Other States - Orissa   

Tactful handling

UPA Government led by the Congress evaded a major controversy by skipping Bharatratna Award this year, but the party should be blamed for politicising the highest civilian award in 1990s.

Former Congress Leader Rajiv Gandhi by virtue of son of Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India in 1984 and then won the election cashing in on sympathy wave. His first few years went past to know the system and acclaimatising with political atmosphere.

He could have devoted only two to three years in prime ministership, which was later not free from corruption (Bofors) allegations. If one analyses his contributions to polity as well India’s development, it was nothing. Then how could such a person was bestowed Bharatratna.

If Advani demanded the award for Atal Behari Vajpayee, then what is wrong in it? Why communists became incensed? Why did not they voice concern during Rajiv Gandhi? Don’t ridicule anybody’s name, because you are politically opposed to him. There should be a proper selection committee for the award and they should be answerable to people for selecting anybody.

Swati Patnaik

Bhubaneswar

Former health minister Bijoyshree Routray was accused of swindling crores of rupees those were received under World Bank project.

Question arises whether one minister is capable of defrauding such a huge amount without knowledge of senior IAS officers or a hundreds of employees in Health Department.

Then what Naveen Patnaik was doing being Chief Minister of the State?

He should have intervened when the corruption was just taking place.

Had the World Bank not come up with such a report, money would have been stomached by whole system.

The State Government should carry out detail investigation as to how the World Bank money trickled down to grassroots. Who are the officers who gave their consent to improper use of the money? Where were the sub-committees and Vigilance Department that failed to sniff corruption in the first place? All should be made accountable.

Mrinal Sahoo

Keonjhar

It was quite overwhelming to know from your newspaper that Gjodahada reservoir in Ganjam district has quite a number of Mugger crocodiles, which had for some reasons remained out of the view of the Forest Department till date.

At last the Forest Department has come out to enumerate the crocodiles in this irrigation reservoir for the first time.

It may be the first step towards getting this reservoir turned into a crocodile sanctuary. But the wild life experts should first study the reasons why the crocodiles in this reservoir have not migrated out of it till date and keep those environmental parameters intact for times to come. Otherwise the crocodiles may start to migrate out of the reservoir once it gets sanctuary status. One can learn from Lakhari sanctuary.

Till Lakhari was not an elephant sanctuary, elephants were living in it without any problem. But after it turned into a elephant sanctuary, the pachyderms started to migrate out of it.

Arjun Swain

Berhampur

“The Kadambinee” the largest circulated family monthly heritage magazine of Orissa recently celebrated its 5th annual national writers’ meet at Bhubaneswar (The Hindu January 7). Eminent writers, dramatists, actors and others from different parts of India had participated in the meet. Since the Centre and State had no adequate funds for development of theatre, the participants suggested the Government to prevail upon industrialists and corporate houses to provide adequate patronage.

It suggested that since theatre art was slowly fading out, it should be included as a subject in school curriculum so that it will penetrate in the minds of children from the beginning. Such valuable suggestions were beneficial for the development of culture.

The meet also felicitated several Oriya writers who had distinguished literary records for several years. K.C.Mohanti GGP Colony, Bhubaneswar

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