State of the beach

Sir — We visited the Mandarmoni seaside in East Midnapore two days after the news of the ban imposed on hotels there (“Green lock on 5 hotels”, Aug 13) came out in The Telegraph. We were shocked by the activities of realtors or, more correctly, coastal land dacoits. Huge hotels are coming up right on the beach, sand is being dug up for construction, sand dunes are being flattened, casuarina and keya (screwpine) plantations are being felled, tractors with trailers, trucks and cars are having a free run over the beach, making a mockery of the Coastal Regulation Zone notifications. The Coastal Zone Management Authority of West Bengal should be immediately dismantled for its utter failure to protect the coasts of the state.

Yours faithfully,
Pradip Chatterjee,
Calcutta

Hungry, yet ignored

Sir — The fact that the reports, “Millionaire count up 68% in 5 years” and “Death lends fistful of rice denied in life”, appeared on the same day (Aug 24) speaks volumes of the lopsided development in the country. Starvation deaths, suicide by farmers, unemployment are still common occurrences in India. Mumbai has the world’s largest slums as well as the biggest concentration of millionaires. Our parliamentarians, who are supposed to lift the millions from below the poverty line, are busy giving themselves hefty salary hikes. The economic imbalance, leading to phenomena like starvation deaths, must be corrected fast, or the Naxalites and Maoists will soon make greater inroads and create mayhem.

Yours faithfully
A.S. Mehta,
Calcutta

Sir — How can one believe the chief minister’s boasts about the development of the state after a woman has died of starvation, living only on water for seven days (“Idle cash piles up in hungry belt”, Aug 25)? What has his government done for the development of the remote regions of the state? Building flyovers and amusement parks does not amount to much. When we are driving our new cars on the flyovers, someone is dying of starvation in a village not too far away. The communist government of Bengal must tell us why, after 30 years of its rule, people still die of hunger here.

Yours faithfully,
S. Bose,
Calcutta

Clearing the air

Sir — We were shocked and surprised to read the Diary item, “No one listens to the colonel” (Aug 20). The said “delegation of journos” represented our confederation, which is the umbrella organization of the country’s apex media trade unions.

The delegation comprised leaders and office-bearers of the confederation and had met the former prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to urge him to pressurize the government for early constitution of the much-delayed wage boards for the journalist and non-journalist employees of newspapers and news agencies.

Vajpayee did not “candidly” tell us any “woeful tale of neglect” as reported in the item, nor did he mention the names of top party leaders and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states. The piece is pure and undiluted fiction and a figment of the author’s imagination. The alleged reference to the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, by Vajpayee too is baseless. May we add here that Sonia Gandhi herself was kind enough to meet our delegation the very next day and give us a patient hearing.

Not a single member of our delegation spoke to any of your journalists regarding the meeting with Vajpayee. While the confederation, being an apolitical trade union body, does not hold any brief for any party or leader, misrepresentation of facts pains us as it goes against the very grain of fair and objective journalism.

Yours faithfully,
M.S. Yadav,
General Secretary, Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees’ Organisations,
New Delhi