Safe water for drinking
If we were told, some years ago, that we would have to buy drinking water one day, no one would believe it. Today, we see that packaged drinking water is a big industry with a turnover of thousands of crores. People went in for bottled water because regular water, in many places, was found to be unfit for human consumption.
But how safe is the bottled water which is sold under different brands today? In 2012, 1 in every 10 samples picked up for quality testing in the States, including Goa, failed the test. This resulted into issuing of warning letters to manufacturers for flouting norms, and also cancelling 32 licences. In 2013, 9 percent of the samples failed the test, an improvement of 1 percent, but the number of licenses cancelled shot up to 190, an increase of 495 percent. So the claim or belief that all packaged drinking water is safe is not true.
Therefore, all States should pay heed to the advice of water resource management professionals and carry out the quality tests more frequently to check whether the water has been treated according to BIS norms (Bureau of Indian Standards). Until then, we may bless the glass of water we drink and hope that what goes down the throat doesn’t create more health problems since we already have enough to cope with.
Rodney De Souza, Assagao
Introspection needed
After senior leaders of the BJP including Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and it’s patriarch L.K. Advani openly attacked the top leadership for not taking any lessons from the poll debacle in Delhi, the Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar reportedly acknowledged that there were “some mistakes” in devising political strategy for the Bihar Assembly polls resulting in the stunning defeat for the party. He also said that lessons should be learnt from the outcome. Incidentally Parrikar, who is among the top five cabinet ministers in the Narendra Modi government, is the first from within the government to accept the mistakes in planning the poll strategy. The BJP leadership on its part has said that there was the tradition in the party for accepting collective responsibility for victory and defeat. Be that as it may, several states in the country will be going to the polls in the near future. Every state has its own needs and priorities hence each state needs to be approached differently at the time of the elections. What is needed is for the party to look at the mistakes committed and move forward after taking necessary corrective steps if the party is to come out victorious in the states going to the polls in the near future.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Unnecessary drama
The tension witnessed at Margao, when supporters of Mickky Pacheco effectively shut down a tiatr, due to songs sung by Francis de Tuem, just puts the focus on the brazen attitude of the local politicians, but also does bring up the issue of regulation of tiatr. Without taking any sides, there was a lot of wrong and right from both sides. While shutting down a tiatr through strong arm tactics is a definite wrong, there has to be sensitivity when signing songs about politicians and their families. Like someone once said, attack the policies, not the person. At the same time, Pacheco needs to stop his bullying tactics. All politicians tend to think of themselves as all—powerful. Absolute power does corrupt.
Amey Kurtakar, Margao
