Articles and letters may be edited for the purposes of clarity and space. They are published in good faith with a view to enlightening all the stakeholders. However, the contents of these writings may not necessarily match the views of the newspaper.
“Anpadh” CM
The CM of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, is worse than a “buddu”. He does not know what he talks.
Today he will say something and tomorrow he will say something else. He hates Christians and hence did not allow us to have our Good Friday and Easter celebrations in church this year too.
He does not even allow us to have our Eucharistic celebrations in church on Sundays too.
What is he up to? It’s a shame that Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi keep supporting unintelligent and brainless people like him.
The entire Christian community of Maharashtra has decided not to vote for the Shiv Sena henceforth.
Maharashtra does not need a “buddu” and “anpadh” CM like Uddhav Thackeray who has got no brains and who does not even know how to run the state.
JUBEL D’CRUZ
Mumbai, India
Plight of Rohingya Muslims?
Apropos your editorial on the above subject last week. Myanmar was once a peaceful country.
The Rohingya people, of whom one million reside in Myanmar, are the world’s largest stateless population.
They represent the largest percentage of Muslims, the majority living in Rakhine State.
However, the Buddhist government of Myanmar denies them citizenship and even excluded them from the 2014 census.
This situation has involved forced displacement of Muslim Myanmar nationals from the Arrakkan and Rakhine states to neighbouring Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand in 2015.
From late August 2017 increased violence towards the Rohingyas caused the mass exodus of 655,000 people from Rakhine state to southeastern Bangladesh.
As of 2018, there were 954,500 Rohingya refugees, mostly residing in temporary shelters in Cox’s Bazaar and Bandarban.
With low vaccination coverage, a high prevalence of malnutrition, poor sanitation and scarcity of clean water, diseases normally preventable by vaccines such as measles, polio, diphtheria and tetanus are rampant.
In the monsoon season running from May to September, these areas, particularly Rakhine and Arrakkan states, are highly susceptible to rain-triggered landslides, flash floods and even cyclones. As the camps are in low-lying areas, the risk to these refugees is unbelievably high.
Two long-term solutions have been proposed. One is the return of the refugees to Myanmar following a possible agreement with Bangladesh.
The second is to move the refugees to Bhashan Char, an uninhabited stretch of land off the Myanmar coast.
The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution denouncing human rights abuses against the Rohingya refugees, which also calls for the Myanmar government to take urgent measures to combat the inciting of hatred against the Rohingyas.
Unfortunately Myanmar’s military coup last month has compounded the problem.
SAAD BHATTY
Islamabad
Covid 19 — the dreadful third wave
Covid-19 has changed the very course of human lives. With the third wave taking its toll on the entire world with God knowing how many variants of this pesky virus, what amazes me is the degree of human adaptability.
People have died, people have gotten irreparable health damages, people have had to bury loved ones and yet here we all are, still trying to pull on.
It is the same Italy where people actually resorted to dumping their loved ones’ corpses out of their homes when their healthcare crumbled under the pressure of this pandemic which ultimately popularized togetherness by going on their balconies to sing songs in unison; epitome of human resistance.
With work, education and training now being performed virtually, it further depicts how resistant mankind is because if it weren’t for the pandemic, we couldn’t even allow ourselves to fathom; let alone believe that we can achieve all of our daily activities behind a digital screen.
The era of smart gadgets has transformed from a metaphor to a more literal personification.
This sheer and somewhat incredible human resistance, persistence and the will to keep going on is perhaps why we all are still within reach of our sanity, albeit on the very brink of it.
It gives us hope that someday we will get back to the old normal and remember this new normal as the dreaded old normal.
Till then, we must quarantine, maintain social distancing and wear masks to protect ourselves from the fateful pandemic.
AAMNA KHAN
Via email
