L E T T E R S    T O    T H E    E D I T O R

Campus violence: time to act swiftly

The spine-chilling TV images of the clash between two groups of students at the Dr Ambedkar Government Law College campus, Chennai, were a pointer to the declining values of education. One feels sad about the lack of discipline and tolerance among students.

Premier institutions of learning have become battlefields, thanks to political parties which have succeeded in exploiting the student community to meet their selfish ends. Using students as pawns, they have split them on the basis of religion, caste and other factors.

The parties are misguiding them to indulge in violence, arson and group fighting. The result is what we saw last Wednesday. Such scenes are very often repeated in educational institutions.

DILBAGH RAI, Chandigarh

Pirate vessels

It was a right move on the part of the Indian Navy to sink the pirate mother vessel in the Gulf of Aden. There have been instances earlier when the coalition forces operating in the area have repulsed hijacking of merchant vessels but allowing the pirates to go scot-free.

With the ransom money being taken by the pirates, they can have big vessels and hence venture out anywhere in the oceans where merchant vessels will be easy prey for them.

The international community should understand this. It will have to get rid of this new piracy threat, or else the results will be drastic, specially with the world economy facing recession.

Capt. GURMEET SINGH, Pathankot

Bindra’s coach neglected This is with reference to the news item “Gold for Bindra, neglect for coach” (Nov 21). It is really sad that the man behind Abhinav Bindra’s Olympic Gold Medal in Beijing has been totally neglected by the Centre and state governments. Colonel Dhillon should be considered as Dronacharya, who could shape Abhinav to achieve what he promised 13 years before. It is surprising that the Punjab government honoured Dr. Bhattacharya, who was Abhinav’s mental trainer, but conveniently forgot the coach who turned him to be a crack-shot marksman in rifle shooting. We must honour such devoted coaches so that they inspire to produce more and more Abhinav Bindras. From any yardstick, Col J S Dhillon deserved to be honoured with the Dronacharya Award. Capt (Retd) AMAR JEET, SAS Nagar

Dengue epidemic

Dengue is taking its toll in most of the districts of Punjab. Bathinda, Ludhiana and Jalandhar are badly affected with dengue. The government has not made elaborate arrangements to stop its spread.

The lakes of the Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant are a big source of mosquitoes. None of the authorities like the Municipal Corporation, the PSEB or the Health Department has taken any measures to eradicate mosquito menace from this important and thickly populated area of the town.

There are many other steps which authorities must take immediately to arrest further spread of dengue in Punjab.

P. N. GUPTA, Sangrur

Face-saver for CBI

Eventually, the CBI saved its face by arresting two priests and a nun in the case related to the murder of Sr Abhaya. Congratulations to the media for its untiring effort to bring this infamous long pending case to a turning point. The case is one which proved the ineptitude of the executive and the bureaucracy. 

The arrests in the case made after 16 years of investigation prove the efficacy of the judiciary and the media.  The pending nature of the case indicates how influential the arrested are. The confidence of the parents of Sr Abhaya that they would get justice in the case is commendable.

The local police officers who investigated the case and wrote it off as one of suicide should be arrested. The doctor who conducted the postmortem and reported it as a suicide case and the chemical analysts who tampered the laboratory results should also be punished.

K A SOLAMAN, Alappuza (Kerala)

Endangered profession

I entirely agree with the views of Mr Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission of India, expressed in a news-item in The Tribune (November 20) that the forces of globalisation and liberalisation, manifesting in India’s march towards an unregulated open market economy, are “killing the academic profession”.

The large presence of MNCs in the Indian markets, particularly in the ICT sectors, has poured money and shown the moonshine of materialism to our youth; and lured by that most of them try to acquire that much level of knowledge and training that is barely adequate to enable them to achieve utilitarian objectives.

Out of three lakh engineers produced in the country every year, barely 600 of them pursue a PhD course. Almost the same is true about other disciplines. That is why 16000 qualified teachers will be required for our universities and higher and technical institutes next year, but only 12000 PhDs are available.

The Knowledge Commission and the UGC Pay Revision Committee have been rightly worried about the availability of good quality teachers to train a competent and skilled human resource, which may not be achievable owing to the mundane values spewed up  by an insensitive open and unregulated economy.

To induce and motivate more talented and bright young scholars to take up teaching and academic profession, very attractive pay scales have been recommended by the UGC/MHRD; and now it is for the government, particularly the state governments, to implement the recommended pay scales which have been proposed by highly competent technical experts, in consistence with the requirements of the contemporary academic scenario.

Prof VIKRAM CHADHA, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar