The labourers at work.

Man or elephant, murder is foul

Last week, two gruesome incidents in Golaghat district attracted my attention. While one of the killings was carried out by irate tea labourers, an elephant was responsible for the other.

On February 11, furious labourers killed Rupak Gogoi, the proprietor of Gobindapur tea estate under Numaligarh police station. The labourers took the extreme step because they had not been paid their wages for a long time.

In the second incident, a mahout, Tilamon Kujur of Mariani, was trampled to death when he was trying to chain an elephant after the jumbo procession at Kaziranga National Park on February 12.

Commenting on the incident, a fellow mahout, Arnel Balu, had said if elephants are irritated beyond the limit they can tolerate, even such a gentle animal can turn violent. I think similar comments can be made regarding the tea labourers as well.

They, too, are very gentle and tolerant by nature. But as the president of the All Assam Tea Tribe Students? Association (ATTSA) pointed out, the labourers had not been paid their wages and provident fund. This had enraged the labourers on that fateful day.

Rupak Gogoi?s murder has to be condemned by one and all, but let us not forget to treat the labourers with dignity.

It may not be wrong to say that elephants receive better treatment at times than tea labourers. For example, elephants are called jumbos, ganesh deota and so on, whereas we use very derogatory terms such as kuli and bongali for the labourers.

Fr. William Horo,
Borholla, Jorhat

Grim warning

The Tata group is selling 17 of its tea gardens in the south, saying that the ?colonial style of managing plantations is no longer viable?. A day after this piece of news, we hear a tea garden proprietor in a tea garden near Golaghat is burnt to death by its labourers.

The tea garden economy is vital to the law and order situation and influences the course of politics in Assam.

If the management style of the tea gardens really needs drastic changes for their survival, as pointed out by the Tatas, the proprietors of the estates in Assam should rather read this as a warning instead of wasting time and money to run gardens under police protection and with police escorts.

Biman Das,
Dhaligaon, Assam

Famished road

I wish to draw the attention of the public works department (PWD) through The Telegraph to the sorry state of the M.B. Road in Darrang. A part of this road, from Mangaldoi to Tangla, is in a really bad shape and poses considerable threat to motorists and commuters.

After the 2004 floods in Assam, parts of this road had been washed away. The people of this area received assurances from politicians that effective measures would be taken in the near future to undertake repairs, but nothing has been started yet by the government.

The people of North Darrang district had called a transport strike for two days in February.

We are all aware that these days, roads are repaired under the scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojana. This is a welcome gesture and I do hope the implementation of the scheme will go a long way towards improving road communications in Assam.

Through this letter of mine, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the Border Road Organisation as they have constructed a part of M.B. Road from Kachubheel to Orangajuli and shall be grateful if they extend their services to construct and repair the road from Tangla to Mangaldoi.

Kanak Hazarika,
Orangajuli tea garden
Darrang

Save the planet

I went through an interesting story on the Kyoto protocol in The Telegraph on February 16 and the subsequent editorial on February 17. I was not really aware that any such rules called the Kyoto protocol existed before I went through the two articles. I extend my thanks to the newspaper for explaining the issue in detail. Since the Kyoto protocol can pave the way for a better environment, we should bind ourselves to this protocol to save our environment from further degradation.

Otherwise, deadly gases emitted by industrial units of the so-called developed nations, such as the US, Russia and 37 other countries, will destroy the entire ecosystem of the world, causing irreparable harm to humans, animals and plants.

Your editorial and report have rightly pointed out that gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur hexaflouride, methane and chloroflurocarbons are also harmful for the entire country.

We, too, should take into account the benefits the protocol will provide us in terms of our environment. We should make it a point to abide by the rules. Both the US and India are ignoring the need to minimise the percentage of heat-trapping or greenhouse gases in the air, believing it will prove too expensive. But these are now threatening the lives of humans and animals on the planet.

With the increase in the size of the hole in the ozone layer, we are simultaneously increasing the temperature of the earth. Hence, the ice in Antarctica and the arctic zone are constantly melting. As a result, the level of the sea is increasing day by day. This is all thanks to the ignorance on the part of society to save the earth?s environment from further degradation. We need to arrive at one decision regarding the Kyoto protocol.

Otherwise, an indifferent attitude to the Kyoto protocol will one day bring doomsday and there will be no Noah to save us.

Let?s hope India will join in the movement to curb the greenhouse effect and help lower the concentration of atmospheric pollutants. Stringent punishment should be meted out to those who do not obey the rules and regulations for saving the environment.

Ashim Kumar Chakraborty,
Bijni

Welcome scenario

The photograph with the caption Rebuilding a Natural Friendship in The Telegraph on February 18 is probably an indication that the relations between India and Pakistan are now on the threshold of surmounting every barrier and impediment. Great going!

Ashoke Datta,
Tezpur