Personal View

Tragedies point to an out-of-control industry and regulatory failure Alok Tiwari Three bus fires within two weeks in disparate parts of the country should wake us up to perils of private bus transport. The first one occurred on October 24 in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, and claimed 28 passengers. The fire apparently started from the AC unit of the bus and quickly engulfed the entire vehicle. The second one occurred ten days later in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, and claimed 20 lives, 19 of whom were passengers of the bus and a biker. The bike had met with a mishap and was lying on the road when the bus ran over it dragging it some distance. The friction seems to have ignited the fuel tank of bike that in turn caused the bus to light up. If you thought some lessons may have been learnt, a third bus fire occurred on Oct 28, again in Rajasthan, when goods kept illegally on top of a bus touched a high-tension wire. That ignited the bus resulting in death of two passengers with nine having suff...

While quality has to be enusred in medical education, it must be made more accessible Alok Tiwari The apparent irregularities in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to undergraduate medical courses in the country has presented the first crisis to the new central government. The scandal blew up barely as the government had taken office. The way it has responded to the crisis shows that it is very much a Modi 3.0 government and not an NDA government in true sense. It has shown the same lack of empathy and mulish disregard for the public opinion that have been the hallmark of prime minister’s first two terms. Whether it was farmers’ agitation or protest regarding CAA or the violence in Manipur, Modi government responded by simply ignoring them. It is almost as if the prime minister and his coterie believe responding to any public agitation is a sign of weakness. So it was when it became apparent all was not well with the way medical entrance exam was conduct...

Election setback is a message from Hindus to BJP  Alok Tiwari The chastening of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the just concluded general elections is important in many ways. Yes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is back in the saddle for a third time in succession and to that extent is entitled to feel a fleeting equivalence with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, something he has long desired. Yet, his government this time feels more like a consolation prize and not the gold medal he had aimed for. Modi supporters—I hate to call them even BJP supporters—would of course like to sugar coat it in many ways. Modi himself was at pains to point out that Congress’s tally of last three elections could not equal the even the reduced number of BJP seats of this time alone. But the sheer amount of sugar-coating effort being undertaken shows that any which way you look at it, it is a bitter pill. What is really of significance is that this pill has been delivered to Modi and the BJP by the Hindus. Ju...

A numbing fear of law enforcement lies behind India’s digital arrest travesty Alok Tiwari When reports came in last week of a 72-year-old Mumbai businessman having lost Rs 58 crore to ‘digital arrest’ scam, they were shocking only because of scale of this case. The scamsters, posing as officials of ED and CBI , told the victim his name had cropped up in a money laundering case . The poor guy gave his life’s savings to scamsters over two months. In this case, the police were able to nab seven people, including the alleged kingpin from Gujarat, and freeze some of the scammed amount in bank accounts leading to hope that the victim might get it back. However, that is a rarity. In most cases, the money just disappears within hours through a maze of accounts and often ends up abroad where local police cannot reach. If the amount involved is small, the police often do not even attempt to recover it. Numerous citizens have lost significant sums in the last few years to this scam. A gover...

Extremist politicians are perverting Hindu festivals with calls of Muslim boycott Alok Tiwari Congress leader Digvijaya Singh protests driving away of Muslim businesses and employees from Indore's Sheetla Mata bazaar The festive times are upon us, and I remember the time when I used to so look forward to them. It would be a time of endless cheer from the beginning of Ganesh festival to Durga to Dussehra and Diwali to intervening wedding season right up to Christmas and new year. Now though these times come with some trepidation and a sense of foreboding. You never know what new atrocity will be thrown upon you in the name of festivities or how some twisted mind will use it to further their political agenda. At a time when politics is all about asserting identity, particularly religious identity, festivals have become vehicles for projecting power. Ganesh and Durga festivals are less about fostering community living and more about outdoing each other in garishness of pandals a...

Cough syrup deaths are result of wilful neglect of pharma industry oversight Alok Tiwari It does not take much in India to die. Dangers lurk at every step. From a neglected pothole to a religious fanatic, anything and anyone can end your life’s journey in a moment. Even then, it was shocking when it surfaced that children, 17 at last count, had died over the last couple of months after consuming cough syrup Coldrif . Several more children are battling for their life. Even if doctors can save them, they will likely suffer permanent physiological damage including in kidney and brain. These children mostly belong to Madhya Pradesh and had died in hospitals in Nagpur where they were brought for treatment. They had all suffered renal failure . It took some weeks to link their sickness to consumption of cough syrup. It turns out that the syrup was adulterated with diethylene glycol (DEG), an industrial solvent. Coldrif is made by Sresan Pharmaceuticals based in Kancheepuram in Tami...

Dialogue, not arrogance and smear campaign, is the way forward in sensitive region Alok Tiwari Two years after it spectacularly and tragically messed up Manipur, one would have thought the central government had learnt its lessons. That turned out to be false hope. Just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally visited the troubled northeastern state, another border region blew up. This time it is Ladakh, an area much more sensitive and vital than Manipur. On Sept 24, a gathering of youths in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in Sixth Schedule of the Constitution turned violent. The resulting firing by security forces left four people dead. Scientist and environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a protest fast for the same demands, called it off calling for peace. That, however, did not prevent government from arresting him under the draconian National Security Act and whisking him away to Jodhpur. Ladakh again demonstrated, if more evidence was ne...