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COMMENT SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2012
Save our lake
Provide basics to students
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'm a resident of Saroornagar area and it hurts me no end to see the plight of it. It is particularly very sad to see the sight of the lake. Till a few years back, it wasn't that bad. But in the recent times, it has been damaged big time by illegal constructions that go even into the lake. The government even after being aware is taking no steps. It is outrageous. Raghuveer Reddy Saroornagar
t’s good to hear about the tabs being used as a tool in educational institutions. But it is very disheartening to see the government schools which run without proper classrooms or even benches for that matter. This is the place where a majority of our children study. So it’s a request to the government to look at such schools and provide at least basic infrastructure. Aman Agarwal West Maredpally
EDITORIALS Readers’ views We invite you to write to us comments, suggestions, viewpoint or just about anything to feedback@postnoon.com or #1246, Level 3, Jubilee Casa, Road No 62, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad – 500 033 or even by way of a call on 040-4067 2222.
Address kids’ plight
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read Postnoon regularly and I always turn to the centrespread first because I love the content in them. Yesterday's centrespread on street children was a very good piece of work. Hope their plight is addresses after this.Not only was the article informative and did justice to their plight, the pictures were simply superb. I hope to read many more centrespreads like this. Priya Rani Ameerpet
EDITORIALS MORE COPS MUST for quality policing Data provided by government sources have put Andhra Pradesh behind Uttar Pradesh in unfilled vacancies in the police force. Though dwarfed by 60 per cent of the posts unfilled in UP, the State’s 31 per cent vacancies are way above the national average of 25 per cent. In the last few years, AP has seen turbulent times in the law and order situation as crises raging from a separate state agitation to communal violence have plagued the State. Even more worrisome is the situation along the northern border of the State where there are constant incursions and violence by Maoists from the neighbouring states. Current shortage of personnel means that policing exercise is below par. Many senior officials admit off the record that their subordinates are forced to skip several ‘minor’ incidents that are reported to them. When there is no response from the guardians of the law, it is only natural that people turn to goons and other criminal elements to solve their problems. The deficit in police personnel strength needs to be addressed with urgency to avoid such situations.
WHY WE LOVE... veteran cricketers Touted earlier as the gennext version of the ‘lazy man’s sport’, for its demand of players’ having to play to their optimum energy levels throughout its course, Twenty20 has had to go back and rely on aging heroes. But with the likes of Saurav Ganguly and Muttaiah Muralitharan coming good, no one is complaining. In fact Dada’s performance against table toppers Delhi warmed the hearts of every cricket fan, the young and the not-so-young. Keep it coming Prince!
Indifferent parenting is showing From the Hip SYED SHOAIB
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nsh Agarwal, a 16year-old Class XI student was lynched by 30 people who were all more or less in the same age group as him. Many among them were minors. The reason was said to be an SMS sent to Ansh’s girlfriend by Siddhant Ghosalkar. Ansh went over to Siddhant’s house to confront him on this. An inevitable heated argument turned physical. Siddhant, along with 30 friends, chased down Ansh and the gang beat him to death, while passersby just looked on. The whole of Mumbai was shocked. Of the 30, eight have been arrested. The residents of the locality protested against the crime. This is not an isolated case; in another one reported from Odisha, nine minor boys were
arrested a week ago in the rape case of a 17-year-old girl. Horrific incidents involving teenagers are becoming too frequent to be ignored. We have been complacent till now as we brushed away violent acts committed by children as things that happen only in the West and hitherto believed that our children are impervious to such behaviour. This complacency comes from the confidence we have in our Indian culture where obedience, respect of elders, good neighbourliness and even sacrifice are accepted as instilled virtues. As members of very cohesive families and castes, we are taught to subsume the self to the general good of the group. Individuals toeing the line of the group are rewarded, while rebels, who become individualistic in the wrong sense, are ostracised and disowned by family, caste and community. To be chastised to live in social isolation in India is like being handed out the death sentence, for an individual can do nothing without the group — from celebrat-
ing a birth to mourning a death. Accepted, such strong mores strain and inhibit individual freedom, but if our youth break away from the shackles of this tight societal arrangement and exhibit extreme forms of negative behaviour, we, as parents need to give it a hard thought. With joint families giving way to nuclear ones as urbanisation spreads across the country, drastic changes are occurring in the living styles of the middle class. As both parents are away from the house and children for most part of the day in pursuit of ensuring adequate income for a comfortable life, it is only natural that there is little monitoring or mentoring of children. Children today do not have the counsel of wise grandparents to inherit values. Since parents and children spend lesser time together, making the relationship more like that of roommates, little or no guidance is coming forth from the parents either. Supervision and value education is left to be impacted by schools where children spend
most of their waking hours. But schools today cater to the demand of the times; that of churning out winners in a race of material success. Schools have relinquished their duties of inculcating values in children and nurturing all-round development. Is it a failure of our education system that it is promoting more and more competition among children and in the process pushing them to win at all costs? Demanding legal recourse to prevent such heinous acts is not the answer. Laws can be preventive or punitive in case of individuals who break them but what is the solution to a trend? And who is to blame for this deviation? The social fabric comes under severe strain when unbridled individualism becomes a way of life. The West is struggling to control the damage done after it tread that path for several decades. If we don’t put our house in order, our headlines won’t cease bleeding. The writer works for Postnoon.