Hindu Munnanni Worker Arrested
It was reported in newspapers and social media that a Hindu Munnanni worker was arrested for asking people to buy only from shops run by Hindus in Vengamedu in Karur district recently.
The worker Sakthi, 32 years old, had been distributing pamphlets to the public for the past few days to buy products only from Hindu shops during Deepawali. He has been remanded to judicial custody for creating religious divide in Tamil Nadu. Such dirty politics should not be encouraged anywhere in India.
Chowdhry Nisar Ahmed
Ambur (Tamil Nadu)
Hold CDSCO Accountable for Failures
The death of 66 children linked to four cough syrups (vide Healthcare in Radiance of 22 October 2022) manufactured and exported by a Haryana-based pharma company to Gambia followed by a WHO alert, calls for an overhaul of drug regulation in India.
The same company has been warned repeatedly by Indian regulators but without any positive results as heavy penalties with deterrent effect alone can force violators to improve. Now families of 66 children have paid a heavy price for the gross negligence of a drug manufacturer and put Indian pharma’s global reputation at risk once again, after the Ranbaxy episode.
It is unfortunate that state drug controllers responsible for issuing licences and ensuring quality control are working independently.
If a drug fails a quality test in one state, the manufacturing licence must be suspended in the state of its location. This particular company got away without such punishment. Its claim that the two excipients termed as “contaminants” by WHO were supplied by a third party is no excuse. The overall responsibility for quality and testing lies with the manufacturer.
The Haryana drugs controller certifying this company as WHO compliant, qualifying it as a drugs exporter, made things worse. The central regulator, CDSCO, must be held accountable for the failures. The Indian government must learn from this tragedy and bring in reforms in the colonial era drug bill. The need of the hour is to put in place a meticulous regulatory system to ensure our presence in the globally competitive pharma market.
S. Chopra
Mohali, Punjab
Regulate TV Debates
Politicians and our leaders will only deepen existing divides when they use provocative languages. Rumours and disinformation churned out on social media only exacerbate the situation. Political rhetoric need not be explicit; it should not disparage and dehumanise groups or individuals.
In our country, TV anchors will dispense their accumulated wisdom, armchair nationalism, and invective to the audience at large. They delude themselves into thinking they are fighting for justice. On an earlier occasion, our Supreme Court expressed its dissatisfaction with the content of debates on television on court connected matters, and said that TV debates are causing more air pollution than anything else.
Political debates and discussions are vital for democracy but sadly we are living in a time when civility in speech has become a rare commodity. Indiscreet comments and coronary inducing rants are the order of the day; they go viral through social media and pass off as wisdom.
As the authors Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing rightly observe in their book, The Paradox of Democracy, “freedom of speech and media has always been a necessary condition of democracy, that very freedom is also its greatest threat”.
Civility is the lubricant that keeps our society running smoothly. Let us maintain standards of civility and decorum in public debates and be role models for the next generation. Our past leaders were not perfect, but they all endeavoured to practise civility in the public domain.
Fortunately, for many of us the TV remote has been a boon and has taken out the tedium of watching the incessant make believe double speak on TV.
I am grateful to its inventor, the late Robert Adler. A law to regulate the venom spewed on TV needs consideration.
H N Ramakrishna
Bengaluru, Karnataka