Separate issues
Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza has reportedly said that garbage is more dangerous than terrorism (The Goan Everyday, June 17). It seems inappropriate to draw a parallel between the menace of garbage and the threat of terrorism faced by the country even though both are a curse that plagues the country. For one, garbage is a man-made menace caused by the locals and by the inaction of the civic bodies. On the contrary terrorism is imported from across the border. Individual citizens can tackle the garbage menace but it requires security forces and intelligence to tackle terrorism. The solution to the garbage problem is well within the reach of the citizens, the civic bodies and the state government. However tackling terrorism is a much more complex issue. It may be difficult to stop a human bomb to carry out a diabolic mission or to diffuse a bomb before it explodes. But it is not at all difficult to diffuse the ticking ‘time-bomb’ that the garbage menace presents. While, tackling terrorism is the primarily the concern of the Home Ministry, tackling the garbage issue should be the concern of every home. However it won’t be wrong to say that poverty and unemployment are the biggest threat to the county as it leads to indoctrination of the youth who end up in the terror network. Poverty is also the prime reason for improper sanitation in several homes and unhygienic disposal of waste.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Increasing age limit
The raising of the age limit for certain departments where government jobs are concerned stinks of ulterior motives. Now people even up to 45 can avail of government jobs in select departments where the previous age limit was 40 years. What is the need for this? Is this to get more people into the government job sector which I already congested. People have been talking about the fact that we already have 20 percent more people in government jobs than is needed. Instead of creating jobs in other sectors and encouraging more industries to come here so that employment can increase, the government is taking the easy way out and dangling a carrot before the donkeys. Of course, one cannot only blame the government here. Whatever little attempts have been made to create jobs, like the IT and ESDM parks for instance, have been met with resistance from locals. But increasing the age limit for government jobs is not the answer.
Sanjay Naik, Mapusa
Yoga day
When we were young, I remember one of our football coaches advocating yoga as an exercise. Unfortunately for him, none of us were really interested at that point. In fact, we hated the yoga classes. Later on, I rediscovered yoga through a friend. This was almost 20 years after school. Now I do it regularly. The fact is, when you shove something down children’s throats, they don’t always like it. Making yoga compulsory in schools isn’t going to make it a popular discipline. People have to discover its benefits in their own time.
Sanyog Kuchadkar, Porvorim
