1) Akbar’s resignation leads to the victory of truth
Finally, nine days after being accused of sexual harassment by several women, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar resigned from his office. It is the first step towards the victory of justice and truth. Obviously, the decision must have been taken after the discussion the issue among the BJP top leaders. With no doubt, BJP took an appropriate step to exit Mr. Akbar, because it was becoming untenable to ignore all the allegations and also BJP’s continuous silence could have adverse electoral fallouts in upcoming general elections of 2019. I hope soon M J Akbar will be exposed in front of the court too and the truth will come to light about all the allegations.
– MF Qasmi
2) Scientific features of Hindu religion not understood properly
Proverb ‘Law is Blind’ fits fairly well to some court-decisions where counsels fail to explain and judges fail to understand salient features of world’s most scientific and ancient Hindu religion with controversial verdicts coming seriously hurting religious sentiments of the majority community.
Hindu religion comprises many welcome features which were made religious rituals so that people could not overlook these. For example, there used to be a system to throw coins in the river while crossing the bridge. This system had a scientific reason for purifying river-water through copper because, in earlier days, coins used to be of copper. Restriction on menstruating women to enter kitchens was made because women in those days feel weakness due to bleeding. Worshipping certain gods by women of a specific age-group was prohibited because such worshipped gods were Brahmcharis and it was not considered good to allow women of a certain age-group to worship them.
Since these religious rituals were at times misused by some priests to exploit people, Swami Dayanand brought Arya Samaj as a safeguard against misuse of rituals by some priests. Ruling party at the Centre, and if the not Central government, should propagate scientific reasons behind religious rituals of Hinduism because earlier pseudo-secular governments never tried to do so for appeasing vote-bank politics. Any such publicised analysis will be most useful in arguing in courts on matters of religious faith and belief. Women opposing such ancient traditions in name of equality are usually anti-religion, while Constitution gives right to follow religion.
– Subhash Chandra Agrawal
3) What kind of development is this?
Close to 10 millions spent to construct a public toilet on Marine Drive is a wasteful expenditure of the top order. The politicians who sanction these public utilities seem to have wrong priorities. Public hospitals in our country stink like toilets as they operate on meager funds while luxurious toilets are constructed for vote bank politics in elite localities for fame in areas where people don’t need these toilets for use. Democracy in our country is misused. Mumbai has the richest civic corporation in the world but the management is corrupt and faulty as taxes recovered from people is not optimally utilised.
Administration of public utilities should be handed over to private corporate bodies for accountability. Roads without potholes, pavements, flyovers, public utilities like trains and BEST buses, street lights in working conditions should be the priority and not toilets that cost crores. Sanitation too is important and let us also construct clean toilets (20 can be constructed in 1 crore) as many as required without wasting undue amount on luxury. Politicians should be made accountable for sums they sanction for utilities so that public money does not go to the drains!
– S.N.Kabra
4) The arrogant attitude of BSP MP’s son
It’s totally condemnable that BSP MP Rakesh Pandey’s son Ashish Pandey brandished a gun and threatened the son of a three-time former legislator from Delhi. Despite the victim repeatedly asked him to leave him and his friends alone throughout the confrontation, but he did not seem to leave them. It shows the arrogant attitude of BSP MP’s son. How he can dare to appear in a public place upholding a gun pointing at a citizen who was with his female friend? The administration should take a sticking step against this arrogant and teach him a lesson to prevent such horrible incidents to take place.
– F.T.Mulla
5) BJP should take action against M J Akbar
The chain of allegations against Union Minister of state for external affairs M J Akbar does not seem to stop as several new allegations came to light even after he filed a defamation case against one of his victims. But surprisingly the Modi-led government is yet to take any action against him who always talks about women’s safety and their improvement. Which moment is the BJP waiting for? Is it not enough to take action that more than 20 women courageously have revealed their bitter and dark experiences with M J Akbar? How a respected woman can be considered a liar when she speaks publicly about her sexual harassment? It clearly shows that women are immensely hurt not only physically but also mentally. So, the BJP should take action against the Union Minister.
– Mohd Rahmani
6) Govt should pay heed to core issues
It is being observed that some political leaders and Chief Ministers have renamed some of the cities in their states as presently UP’s CM Yogi Adityanath did the same restoring Allahabad’s name into Prayagraj. He also wishes to restore the name of some other cities and the trend goes on nonstop. It is obvious that the renaming of a place will not change the geography and infrastructure of the place. So, the government must pay heed to core issues such as population, water crisis, unemployment, garbage and sewage management etc. Moreover renaming of any place creates a lot of confusions and problems. The governments are wasting public hard-earned money on these irrelevant matters while a large number of people are giving up their lives in the country owing to starvation.
– Mohd Faheem
7) RSS must stand in women’s side
The RSS, which was yet to clarify its stand over #MeToo campaign, finally broke its silence and appeared describing the movement as “elitist”. It was also stated by one of top RSS leader that ‘common women, who face uncomfortable situations at the hands of common men, do not fall in the category of #MeToo campaign. This statement is not a good sign in women’s favour particularly when it comes from one of the most effective organisations in India. The RSS must stand up with women to meet them justice because it is high time to prove its concerns regarding women’s safety and their protection. Otherwise, this kind of statements from such big organisation will encourage the culprits to repeat the same crime and to play with women as an embodiment of enjoyment and amusement.
– M.F.U.Tandvi
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
