Policing of roads
At a time when all-out efforts are being made by the Modi-sarkar for the nation to go digital, ensuring that government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing internet connectivity, the initiative by the Goa Traffic Police to exploit social networking sites to penalize traffic violators is indeed commendable. Based on reports’ posted by vigilant citizens on their FB page, attempts to involve the public more actively in ‘policing of the roads’ should pay rich dividends. Moreover for a populace that never tires of complaining about the indolence of the authorities in managing basic administration, this should prove a good opportunity to have their voices heard at the right places and rid the roads of blatant traffic violators. No doubt traffic cops are seen diligently fining those disregarding safety norms while riding or driving on roads and highways, but it peeves one to note that for the traffic enforcers, the non-compliance of safety standards on our roads is just restricted to avoiding the use of helmets and not fastening of seat-belts. What about the use of mobile phones and haphazard and illegal parking? Goa traffic police's novel ‘enterprise’ will hopefully also curtail traffic violations that have become more of a nuisance than a cause of concern.
Pachu Menon, Margao
On refugee crisis
I am appalled to find your London-based contributor Selma Carvalho (The Goan, October 10) arguing that Western interventions in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (whence come most of the refugees currently seeking entry into Europe) were justified as being in purported support of ‘democratic institutions’, ‘civil liberties’, rights of ‘dissidents’ and eradication of ‘chemical weapons’. I am now holding my breath waiting for the writer to illuminate for us Third-World dunderheads as to how the CIA-engineered coups spanning from the murders of Iran’s democratically-elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 to Chile’s democratically-elected President in 1973 and overthrow of Egypt’s democratically-elected President Mohammad Morsi in 2014 as well as Western Governments’ active support of autocracies (including apartheid regimes) in South America, Africa, Saudi Arabia and other West Asian countries were and are not designed purely to promote and serve Western economic and political interests at the cost of local societies. I would also like to be reassured that this diatribe against the current refugee phenomenon is not a manifestation of the anxiety of “legal” migrants who have probably partaken generously of Western affluence.
Caetano Mascarenhas, Raia
