The Hindu : Kerala News : Train to Ajmer

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Monday, Jan 28, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala

Train to Ajmer

The famous Dargah of the Sufi and saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer is visited by many, irrespective of caste, creed and religion. But lack of a direct train from Kerala causes a lot of difficulties to those visiting the holy shrine.

The only solution is the introduction of a direct train from Kerala to Ajmer. The train can run via Kankanadi, Madgaon, Ahmedabad, Abu Road and Marwar. As the train connects many cities en-route, it can cater to many passengers. I hope the railway authorities will look into it.

Abu Ahsan P.C.

Manjeri

Elocution contests

Most of the participants at the recently concluded 48th State Schools Festival held in Kollam maintained high standards.

They showed adequate proficiency and talents in their respective fields. Generally speaking, the overall conduct of the programme was well and good, except for certain pitfalls in some competitions as in the English elocution contest. The topic of the contest was ‘The Relevance of ragging in contemporary society.’

Relevance means importance, suitability, aptness, etc, that has a positive connotation. Further, ‘ragging’ is an act prohibited by law in contemporary society. Judges should have a judicious mind that is in accordance with the law and justice of the polity and society. As a close observer, I found that the various criteria for judging a speech such as introduction, content, accent, emphasis, gesticulation, repetitions, conclusions, time limit were not meticulously taken into account while selecting the winners. Since the accent and usage of grammar are very important, professors in English would have been a better choice as judges.

I request the authorities concerned that in future, choose only qualified persons as judges, select an apt and suitable topic and fix maximum marks under each of the above criteria on a 10-point scale.

S. Rajan

Kozhikode

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