Monsoon fury in Kerala; RBI stings middle class; Forensic neglect amid mounting crime cases
Opinion Watch
Monsoon rains have created havoc in Kerala, while 10 people have lost their lives so far. This is a man-made tragedy.
The Pioneer in its well-researched Editorial ‘God’s country faces His wrath’ lashes out at the politician-builder nexus for destroying the fragile ecosystem of Kerala.
God’s own country as Kerala is known for has the corrupt politicians blessing the builder to construct housing units on wet land, while illegal mining is making the Western Ghat, the lifeline of the state, barren.
The tributaries of the rivers have disappeared, noted The Pioneer, thanks to the politico-builder nexus, which used to absorb the surplus waters of the main rivers.
The consequent result of this man-made destruction of the ecology if Kerala is regular recurrence of flash floods, landslides and heavy downpour.
This is an irony since Monsoon months are known to be the tourist paradise in Kerala but the greed is indeed sucking the god-gifted wealth to the state.
The daily very grimly notes the government report that while farming was done on nine lakh hectares of land in Kerala in 1970s, this has come down just to two lakh hectares in 2021.
Remittances from the Middle-east and the quick path to wealth of the people have indeed wrecked the natural balance of Kerala.
But the people don’t remember that they have to pay the cost of their follies with full interests, and that explains the nature’s fury in Kerala currently.
RBI stings middle class
The Reserve Bank of India is on a spree to hike the interest rates while the Central bank firefights the flight of inflation.
Inflation in India is imported, accounted by the runaway fuel prices and hardening of the commodity prices.
Yet, the government too has put the RBI in a spot, giving it no option, but to keep raising the rates, which are now higher than the pre-pandemic level.
The Hindu, The Indian Express, and Deccan Herald have carried their editorials on the RBI hiking the Repo Rate by another 50 basis point.
The RBI has so far raised the Repo rate by 140 basis points.
This means that the loans will get costlier, and the people will have to pay more interests, translating into larger tenures of their EMIs.
The Indian Express has given an account of the interest rate projections, suggesting that it may cool down next year.
However, Deccan Herald believes that the inflation will defy the RBI efforts.
But the fact is that the growth will be an unmistakable victim of the tightening of the interest rate regime, and that would further put the middle class and the low-income people in a spot.
The fact that India has been on a jobless growth path is an old story that has been told since 2011, with no respite.
The government could have given a respite to the RBI to allow growth to breathe fresh air by slashing taxes on petrol and diesel.
Forensic neglect amid mounting crime cases
At a time when India is battling the scourge of unemployment, irony knows no bound as The Times of India gives an account of excessive vacancies in the forensic laboratories in the country which in turn account of the heavy pendency of cases in courts.
The daily informs that Forensic Science Laboratory in Delhi has over 20,000 pending forensic tests, with backlogs ranging from 4-5 years.
“Forensics – chiefly cyber, biological/ DNA, chemistry and ballistics – are at the core of modern criminal investigation,” noted the daily.
ToI further stated that vacancies in forensic labs in Delhi are 40 per cent, while it’s 60 per cent in Karnataka and Haryana. In Odisha, adds ToI, vacancy is 70 per cent, while the state is notorious for the second-lowest conviction rate in the country.
This explains why the country has a pendency rate of 90 per cent for serious crimes such as rape and other grievous offences.
Such serious lapses on the part of government is simply unfathomable and may be attributable to the lack of accountability of the executive by the legislature in the country.
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