Vox Populi : Issue N002

  VOX POPULI  

by 

AAM ADMI 

Issue No. : N 002 

Issue Date: 17 Oct 2022



Deferring The Announcement Of Gujarat Assembly Elections By The EC: 16th Oct 2022

The deferring of the announcement of the Gujarat Assembly elections by the EC is yet again another instance to prove that our independent institutions have got compromised with the disease that is called the Saffron virus with the RSS/BJP and Modi in its forefront. The CEC defending the decision to announce the Himachal Pradesh elections but not the Gujarat schedule claiming convention is also wrong. The time honoured convention has been that the schedule for elections of States which complete their term within 6 months of each other are announced together. It was only in 2017 because of the floods in Gujarat that the schedule for elections in the State was deferred so that flood relief measures could be undertaken and not attract the election code of conduct. This was at least clearly on humanitarian grounds. Thus the CEC can claim precedence but not convention in the deliberate malfeasance in this matter. Just like sighting one sparrow does not signify the onset of spring so also one instance does not constitute convention. The reason for the postponement of the announcement of the Gujarat elections is actually very simple. Narendra Modi is visiting Gujarat later this month (October) to visit the DefExpo and is expected to give election sops to the people of the State. If the election code of conduct were in force then these sops could not be announced. In this context the EC has been saying that it is strictly against freebies thus election sops surely being an 'indirect' freebie, it should not be an accomplice in facilitating the purchase of people's votes in Gujarat by the BJP. Another aspect in this matter is that Narendra Modi has been a strong proponent of One Nation One Vote meaning that the whole country would vote on one day. Instead of working towards it he is sabotaging his own preferred option by postponing announcement of Gujarat's elections and not having it along with Himachal's to a close or similar schedule.

Glaring Error : CCTV Not Mentioned: 15 Oct 2022

The article - 5 Stations Account for One Fourth of Metro Crimes in Delhi by Abhishek Tiwari in your edition (The Statesman, Delhi)of 14th Oct 2022 suffers from the basic flaw that it does not mention CCTV which must be there throughout the Delhi Metro including at the stations and the interchange areas as one of the tools to improve crime detection and help intercept criminals within the premises. World over in more congested Metros like in Japan, New York, London and Paris, the CCTV helps form a very important role in curbing crime, as you may be aware.

Note: If responsible and long standing newspapers like The Statesman, Delhi do not take care that what they publish generally covers all angles of the matter, we are getting then only a part of the story. 



From The Statesman New Delhi edition, 14/10/22.

Five stations account for one-fourth of metro crimes in Delhi 

The swindlers keep tracing their prey throughout the metro station and target them as soon as they get a chance.

Abhishek Tiwari | New Delhi | Updated : October 14, 2022 5:40 pm

If you are a commuter of Delhi Metro, use caution while passing through interchange metro stations where snatchers, thieves and other miscreants are waiting for their prey. One needs to be extra cautious at especially five major interchange metro stations.

This was revealed by the Delhi Metro Police in a Right to Information (RTI) reply. They said the five interchange stations are Kashmere Gate, Rajiv Chowk, Yamuna Bank, Anand Vihar and Hauz Khas where one-fourth of the total crime committed at all the metro stations in Delhi take place.

It may be noted here that these metro stations witness a maximum number of footfalls every day.

Kashmere Gate

Among the five metro stations notorious for crimes, Kashmere Gate (KG) is favourite haunt for ruffians since most of the criminal activities have been reported from here.

According to the RTI reply, as many as 5,110 incidents of crimes were reported at KG metro station in the last five years, which is way higher than the crimes at other metro stations in Delhi.

With 2,936 criminal incidents reported in the last five years, Rajiv Chowk metro station stood second.

These overcrowded metro stations offer a big advantage to such antisocial elements, who roam around in search of their target and disappear in the crowd after committing the crime.

Interestingly, the crime ratio at these metro stations didn’t change and remained constant even last year.

As per the data, the number of crimes took place in the year 2021 at metro stations was 2,091. Of these, 500 incidents (about 25 percent) took place at these five interchange metro stations.

Five-year crime graph

Year	Total Cases	Kashmere Gate	Rajiv Chowk	Yamuna Bank	Anand Vihar	Hauz Khas
2017	12777	2702	1385	250	112	57
2018	5374	963	584	102	73	132
2019	6701	888	784	113	85	179
2020	2268	216	56	22	23	21
2021	2091	141	127	91	70	18

 

Unaffected by pandemic

Even during Covid-19 outbreak, when the metro was either closed for most of the time or a small number of passegers were allowed to travel, crimes at metro stations continued unabated.

Despite being in the grip of the first wave of the Covid pandemic in the year 2020, the Delhi Metro witnessed 2,266 cases of snatching and theft. What’s all the more shocking was that, a case of rape was also reported that year whereas during the deadliest second and the third wave of pandemic in the year 2021, 2,090 crime cases were reported in Delhi Metro.

Crimes at Indralok

During the last five years, Indralok metro station recorded a surge in crime taking the sixth spot in the list. As many as 187 incidents of crime reported under the jurisdiction of this metro station, which is an interchange junction for Red and Green Line.

Unsafe transition

According to a police official, commuters are mostly targeted while changing the train. The swindlers keep tracing their prey throughout the metro station and target them as soon as they get a chance.

Inter-zone stations are the ones with heavy footfalls every day. Usually, people change platforms from one metro line to another. Due to overcrowding at these stations, the criminals get enough time to carry out theft or snatching. To avoid being caught, they join the crowd after commiting a crime.

Many a time, they ambush near their victim at the doors of metros, and snatches mobile or other expensive items just before doors are closed.

Security system

Apart from the Delhi Metro Police, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) is deployed at the Delhi Metro stations. The CISF is responsible for the security of metro premises. It is the CISF which ensures security by passenger screening, station checking, search in metro trains and at platforms.

The Delhi Metro Police is responsible for all the legal action taken for a crime taking place inside the metro premises. To monitor legal action, there are 16 police stations at 16 different metro stations. Along with police teams of metro police stations, a team of special staff is deployed in Delhi Metros.

Tips for safe commute

– Be careful while getting down or boarding the metro train and be attentive to your belongings.

– Stay in the lines while boarding the train and avoid being part of the crowd while entering a metro train.

– Keep your baggage in the front while travelling and don’t lose hold of your belongings, even while sitting in the metro.

– Put your luggage in the X-Bis machine during security checks only when it’s your turn. Avoid putting things on the machine belt while you are standing in the queue.

– If not necessary, avoid keeping mobile in your hand while boarding or de-boarding the train. It can be snatched before you get any clue.

Transport Minister To Hold Bar Owners Responsible for Drunken Driving on Goan Roads! : 12 Oct 2022

The antics of our Goan ministers are very much fit for reproducing in Punch, the celebrated UK humour magazine. One does not know if they will accept it or consider it an insult. The latest is the statement by our Transport Minister to hold bar owners responsible for drunken driving on Goan roads with the ostensible objective to limit road accidents. lnstead of catching the drunks driving on the roads with the breathalyser kits and intensify police patrolling in this regard the Minister is asking bar owners not to pursue their legitimate business for which they take a licence and which is their livelihood. One has not heard of such stupidity any time earlier. The Minister further goes to make a statement that abroad bar owners call for taxis to take drunk customers home to prevent them from driving. This is a completely unverifiable claim since in smaller pubs and bars maybe in the countryside abroad, they do this as a matter of courtesy since most regular drinkers are known to the bar owners. But in larger cities such gestures are practically impossible. So also in India where the bars are more crowded than the ones abroad and the bar owners will seriously have to go out of their way to arrange for transport for their errant guests who in most cases will be unknown to them. Take the case here in Goa, during season 90% of the people in the bars will be tourists and these are the people who get drunk. The way to tackle drunken driving is to improve policing and be strict with offenders and throw them into jail for one night from which they will get the message the next morning to be more careful in future. Why are our Ministers lax with our enforcement officials like the police and other agencies and encourage the sussegadlife? Have them out on the roads at night to intensify the monitoring of drunken driving? 

All that our Ministers can do is talk with their nose in the air since on similar matters, in the last month or so you have to ask how many vehicles have got stuck on our beaches? Let the Minister and police assess this and even today (11/10/22) there is a post on FB which shows a Tempo Traveller minibus stuck in the sand and claiming it is in Goa. When minibuses and cars, big objects, are not caught while infringing on our beaches when we have regular police, the beach police now and the Dristhi life guard facility etc. etc. , how will our police catch people who are drunk which is less obvious and noticeable from a person's appearance. 

To solve this problem, what can be done is have police with the breathalyser kits 100 meters from or some such suitable distance from the bars and test everyone coming out. Do this by locality 2-3 nights in a row and by rotation cover the whole of Goa in about a month or so. Word will spread like the helmet offenders would signal about the police ahead or about the speed guns when they were once available in Goa and thus the number of drunks on the roads will come down. The relationship of drunk driving and accidents is not really there. People who drink are being made scapegoats and we have always been saying Goans can hold their drink, so where does that statement go now? 

As regards traffic accidents our authorities have created this problem themselves. In the name of development roads have been widened, flyovers have been built and expressways are on the way. People who were used to narrower roads and mind traffic responsibly are now zipping along. Cars have become more powerful which people with money in their hands are buying. With the wider roads it is time for these owners to show what their SUV's can do. These SUV's have bigger tyres and that is why you see these vehicles jump road dividers and hit the opposite lane traffic. These are recipes for accidents and they are happening and will continue to happen. Now the first thing that should be done is to raise the height of the road dividers by at least 2 feet more on a war footing across Goa. However leave the space as already existing where pedestrians are allowed to cross the road. Another solution could be that you install traffic lights linked with CCTV capable of reading number plates and sensors to read speed of cars, like they have in Singapore and other developed places. In city areas have traffic lights every 100 meters or so like in Mumbai where you just cannot speed. In rural areas have the traffic lights at important junctions or places where frequent accidents occur. These also should have CCTV and speed sensors on them. Have rigorous implementation of traffic rules and discipline and serve notices detected by the CCTV and speed sensors to the homes of offenders. This method may be expensive but if you want development it cannot be one-sided and the problems arising out of it needs to be tackled with development again, meaning better technology. 

Goa should also have an independent study of the new roads for highway engineering by an independent body like the IIT's or the CEERI and see if the designs of the roads are proper. This is particularly so for places like Karmal Ghat where almost every other day now trucks are going off the road or toppling over. This has been happening on other hill roads too. Apart from this a public awareness campaign is to be done to reiterate the principle of safe driving and drill into people's heads that - While on the road, you need to take care of not only yourself but also the other person on the road. We have the police going to colleges like the other day to the Govt. Polytechnic in Panaji to brief students on traffic rules and safe driving. These programs should be intensified. For traffic accidents to reduce it will take time but no knee-jerk and publicity seeking decisions by Ministers will help. In fact they will make matters worse. 

There was a time in Goa where driving around was a pleasure on the winding roads lined with trees and great views of the surrounding countryside. People would say that it was great getting lost on the roads of Goa because you would see more of it. Now all that is gone forever. That was the charm of Goa. We need to bring it back albeit in a limited fashion. Everything now is black macadammed roads and concrete flyovers which block the view. You miss nature while driving on Goan roads now. Thus it is best to call a status quo and stop expanding and widening Goan roads from now onwards but improve their quality particularly road surface to make driving pleasant. This will automatically bring in speed regulation of traffic and reduce accidents. For this just like Prakash Muthalik, we may have to ban the entry into Goa of Nitin Gadkari who like the other day told Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh that he will make the State's roads better than the U.S., may come with a similar promise for Goa and our gullible M/s Pramod Sawant and Mauvin Goudinho will fall for it!

Hardeep Singh Puri Talking In The Air About India Petroleum Oil Prices: 

12 Oct 2022

Hardeep Singh Puri, Central Minister, while speaking recently in the U.S. said that India contained the oil price hikes to 2% while in North America the increase was in the region of 40%. One does not know where the Sardar Mantri gets his figures from but the runaway increase in prices of oil and petroleum prices has hit the common man very hard in India. It is also not the quantum of increase but its affordance that we need to look at. People in North America with higher incomes can afford the hikes which the Indian common man cannot. Thus we have to look at the Indian context and limit price increases and/or take measures to cut duties/taxes and not talk in the air what other countries are doing for their people.

Narendra Modi Back In Election Mode : 11 Oct 2022

Narendra Modi is back in election mode as one can understand from the speech he gave at Bharuch y/day, 10th Oct, where he said that 'urban Naxals' are attempting to enter Gujarat by 'changing their appearance' and that they will be detected by the State and destroyed. These precisely are the provocative and incendiary statements which encourage people lower down the ranks be it within political parties or other bodies to take law into their hands and commit atrocities. It does not also behove Modi occupying the chair of the Prime Minister of India to make such statements. Such statements from the political leadership result as we saw lately at Bijapur in Karnataka where a mob forcibly entered a centuries old mosque and performed a puja within the premises. There are other similar communal incidents where the party cadres or the mob assume implicit licence from their top leaders to commit atrocities. Coming back to Modi's statement, one cannot understand why  'urban Naxals' should 'change their appearance' to enter Gujarat? One though that India is a free country and people have the right to travel where they like. Saying this Modi is sowing the seeds of suspicion and as a result of which innocent, helpless and poor people will have to face public attacks. We have seen this in the past where people believing the victims were thieves, robbers and even involved in witchcraft were brutally attacked with some losing their lives. Modi should at least be responsible and avoid inciting such acts. Again what does Modi mean by saying such people will be 'destroyed'? Let him spell out clearly his intentions. Now you can see how the 2002 Gujarat riots were orchestrated where Modi has even got an acquittal from the Supreme Court because of 'lack of evidence'. Actually such statements are made by Modi and his kind, with no semblance of formal or higher education, to drive public frenzy mostly at election times to incite the largely uneducated populace so that they blindly vote for the BJP out of fear and insecurity. And Amit Shah, Modi's Man Friday, is always there to say that at election times political leaders say things which they actually do not mean. As for Modi, you will see that he will not even say sorry or retract or at least say that he was misquoted. He will as usual go into his tortoise shell and come back to revisit these issues when public memory from places other than in Gujarat have forgotten what he actually said. Therefore, do we deserve Modi and such leadership? No. That is why it is time to bring about change. WE NEED CHANGE AND NEED IT NOW! 

Nirmala Sitharaman Visits A Vegetable Market In Chennai! : 10 Oct 2022

There was a picture in the papers lately of Nirmala Sitharaman visiting a vegetable market in Chennai ostensibly to buy vegetables. A great photo-op for the FM aligned to the event management strategies followed by her superior, the PM. On another note it is good that she went to the vegetable market, which will enable her to come down to earth with the knowledge of the sky-rocketing pricing of vegetables that is drastically hurting the budgets of common housewives. Or she may come out with a blithe statement, that prices have not really risen since I visited a vegetable market a few years ago. Because at that time I did not have to pay, and even this time I did not pay. Both times I had offered but the vendors did not want to take money from me. So really prices have not gone up! But levity aside a few years ago when vegetable prices were rapidly shooting up because of drought and/or floods, a study was done and it was found that that 40% of the vegetables and fresh produce are wasted in the transition from farm gate to the retail markets. To stop this wastage, it was suggested that cold chains should be set up so that spoilage etc. is reduced if not eliminated. With this increased availability there would be a reining in of a rise in prices. Nothing seems to have been done about this. This inspite of the Modi government being in power for the last 8 years or so. Modi and cohorts among which Nirmala Sitharaman is one should realise that it is easy to blame but difficult to deliver on programs and promises made. 

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If you have any issues with this blog, revert to the author at contact details given below: 

S Kamat

Mob: 0 7218698906  

Email: kamatsrinivas@hotmail.com