ‘Kanpur’ distorted from ‘Kanhapur’ and ‘Lucknow’ distorted from ‘Lakshmanpur’. It is a historic fact that Lucknow was established by Lakshman, brother of Lord Rama like even Pakistan government acknowledging the fact that Lahore was established by Luv, elder son of Lord Rama. A UP town Faridpur has its railway-station named as Pitamberpur creating confusion.
Even though distorted spellings of many Indian cities have since been corrected like ‘Jalandhar’ from ‘Jullundur’ and ‘Shimla’ from ‘Simla’. But lot more remains to be done.The Distorted spelling of country-capital Delhi should also be rectified as ‘Dehli’ which means ‘Entrance’. Already neighbouring countries like China and Bangladesh have changed spellings of their capital cities from earlier Peking and Dacca to Beijing and Dhaka respectively. Though spellings of many other cities like Jalandhar, Shimla are already changed, Bareilly and Meerut still remain to be re-spelt.
Union Government should also adopt single name Bharat for the country abolishing British given name as India, in tune with unanimous resolution once passed by UP state-assembly. Otherwise also it is senseless to have two names for a country. Countries like Shrilanka and Myanmar have already done away with such British legacy when these countries are no more known as Ceylon and Burma.
Students and others born much after India got independence are often confused why a state in the eastern part of the country is named as West Bengal. Only old-timers know that since western part of pre-independence undivided Bengal came to India, the state was named as West Bengal, and East Bengal turned into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). To remove unnecessary confusion from minds of students and others, prefix West should be removed from the name of the state. Even name Pashchimbanga once suggested by the state-government is not correct because again it has Hindi pre-fix Pashchim in the suggested name. To avoid abbreviations like UP for Uttar Pradesh, MP for Madhya Pradesh etc, states should be named in single word.
– Madhu Agrawal
5) BJP has hatred for Christians
A few days back, a protest was held by prominent Christian leaders to protest against the statements made by Gopal Shetty, Member of Parliament of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). The protesters, comprising of many famous Christian personalities asked Gopal Shetty to apologise for the statement he had made that Indian Christians are angreez (foreigners) and that they had played no part in the Indian freedom movement. Gopal Shetty refused to apologise for the statement he made and stood firm on his commitment.
This clearly shows that the present ruling party, the BJP, have a hatred for Christians. In fact, Christians played a major role in the Indian freedom struggle. Joseph ‘Kaka’ Baptista of Mumbai even coined the slogan ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it.’ But Lokmanya Tilak stole the slogan from him and our history books now tell us that it was Lokmanya Tilak who coined the slogan, which is totally wrong.
– Jubel D’Cruz
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
