A girl student was initially awarded 11 marks in the mathematics paper in this year’s Higher Secondary examination. Her score was raised to 61 after she took the case to Calcutta High Court (“HS board fined for marks error”, Sept. 23).

Every year, similar cases of erroneous assessment of answer scripts of examinations conducted by different boards come to our knowledge.

Examinees affected by such incorrect assessment are the worst sufferers. They cannot get timely admission in colleges of their choice, and sometimes end up losing an academic year. This may affect their future careers, too.

A student securing more than 60 to 70 per cent marks in other subjects normally cannot score 11 in one paper. This could have been detected at the time of tabulation and the relevant answer script rechecked to confirm the marks awarded.

What is the necessity of declaring results within a short duration? In order to maintain the target date of declaration of results, examinations may be held a few days earlier. But the results should be absolutely correct.

All possible measures should be taken by the examining bodies to ensure that the results declared are totally correct. Otherwise they will have to pay the penalty.

Dinabandhu Mukherjee,
Behala

Apropos the report “Woman wallops auto”, Sept. 25, bus conductors and autorickshaw drivers misbehaving and using abusive language is not new. But now such incidents have become rampant. Beauty Pal showed courage by taking the daring step of slapping an errant auto driver and dragging him to a police station.

Calcutta used to be the epitome of decency— people would help the aged, the disabled and ladies. But now the scenario has changed. People choose to stand as audience rather than offer help to a woman.

Atif Ayaz,
Serampore

Kudos to Beauty Pal. She has done the right thing by putting up a fight against the reckless auto driver on the Chandni Chowk-Park Circus route. These three wheelers have become a nuisance. The auto drivers disregard all traffic rules. I would, however, like to point out that the situation could have turned violent if there was a male commuter in place of Pal.

Subhayu Saha,
Murshidabad

It was encouraging to learn that a middle-aged woman slapped a reckless auto driver and hauled him to a police station. Curiously enough, not one commuter or bystander came to her help. About two years ago a woman riding a three-wheeler had slapped a traffic cop for not booking an errant driver. When atrocities on women are mounting by the day, we need more brave women like Beauty Pal.

Prahlad Agarwala,
Majdia, Nadia

Bauty Pal deserves congratulations and should be rewarded for her single-handed protest against a reckless autorickshaw driver when people on the road stood mute spectators and other auto drivers gathered to insult her. Exemplary punishment — besides cancellation of licence, fine of Rs 10,000 and three months’ imprisonment — should be awarded to the errant autodriver so that others do not dare to misbehave with the public. The government should also enforce a code of conduct for auto drivers.

Ashok Kumar Chatterjee,
Konnagar, Hooghly

Many passengers and pedestrians are harassed and abused by auto drivers, but they prefer to remain silent to save their time and dignity. They don’t lodge a complaint as they have little confidence in the police and also fear retaliation from the accused drivers.

Society needs more brave women like Beauty Pal.

It seems driving recklessly and hurling abuses has become the birthright of the city’s auto drivers. They flout rules with impunity as the police are hand-in-glove with them. All auto drivers have to be brought under strict guidelines on use of clean fuel, way of driving, not carrying more passengers than a specified limit, charging proper fares and behaving well with people. But this will happen only if the city’s administrators are honest and willing. If other states can, why not West Bengal?

Diptimoy Ghosh,
Salt Lake

After Beauty Pal hauled the auto driver to a police station and had him arrested, the road blockade put up by auto drivers at the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and SN Banerjee Road crossing for protesting against the arrest was uncalled for. It created traffic congestion, inconveniencing the people. Auto drivers in the city don’t care about maintaining law and order. So they could put up a blockade to put pressure on the police to get the accused auto driver released.

Arindam Basu,
Saptagram

This is in response to the report “Pilots protest driver ‘slur’”, Sept. 24. Sometime ago, an airhostess in Mumbai was called a bai (domestic help) by a colleague. When they appeared before a mediating manager, the person said he had only responded in equal measure to being called a driver, as he was an ‘operator’ by designation. He also said that if she had the liberty to address him on the basis of the duty he performs, so does he. The matter was brought to an end.

Perhaps we are only literate and not educated. Thus we hurt others by our actions. Leave alone pilots, who in their overdrive, distressed the driver community, our “civil” society relished for a long time at the cost of drivers, the song of an Uttam Kumar movie: chho, chho, chho, kya sharam ki baat, bhaddar ghar ki ladki bhage driver ke sath.

Md. Aslam Parvez,
Picnic Garden

Nilratan Sircar Hospital sent a woman’s body to the morgue after post-mortem. It was shocking to know that when the relatives of the woman came to receive the body, they could not identify it as some animal had eaten away a portion of her face. (“Morgue body nibbled”, Sept. 25). If the hospital neglects its patients, can any better treatment be expected for the dead?

Rathin Chatterjee,
Dum Dum

I am surprised to learn about the University Grants Commission guideline stipulating the qualification criteria of registrars of a university — “A registrar must have 15 years of academic experience of which five years must be as a professor or in a higher administrative capacity.” (Besu registrar resigns, Sept. 25) In the recent past, a nondescript selection grade assistant professor without a Ph.D, not to talk of professorship, was registrar of Calcutta University. It is an enigma how he was appointed and why teachers had not protested then.

Md. Motleb Ali,
Address not given

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