Opinion View from the RIGHT

The editorial adds: “For whatever ills of the city,Sheila Dikshit is used to blaming the multiple authorities governing in the city. It won’t do. Congress is in power in the Centre and the state and she is at the helm of affairs and has been there for over a decade now. She should by now know the ills that plague the city and the remedies that they are crying for. It is public knowledge that construction and repair work offer the maximum scope for kickbacks. Even making allowance for that,what is happening now is not pardonable. The least the government could do is to set up some kind of a watchdog of respectable,senior citizens in the city who could apply some pressure on the quality and speed of work being done. If the government does not act now,Commonwealth 2010 will go down in history as one of the most ill-organised sports events and the city’s civic scene would be the biggest contributing factor for it”.

ULFA’s mental rut

In an opinion piece titled “Time to firmly deal with terror” M.V. Kamath writes in the latest issue of the RSS mouthpiece,: “In the last three decades things have changed,but according to a recent study,in the late ‘90s there were 12.4 lakh unemployed youth in Assam. Unemployment and poor planning apparently have facilitated militancy. The militants,according to reports extract some Rs 32 crore annually from businessmen,tea plantation owners and even government officials to sustain themselves. The Assam of today is a far cry from the Assam of the 1970s but obviously ULFA has got stuck into a mental rut from which it is finding it hard to get out. Unemployment is endemic in different — especially tribal — parts of India but militancy will take those up in arms nowhere. True leaders have to think out-of-the-box to improve the economic condition of their state. Assam is very much part of India,a fact that no one can run away from. All Indians sink or swim together. Consider what might have happened when Partition was in the air and that great Assamese,Gopinath Bardoloi saved his state from being swallowed by Pakistan. ULFA must employ not Kalashnikovs but economic experts to suggest how best Assam’s economic conditions can be improved. That is statesmanship. Seeking ISI’s help to destroy the unity of India is to insult the patriotic people of Assam”.

Kamath adds: “(Arabinda) Rajkhowa must realise what damage he is doing to his own people. He has a great job on hand if he truly has the good of Assam at heart and that is to give up his unrealistic dream as all dreams are,irrelevant for the times and murderous in its execution and get back to the mainstream of life seeking to enrich Assam and contribute to peace and prosperity of the entire sub-continent. We then don’t have to go back to those ancient days when India was ruled by a score of petty rulers,constantly at each other’s throats and so inviting foreigners to conquer them all. India has a great role to play in the years to come and let it not be said that Assam tied its hands. Rajkhowa does not have to surrender; he has to re-cast his thinking in a positive manner,be proud to be an Indian and so serve the land we call Bharat to make all the citizens proud of Asom and grateful to its sons. Think again,Rajkhowa. Conquer India by your love and service than by your fanatic drive for separatism. India has so much to offer. Think of China and where it is now and think of what India can do in the years to come,and of what your own contribution to it should be. You don’t want India to be another Pakistan,do you?”