The Hindu : New Delhi News : Reader's Mail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 22, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Reader's Mail

Back to steam age

It is commendable that the Northern Railway authorities are running a Heritage Special every Saturday this month from Delhi Safdarjang on a non-stop circular trip via Hazrat Nizamuddin, Anand Vihar, Shahdara, Delhi Junction and New Delhi and back for people to enjoy the age of steam engines.

A freshly painted and decorated bullet-nosed WP locomotive No. 7200 -- built in 1947 by Baldwin Locomotive Works in the US and in active service with the Indian Railways till 1987, now maintained by the Loco Shed at Rewari -- has been hauling two vintage coaches owned by the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad on this heritage journey.

This weekly trip has been well patronised by locals and foreigners. Children of this generation who have never seen a steam engine in action are given the opportunity to clamber aboard the locomotive and sound the siren, before and after the start of the trip. Due to an excessive number of passengers, two additional sleeper coaches were also attached this past week and a lady ticket examiner was seen on board to catch joyriders who had barged in without purchasing tickets. The tickets were priced at just Rs. 26 per adult and Rs. 17 per child, and it is shameful that the well-heeled visitors tried to travel without ticket!

Govind Krishnan,
305, DJA Apartments,
Sector 13, Dwarka,
Delhi-110 075.

Happy New Year!

The New Year began with a holiday, and as the year goes by it promises to be one holiday after another.

The year will have 52 weeks and therefore an equal number of Sundays and Saturdays.

In addition there are 16 gazetted holidays and 17 other restricted holidays and an employee can avail seven out of the 17. Besides, there is half-day leave announced five to six times a year to enable employees to participate in Nagar Kirtans, etc.

If any minister or even ex-minister dies, the Government is magnanimous enough to declare a holiday at once for its employees. How many employees actually take part in a Nagar Kirtan or death procession is anybody's guess. None of the developed or seriously developing countries today enjoys the luxury of so many holidays that we Indians enjoy. At what cost really!

Dr. Naresh Raj,
34, Power Colony,
Patiala - 147 001.

Unhappy New Year

I am a subscriber of Dish TV (DTH).

During the first week of installation this January I used to get a few channels in Malayalam, except Surya TV. However, nowadays, channels like Asianet News, Asianet Plus, Amrita TV, Indiavision and Kiran TV (all Malayalam channels) are also eluding me. I have made a formal complaint to Dish TV Customer Care cell twice through e-mail, but instead of addressing my complaint they write back to me informing about their new services (adult channels, etc). They are not ready to provide Surya TV to me while a host of unwanted channels are thrust upon me. Instead, what they say over the phone is that I have enough of other Malayalam channels available to see!

Before switching to their connection, I used to get all the Malayalam channels through the neighbourhood cable operator, but not after opting for DTH.

If the customer has no choice to decide what to see and what not to see, the very purpose of introducing the new system stands defeated.

R. S. Nair,
1143, Sector 8,
R. K. Puram,
New Delhi -110 022

Aircraft pollution

Delhi and Mumbai have very dense skies with a number of foreign and domestic flights. These have increased enormously in the wake of the open skies policy of the Government.

These two are also among the most densely populated cities.

According to a recent U.K. Government study, emissions from U.K. aviation have increased by 70 per cent since 1990. The situation must be even more appalling in Delhi and Mumbai where air traffic has increased hundreds of times. It is bound to increase further with more and more airlines, both domestic and foreign, making these cities their hubs.

Nowadays, with fierce competition among the domestic airlines, the fares in some cases are lower than the II A.C. rail fares, making more and more people take to air travel.

As we have no right to pass over a highly polluted world to the future generations, it is imperative, not only for our health but for sheer future survival, to review our aviation policy before aircraft pollution becomes unmanageable and control impossible. Let us not forget that emissions from aircraft are about four times as dangerous as those at the ground level.

G. M. Rama Rao,
9-31-7/2,
Pithapuram Colony,
Visakhapatnam - 530 003.

Calling UGC

I am a research scholar at the Department of African Studies in Delhi University. There are 27 M.Phil. research scholars during the 2006-07 academic year in addition to 20 Ph.D. research scholars. But there are only two permanent and one temporary teachers in the faculty, and even supporting staff is not sufficient. I would like to draw the attention of the University Grants Commission and the University of Delhi to try and fill the vacancies of faculty and staff.

In the entire country, there are only three universities with African Studies departments: the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Mumbai. It is all the more important, therefore, that research facilities here should be in top gear.

Rakesh Kumar,
M.Phil. Research Scholar,
Department of
African Studies,
Faculties of Social Sciences,
University of Delhi,
Delhi-110 007.

Outrageous

The Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry has rightly censured YouTube for its imprudence in showing the offending "Mahatma Gandhi video". Websites like YouTube and Orkut are growing at an outrageous rate. The I&B Ministry should be more stringent in checking the repugnant activities of such sites.

Gaurav Kumar,
B.Tech, V Semester,
Mechanical Engineering,
IIT, Guwahati.

(Letters for this column may be sent by e-mail to wsins@thehindu.co.in. They must carry the full postal address of the writer and should be marked "Reader's Mail".)

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