Road safety at the times of school opening

Road safety at the times of school opening
A Jayaprakash Kovilloor

Yet another academic year is around the corner, and as usual, so is south west monsoon. Our kids are going out again to pursue their next levels and a great number of toddlers are going to attend schools for the first time. Their fears and the apprehensions of their parents are not unfounded because they are going to have tough times ahead when they think about the roads and the transport infrastructure these kids are going to depend upon.

Have we done the ground work to accommodate the fresh school goers along with the regulars this time at least? We have the notorious tendency to act upon something only when we taste the bitter aftermath of a tragedy. Our kids are going to face a lot of difficulties on the roads and we need to do lot many things to avert eventualities. What shall we do to ensure a smooth ride to our children to school?

· Parents have to be strict in not cramming their kids in auto rikshaws and similar precarious modes of transports.
· When private bus operators are found to be skipping bus stops, the responsible citizens should raise their voice against it.
· If the same is found repeated, the best thing the elders could do is to boycott such buses on a regular basis. We have to tell them, if they fail to be considerate with our kids, they are not going to get passengers.
· The state owned transport corporation may run enough buses during peak hours, say between eight and ten and three and five.
· The staff of these buses need to be given strict instruction to take maximum number of children and take them safely to their destinations.
· Those nasty road abusers need to be nabbed and brought to book, and their licensed cancelled outright.
· Heavy vehicles like those notorious killer tippers need to be banned from roads during peak hours.
· Traffic officials may ensure that traffic is moving smoothly. They may deploy enough staff at strategic places so that drivers, pedestrians and passengers will enjoy smooth flow.
· All electric powered traffic signals should to serviced and kept in good condition because monsoon is around and repair work may not be possible once it is raining.
· All major bus bays need to be fitted with quequeing facilities so that children can queue up to their buses and thus we may avoid stop-and-run accidents. We have plenty of such stories to our credit.
· All school authorities who own their fleet of buses have to train their drivers and cleaners so that children will get better movement to and fro.
· The telephone service providers who periodically dig drenches and canals by the roads should be asked to do their job responsibly.
· All private vehicles owners may take time off to take their vehicles to the work shop and have a check up and fix those sensitive spots like brakes, tires, wipers, horn, indicators and head lights.
· School authorities may deploy a few teachers in front of the school before and after the school hours to ensure that their children cross the road safely.
· School children should not be allowed to take two wheelers in the school compound.
· Parents may be given instructions not to let their kids travel by bikes.
· Bicycling to school is a good idea, but students need to give strict instructions to follow all traffic rules.
· School children should not be allowed to travel pinion on bicycles, and cycling to school in groups, at times, is dangerous.
· And parents who take their kids to school on their way to office must remember one thing. When they take two kids and their bags and baggage along, they are taking their whole life with them. Be careful and do not cram your two wheeler with more than it can afford.
· And parents, please don’t be over ambitious with your kids. Let them travel freely, let them play out, let them climb, run, go under sun and get wet during rains. This will do them good.
· The notorious school bags that include, Tiffin box(es), water bottle, even oxygen cylinders are a big problem to growing kids. Let these bags be small and handy enough to carry.
· Children may be given the freedom to walk up to their school if the same is located nearby say a few kilometers away. A street conscious student will grow healthier than comfort-conscious one.
· And finally we the grown up ones will have to (man)handle those eve teasers and female mongers who pry on growing school girls.
· Female police officer can be deployed in buses and bus bays and they may be given enough leeway to handle such menaces with iron hands.
· Political leaders and the so-called social reformers need to stay off the cases registered against traffic offenders.
· The police need to be pupil-friendly and public servants, and school children should feel free to approach them whenever their service is needed.
· The private bus operators who grease the hands of the police must understand one thing that they are playing with the lives of innocent kids and the great expectations of their parents.
· And finally, even if everything is said and one, the department of health need to stay prepared to manage any eventuality that may occur, of course, accidentally.
· All road users must remain calm and decent on the road and when they pass by a school, please sound horn, slow down and show respect to road using kids.

If we can do our due shares in this direction, a lot many accidents could be avoided and our children will enjoy better schooling this time. The education department is doing everything possible to keep the confidence level of kids at new highs at every new result, and it is the responsibility of the ministry too to make things work in such a way that this academic year is going to be free from accidents and accident related traumas.

The Parent Teachers Association, Teachers Assocations, students’ wings of political parties and all those ones who have a boy or girl studying somewhere need to be concerned about the well being of all the kids on the road.

THE media and fake advertisements: Surveillance needed

A. Jayaprakash. Kovilloor

Newspapers and similar press mediums are overflowing with advertisements offering higher education opportunities. Both the parents and their children are equally confused about the authenticity of the claims these ads make when it comes to a crucial decision making; say, what is after Plus two, what is after SSLC or after graduation for that matter. This is much more confusing today than at any time of the year, for this is the time when students pass out and go for higher studies.

It is a fact that all media are by-products of advertisements, and we cannot expect a press organization to offer us 25/30 pages for three or four rupees on a daily basis. So is the case with electronic media. We get some 100 channels on 24/7 basis and we pay a hundred or a little more for these channels. The major chunk of press revenue comes from column centimeters and commercial seconds split out in various time slots. These centimeters and air times are meticulously calculated and billed and finally the public is left with the option ‘believe it or not’, you have everything plattered out on a daily basis.

A great number of ads on higher education that appear in today’s Dailies make false claims and sport fake recognitions, and these institutions have their own networks all over the nation to entice unsuspecting parents and their kids to their nets. And once they are in, it is going to be a matter of mercy of institutions not the merit of the candidate that is going to decide the future.

Many parents blindly believe and follow the instructions given by these ads and they come to know of the pitfalls only when their wards complete a few semesters of their studies. This is dangerous, and there needs to be surveillance mechanism in place to monitor and authenticate the operations of these institutions and there should be provisions in the law to bring these culprits to book who pray on the future of the younger generation and the hopes of their parents.

The fourth Estate, Press, has a crucial role to play. When an ad enquiry reaches its office or its franchisee office, there needs to be a system in place to verify the credentials of these institutions and ascertain that the claims made in the ad are genuine and the recognition is valid. Once an institution is found fabricating or providing misleading leads to parents and students, the issue needs to directed to the academia and education authorizes like State Board of Studies, Medical Council, AICTE, UGC or such bodies and alert them of these fakes. This would enable them to publish the list of such fake-listed institutions so that the general public would not get cheated. In the meantime, they may take time off to list out those institutions and courses that are authentic and publish those lists at certain intervals every year.

The most powerful democratic tool, press, can do a great job in this direction and if this practice is continued for some time, there would be marked fall in the number of such institutes and higher studies conglomerates in the future. Since newspaper is taken as an authentic platform, people will take this information too, i.e. the list of fakes, in the same attitude and they will shun such organizations.

That these ads keep the press organizations survive does not make the latter accept whatever rubbish they bring out to be published. The Press has to have a say in finding out the credibility of the ads, though it is not always possible, it is worthwhile doing it at a time when hundreds of thousands of students pass out and go for higher studies.

The Press must act. The public must stand with the Press when one such fake case is brought to light thanks to the intervention of the press. The people should shun these institutions and let them die their normal deaths out of neglect and rejection.

What is Bush good for?

What is Bush good for?
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
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For all the deeds of Bush, the world community would record in their respective histories that there was an American president who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.

THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.

The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.

“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?

“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.

When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.

Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.

His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.

And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!

Managing water: the domestic route

Both social scientists and environmentalist warn that there is going to be war for water in the future, and the available water resources are unable to be sustaining life in this planet if the attitude of the whole world does not change for good. That we have enough water gives us the false impression that we can waste water or use water the way we like. But it is not the real case when water is taken in a holistic perspective. Yes, the water security an individual currently enjoys gives him/her a notion that the water s/he has is his/her water and nobody has any claim over it and no one can question the way s/he utilizes the water.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Whenever there is water shortage, the same individuals who had had the luxury of enjoying water to their full for long would turn to the society and government and demand for alternative measures. They may claim that it is the responsibility of the state to supply its populace with enough water. But we hardly think of how precious each drop of water we waste in innumerable indigenous ways in our homes. We have no water management policy in our families. I think we all need to have a water culture to be able to lead a water-secure life today and tomorrow.

What are we doing towards this on the contrary?

· Good water habit, like any other good habit, begins at home. Our kids are not taught to pick up that habit.
· Unfortunately, unlike in the past, now we do not have separate water for washing purposes and drinking. We have one source and we use that source for everything: from washing our cars and carpets to drinking, bathing and flushing the toilets.
· How many of us know that when we flush our toilet once, minimum six to ten litters of drinking water goes down the drain.
· When we do our dishes, we keep the tap running so that we can wash and drain at the same time. It takes four to five times more water than what is actually needed.
· When we do our teeth, we keep the water tap on so that we can use it in between; the time we start brushing and the time we spit out the last spray of water. We could save one to two litters of water if we could use a mug or container at the time brushing.
· Our toilets are no longer a places for ‘that thing’ alone. They are now glamourooms where the hindwares we use consume ten times more water than required.
· Our luxury takes lusty connotations and dimensions and we spend much of our time in our glamourooms, indulging in nobody knows what.
· Taking bath is an indulgence and the shower does not have any idea how much water, both cold and hot, it should spray down on us. And the person takes bath gets into a frenzy of freshness at the cost of some hundred litres of water.
· Our wells near our homes, water tanks under ground and up above, are supposed to be full all day long. The electric pumps attached to these are doing more harm than good to our water sources.
· If people are made to draw water manually, their interest in spending hours in the bathroom will die out in a few baths. We need to get a minimum five hours’ power outage to understand this.
· When it comes to washing clothes, we do it with detergents that form into buckets and buckets and the amount of water needed to wash out this soap and suds could be better managed if we use washing cakes and do it manually.
· Cleanliness is next to godliness. But it need not be at the cost of life. One can be godly only if one lives a healthy life. Wasting water excessively for personal cleanliness need to be controlled. Cleanliness need not be an obsession.
· Personal possessions like cars and motor bikes need to be kept neat and tidy. The frequency of their washing increases according to the availability of time and water. If these isn’t enough water, we are happy to drive out our car with some dirt and grit on it.
· Going to a service center and washing the car once in while will do to keep a car in good stead. Washing it with drinking water every other day is an obsession.
· Raising garden of flowers or vegetables is good idea. The water used for watering the garden need not be drinking water. The water we spend for washing vegetable, rice, fruits and similar edibles could be reused for gardening.
· And when we raise concrete edifices, let there be a little open space around so that a little rain would seep down our own soil. How many of us do it? We marble the whole area and let the rain water go its way back to the rivers and seas.

Unless we make amends in the way we look at this precious natural resource, we will come to have water related tussles, both internal and international, in the coming days. We need to inculcate in our kids a healthy water culture so that their future will be water secure and the coming generation will live their life drinking enough water at least, not taking three square meals a day.

As educated, informed individuals, we all have a moral responsibility to sustain the available resources and ensure that every drop of water we spend is well spent. The rivers and similar public water reserves need to be kept neat and healthy, and they need to be declared pristine properties of humanity to be maintained the same way by every one who comes to harvest its benefits. The MNCs that flourish on aerated beverages and bottled water need to be kept off the bay. They are terminators of life.

The time for paid email ids has come

The time for paid email ids has come

LOOKING AT the way people take email services these days, I think it is a good idea to impose a small fee on all the email ID holders. Such a move will create ripples in the net operated software world of today. This is more so when it comes to the individuals having multiple email IDs. In this virtual digital place, or cyberspace, everyone comes to have their own electronic presence and the same is being uploaded and downloaded innumerable times in one’s lifetime and the process is endless.

Unfortunately, this virtual communication network is being widely misused more by email users than by anyone. Net, as a free space, is free for all. Anyone can get in and out of it without an email ID. Many email ID holders use their address just to keep themselves connected with the rest of the world. But the number of people, who exploit this communication platform for asocial purposes, is increasing by the day and email platforms are becoming breeding grounds for all sorts of crimes, threats and challenges.

Of course, there is a system in place to track and locate the ID holders and their credentials, but the time and effort involved in this could be saved if we could make this service a paid one. Or there could be a separate digital platform for all those, who are ready to pay a subscription so that they will be viewed by the service providers as promoters and they could be given special services. The one, that could be called space-for-all Netscape, can be a platform with minimum facilities.

These two sets of net users will utilise their individual spaces according to their needs. When a free user finds that a paid subscription is going to give him a little extra edge on services, more and more people will subscribe to it. The service providers, on their part, can earmark a share of the subscription money for development activities in their operational areas.

Wiser use of the net will make it a much more freer space without junks and those unwanted data loads that convert our inboxes into trash cans and dustbins. Managing unwanted mail takes a lot of time and the service providers do not seem to be giving any serious privacy policy to their address holders. Emails get leaked to unwanted people, who use it to send in mails of all sorts. Further, managing the stuff is a kind of forced labour. So, it is high time that we change our attitude towards emailing, and a small fee for getting a strictly personalised email ID would look attractive to many discerning netizens.