M A I L B A G

Pious profession of teaching disgraced

Some days ago a girl student of Government Senior Secondary School, Kasauli, who was mercilessly thrashed by the PTI of the institution, died at the PGI, Chandigarh. As a result of violence, indulged in by the angry protesters, some teachers received injuries and a good deal of school property was damaged.

Close behind this unfortunate incident, the irate people ransacked another Government Senior Secondary School building (again in H.P.), beat up teachers, even manhandled the police personnel and broke furniture etc in protest against the alleged molestation of a girl student by a teacher.

Schools are temples of learning. Their sanctity must be maintained. Violence and other undesirable activities should not be indulged in within the precincts of educational institutions. The teachers must possess virtuous conduct and character and treat the pupils as their sons and daughters. Corporal punishment should be banned.

The teacher who allegedly molested the girl student was a beast, not a human being. Can the honour of girl students be safe in the schools having such vile teachers? They should be straightaway ostracised. It is a pity that none of the various teachers’ unions, who always clamour for more and more benefits, has condemned the bestial act of the teacher bringing disgrace to the pious profession of teaching.

BHAGWAN SINGH, Qadian

SANTOSH YADAV, Rewari

Senior citizens In its latest credit policy, the Reserve Bank of India has permitted banks to offer more interest to senior citizens. A few banks have promptly done so along with a package of other facilities. This is commendable. However, many banks are dragging their feet on the pretext of getting board sanction for this. A senior citizen is anyone who has completed 60 years. Proof of age such as the voter identity card, LIC policy, pension payment order, passport or any other document acceptable to the bank is to be produced. Once accepted, renewals do not require proof of age. A joint account with a person below 60 is permitted provided the senior citizen’s name is first on the fixed deposit receipt. As it is prudent to have complete control of one’s funds till the end, it is suggested that if joint accounts are opened, they should be “former or survivor”. As regards safety of funds in all banks, a total of up to Rs 1 lakh (savings and fixed, all branches taken together) is automatically insured with the Deposit Insurance Corporation, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the RBI. M.R. PAI, Mumbai

Haryana bans LTC

At last Haryana too has woken up and decided to ban LTC (June 15). Many cases were coming to light where people were claiming LTC while sitting at home. One such interesting case came to light when in December, 1998, a Professor at H.A.U. took his girl-friend, an M.Sc. student who was living with him, and her sister to a South India tour, pretending to take his own two daughters. His wife with their two daughters had been living separately near Delhi for many years. She came to know about his misdeed, met the V.C. and demanded stern action against him as he had committed a fraud. He had not seen his daughters for the last six years.

Claiming LTC on their behalf was a case of cheating, but then he asked the V.C. to forgive him as he was retiring in a few months. No action was taken against him and was forgiven.

Dr SINGH, H.A.U. , Hisar

Why errors?

During my college days one of my professors once told our class the technique with which he learnt to write correct English during his student days.

“Since I could not afford to buy The Tribune’s fresh copies I would buy every month a small bundle of its past issues from some raddi-wallah. And after cutting, rather carefully, its editorials and keeping them in my scrapbook, I would re-sell the papers”, he told us.

“While reading these editorials I used to mark every new word that I confronted. Later, I would write all the sentences that carried the marked words along with their meanings, found after consulting my dictionary, in a notebook”, he elaborated further. Why he used to select editorials alone? “Because they are written by the best of the writers and are so carefully printed that they rarely carry printing or grammatical errors”, was his explanation. Today, when the printing technology has advanced tremendously, it pains to see silly printing errors, particularly in editorials.

“In short, he has compulsion into a virtue. In fact, the slashing of spending is political jugglery instead of converted a genuine reduction.” These two lines have been taken from the editorial “More of a PR exercise” (June 20).

BALVINDER, Chandigarh

PSEB laxity

In October last year the PSEB’s feeder cable providing electricity to my house was wilfully damaged by a local resident. It not only cut off electricity to my house but two workers narrowly escaped getting electrocuted. It was a crime both under the Indian Electricity Act 1910 and the Indian Penal Code.

I brought it to the notice of the PSEB’s Mohali office. They restored the electricity by temporary repair of the feeder cable. With the onset of the monsoon, water will collect over the portion of the feeder cable and it will get electrically charged, thus endangering the life of my family, children who play in the park and passers-by.

For over eight months now I have been harassed and persecuted by the PSEB. I have written to the SDM and the SP also.

B.S. KHOSLA, Chandigarh

Decision on mini zoo

The fate of the now closed mini zoo in Ram Bagh Gardens, Amritsar, is to be decided at a meeting of the Municipal Corporation (June 18). The decision to reopen the mini zoo will be unfortunate as hundreds of birds and animals will again be sentenced to imprisonment for no offence.

Dr SOSHIL RATTAN, Amritsar

Ignoring jawans

It is shameful that the government is not bothered about our brave jawans who are done to death everyday by militants. Take the case of the barbaric killing of 16 BSF jawans by Bangladesh Rifles men or the recent killing of 9 Assam Rifles jawans by underground insurgents. Our government’s failure to take tough action against any outfit shows that this government does not care for the jawans.

SUSHANT BAJAJ, Abohar