The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, June 28, 2001, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I L B A G

Why eliminate stray dogs and cattle?

Every now and then letters appear in newspapers pleading for elimination of stray dogs and cattle. I wish to ask these well-wishers of society a few questions:

(1) Do humans have the sole propriety rights to this planet? Do animals have no right to live?

(2) Do these people fear God? No God-fearing being can ever call for the killing of another being, no matter how small, inferior, weak and defenceless.

(3) Have they ever come across or even heard of emotions such as love compassion, tolerance? Are these words only meant to be used at the Miss World/Universe pageants? The only human emotion they can comprehend and nurture is hatred!

4) Kill, destroy, eliminate... are these all they can think of? Don’t they have anything better to do, other than counting the number of dogs in their neighbourhood?

(5) Are they scholars of the “Hitler school of thought”, terming others “inferior” and calling for their elimination?

(6) Have they ever experienced pain? Have they ever seen a stray dog meet its end after being mercilessly poisoned and left to die the most painful death one can imagine?

Now someone will come up with “humane” methods of killing. But kill you must.

(7) Do such people have children of their own? Have they ever seen their own child in pain? Have they ever tried to save anyone from the jaws of death.

If they had, they would have known the value of life and hence would never ask for the killing of another being. No one has the right to take what he cannot give!

(8) Are they really human beings? Or...?

One in 20,000 dogs might become infected with the rabies virus and that too because of reasons beyond its control. Is that justification enough for the cruel elimination of the remaining 19,999.

People always ask the animal welfare societies to come forward and do something. I suggest if one in 5000 humans adopts a stray dog, the problem of stray dogs will be over in a day. No sterilisation drives, no cruel killings required.

But alas! the ratio of real humans to pseudo-humans is far below 1:5000.

In this greedy, self-indulging, materialistic world of the selfish primate which calls itself the “human being”, who has the time to care for another?

KULWANT SINGH, Shimla

PEC upgradation
This refers to a news item regarding upgradation of Punjab Engineering College to the status of deemed university (PEC given status of deemed university) (June 5). Chandigarh students will be put to loss as the reservation for the residents of Chandigarh will be reduced from 85 to 50 per cent. Since many students from the neighbouring states do plus two in Chandigarh, the total number of students appearing from Chandigarh for the CET becomes very large as compared to any other city.
The only people who will gain from this upgradation are the professors who are nearing the retiring age as they get the chance of serving up to 62 years. Sometime back, when this idea was mooted by an ex-Principal, Mr Rajnish Prakash, these very teachers had opposed the move. Now the same teachers are supporting this proposal because now they are the direct beneficiaries.
With upgradation, the college is to be run by a society, thus losing the patronage of the Chandigarh Administration, which ultimately will prove to be counter-productive as the administration is in a better position to maintain and run the college than a society.
The idea to open another engineering college in the polytechnic seems to be a distance dream since the polytechnic has nothing to offer except land.
It is, therefore, desirable that the reservation for the students hailing from Chandigarh should be retained at 85 per cent in Punjab Engineering College and only for those students have passed their class X also from Chandigarh in addition to the plus two.
S. K. SIKKA, Chandigarh

Peace & progress

In the write-up "Reminiscences" Hardev Singh Mattewal has beautifully brought out the difference between contentment and satisfaction. The present-day society is in the rat race for material progress. This leads to restlessness without any peace in spite of whatever material progress you may achieve. You strive for more and more and the restlessness increases. Material progress cannot achieve peace of mind. It is only contentment that brings real happiness and peace. There is great need for education on moral and mental hygiene in society, starting from schools where the age is most impressionable.

HARISH KHANNA, Panchkula

Selling of education

I fully endorse the views that have been put plainly in a well-meaning editorial "Selling of education" (June 21).

However, the concluding question in the editorial that "can one feel safe at the hands of a doctor who made it to the select band not because he had the necessary grey matter but because his father had the requisite greenbacks and clout?" has already been answered by all those big shots whom we address our editorials/views with the hope of some improvement in this regard.

Every time any of them needs medical attention, even of minor nature, he/she immediately flies off to the USA/UK for treatment. In case he/she is big enough, calls "phoren" doctors (may be of Indian origin), along with all the medical paraphernalia, to the "home ground" purely for "swadeshi" reasons!

Unless a strong people's movement starts against the rise of such a criminal vandalism in our education, things won't improve.

BALVINDER, Chandigarh

Medical seats on sale: The Haryana Government proposes to earn over Rs 6 crore from the admissions made to the seats reserved for NRIs. This has reduced the reservation for bona fide residents of Haryana to 81 as against 98 earlier, which means 17 candidates for admission to the MBBS course and three candidates for the BDS course who would figure in the merit list of the entrance test would be debarred from admission. That would be gross injustice to them.

The career of many brilliant but poor candidates would be marred by this new policy. The government should realise its folly and withdraw the reservation for NRIs, otherwise the judiciary should intervene and scrap the ill-conceived policy.

D. P. JINDAL, Mandi Gobindgarh

Kashmir migrants: I am a class XI student. I am basically a Kashmiri migrant and now residing at Chandigarh. I want to ask the authorities of Pt B.D. Sharma Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences: If you can keep 17 seats for NRIs’ wards, why can't you keep at least five seats for displaced Kashmiri Pandits?

POORVI GANJOO, Chandigarh