EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

No more sumo until bout-fixing rooted out

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Penalties meted out to many sumo wrestlers involved in bout-fixing must be a catalyst for eliminating this unseemly practice from the sumo world.

The Japan Sumo Association announced Friday that it had punished 23 wrestlers and sumo elders who had rigged bouts.

The penalties, including "a recommendation to voluntarily retire" and two-year suspensions from sumo tournaments, were imposed on 21 active wrestlers and two oyakata elders, who allegedly fixed bouts during their competitive careers. No wrestlers in the three ranks below yokozuna were among the 23 slapped with disciplinary action.

The punishments are harsh and effectively boot the offenders from the sumo arena. Oyakata of stables to which the tainted wrestlers belong also have been punished for failing to properly manage their proteges. The JSA this time has taken an uncompromising line on bout-rigging.

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Investigations insufficient

However, we have doubts about the accuracy and exhaustiveness of the JSA investigation.

A special investigation panel comprising lawyers and other experts questioned wrestlers and elders on the matter, but the only three wrestlers who "confessed" to the panel had already admitted involvement in throwing bouts just after the scandal surfaced in February.

The panel failed to unearth many nuggets of hard evidence other than text messages from several wrestlers' mobile phones implying bout winners had been prearranged.

As a result, the investigation panel had no option but to weigh the three wrestlers' testimonies against bout results that appeared dubious as they tried to determine whether they had been fixed. The punishments will be hard to swallow for wrestlers who have been penalized despite denying any role in the scandal.

The JSA says it will continue investigating the problem. But as long as the panel has no binding power, it will be extremely difficult to get to the bottom of bout-fixing in sumo.

JSA Chairman Hanaregoma has said previously, "Until we drive out every cause of [bout-fixing] irregularities, we won't be able to let wrestlers publicly perform in a ring."

The Osaka tournament in March was canceled as sumo reeled from the scandal. Given the current situation, under which the JSA has fallen short of "driving out all causes" of match-rigging and related irregularities, it will be all but impossible to hold the upcoming summer grand sumo tournament scheduled for May.

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Face up to scandal

Sumo cannot exist without support from its fans. Bearing this in mind, the JSA should use the penalties handed out this time as a starting point for strengthening its efforts to prevent match-fixing.

The revelations of bout-fixing surfaced in February, but rumors that bouts had been decided in advance had been rife for years. The JSA had continually denied these suspicions, and did not even conduct a fact-finding study on the matter.

Above all else, the JSA should stop turning a blind eye to unpleasant realities. It should compile a package of match-fixing prevention measures that will convince sumo fans the association is serious about eliminating the bout-fixing scourge before it holds another tournament.

Many people are keenly looking forward to seeing sumo tournaments resume. Live sumo broadcasts would also surely cheer and encourage victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The JSA has an obligation to ensure sumo fans can watch hotly contested, genuine bouts as soon as possible.

Kan must overcome his distrust of bureaucrats

The Yomiuri Shimbun

If Prime Minister Naoto Kan recognizes that this is a time of emergency, he needs to free himself from his pursuit of state affairs controlled by politicians--which is little more than a slogan anyway--and establish a system under which politicians and bureaucrats can tackle the crisis in a united manner.

The opposition camp has criticized Kan over his helicopter flyover at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant the day after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern parts of the nation. They say this caused a delay in initial responses by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, to nuclear accidents following the earthquake.

The prime minister brushed aside such criticism. But it cannot be denied that his aerial inspection delayed operations to release high-pressure steam from one of the reactors there by opening a vent valve.

He might have been eager to show off such a politician-led style in dealing with the problem, but the acts of a prime minister can have a larger impact than he may think. As it actually was a time of emergency, he needed to consider his acts even more carefully than usual.

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Too many experts

After the earthquake disaster, Kan appointed six experts in nuclear affairs and crisis management as advisers to the Cabinet Secretariat. This was also a questionable move.

He apparently has strong distrust of both TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, an external organ of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, due to their delayed disclosure of information, among other reasons, and is therefore eager to listen to the opinions of third parties.

But as TEPCO plays a central role in dealing with accidents at the plant, it should be a top priority for the prime minister to rebuild a relationship of trust with the company. While letting other Cabinet members gather opinions of private-sector experts, the prime minister should stand a step behind and oversee overall operations. This is an essential role of a leader.

With regard to support for disaster victims, a system to utilize the bureaucratic apparatus has been established in the form of a liaison conference of officials from relevant ministries and government offices, following the appointment of Yoshito Sengoku, the Democratic Party of Japan's acting president, to the post of deputy chief cabinet secretary in charge of the matter. This should have been done much sooner.

Furthermore, DPJ lawmakers called up by Sengoku have been issuing instructions willy-nilly, causing new confusion. It surely is necessary to have a control tower, but having too many team leaders can cause trouble. It is important that the chain of command be kept as simple as possible.

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Unclear communication

Kan's ability to transmit information also is a concern. He has wound up uttering abstract, unilateral messages and has barely responded to reporters' questions. It is understandable that some cynics have called him a "hikikomori," meaning a severely withdrawn person.

The prime minister's rather defensive attitude gives the impression both at home and abroad that the government may be withholding information. Together with delayed responses to the quake disaster, this has been causing a vicious circle of defensiveness and criticism.

After a long interval, Kan held a press conference Friday at which he announced a plan to set up a conference for reconstruction initiatives comprised of experts and local people. He also answered questions from reporters. From here on out, the prime minister is expected to more actively transmit information on his own.

A series of problems that have arisen in the aftermath of the disaster can be attributed to the slogans the DPJ-led administration has pursued--"seiji shudo," or politician-led handling of government affairs, and "datsu kanryo," or ending reliance on bureaucrats.

Kan himself still deeply distrusts bureaucrats, as he has since he was in the opposition force. To overcome this immediate crisis, he should take a leaf out of the books of prime ministers who effectively used bureaucrats' power.

EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline

Later this year, the State Department will decide whether to approve construction of a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast called Keystone XL. The underground 36-inch pipeline, built by TransCanada, would link the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to Texas refineries and begin operating in 2013. The department should say no.

State is involved because the pipeline would cross an international boundary. Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton first said she was “inclined” to support it, but has lately sounded more neutral. An environmental assessment carried out by her department last year was sharply criticized by the Environmental Protection Agency for understating the project’s many risks. The department has since undertaken another environmental review that will soon be released for public comment. It needs to be thorough and impartial.

Advocates of the Keystone XL, which include the Canadian government, the oil industry and its allies in Congress, argue that a steady supply of oil from a friendly neighbor is the answer to rising oil prices and turmoil in the Middle East. But the Energy Department says the pipeline would have a minimal effect on prices, and there is already sufficient pipeline capacity to double United States imports from Canada.

The environmental risks, for both countries, are enormous. The first step in the process is to strip-mine huge chunks of Alberta’s boreal forest. The oil, a tar-like substance called bitumen, is then extracted with steam or hot water, which in turn is produced by burning natural gas. The E.P.A. estimates that the greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil — even without counting the destruction of forests that sequester carbon — are 82 percent greater than those produced by conventional crude oil.

The project poses a major threat to water supplies on both sides of the border. Turning two tons of tar sand into a barrel of oil requires four times as much water as producing a barrel of conventional oil. Operations in Alberta have already created 65 square miles of toxic holding ponds, which kill migrating birds and pollute downstream watersheds, a serious matter for native communities.

In the United States, the biggest potential problem is pipeline leaks. The Keystone XL would carry bitumen — which is more corrosive than crude oil — thinned with other petroleum condensates and then pumped at high pressure and at a temperature of more than 150 degrees through the pipeline.

 Last July, an older bitumen pipeline in Michigan spilled 800,000 gallons of the stuff into the Kalamazoo River. A new TransCanada pipeline that began carrying diluted bitumen last year has already had nine spills.

The Keystone XL would cut diagonally across Montana and the Nebraska Sand Hills — a delicate region of porous, sandy soils — to northern Kansas before heading south to the Gulf. It would also cross the Ogallala Aquifer, a shallow underground reservoir of enormous importance for agriculture that also provides drinking water for two million people. A pipeline leaking diluted bitumen into groundwater could have disastrous consequences.

For this reason, Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson of Nebraska have vigorously opposed the planned route of the Keystone XL. Still, political pressure to win swift approval has been building in Congress. Moving ahead would be a huge error. From all of the evidence, Keystone XL is not only environmentally risky, it is unnecessary.

Cutting Out the Middleman

For six years, Doug Stafford was a lobbyist for the National Right to Work Committee, an anti-labor group financed by business and conservative interests. His job changed last year but his duties did not when he became the chief of staff to Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. Mr. Paul is a chief sponsor of the National Right to Work Act, which he said would end forced unionization and “break Big Labor’s multibillion-dollar political machine forever.”
Brett Loper’s career path is a similar one. When he was an executive for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, an industry group, he lobbied hard against President Obama’s health care reform. Now, as the chief policy adviser for Speaker John Boehner, he is helping to organize the effort to repeal the health care law. The only difference is that the taxpayers are paying his salary.
There has long been a regular shuttle service between Capitol Hill and Washington’s K Street, but the numbers now are striking. Since last year’s Republican victories, nearly 100 lawmakers have hired former lobbyists as their chiefs of staff or legislative directors, according to data compiled by two watchdog groups, the Center for Responsive Politics and Remapping Debate. That is more than twice as many as in the previous two years.
In that same period, 40 lobbyists have been hired as staff members of Congressional committees and subcommittees, the boiler rooms where legislation is drafted. That again dwarfs the number from the previous two years.
While some of those lobbyist-staffers were hired by Democrats, the vast majority are working for Republicans. Representative Raul Labrador, a freshman from Idaho, hired John Goodwin, previously a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, as his chief of staff. Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, hired Howard Cohen, a longtime lobbyist for the health care industry, as his chief counsel.
In many cases, those hiring lobbyists were Tea Party candidates who vowed to end business as usual in Washington. As The Washington Post reported, when Ron Johnson ran against Wisconsin’s Senator Russ Feingold, he accused Mr. Feingold of being “on the side of special interests and lobbyists.” Now that he is a senator, Mr. Johnson has hired as his chief of staff Donald Kent, whose firms have lobbied for casinos, defense industries and homeland security companies.
Ethics laws put limits on elected officials who move to lobbying firms. But there is nothing to stop lobbyists from getting immediately hired on Capitol Hill. This year’s class of staffers argues for a tough ban. After collecting millions from industries or unions or others, lobbyists should not be allowed to turn around and write laws that favor these special interests.

What Would You Do With an Extra $70 Billion?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has vowed that the days of profligacy are over and that the Pentagon will reform its bloated and often corrupt acquisition process.

Mr. Gates has already canceled several expensive and unneeded systems — pushing back against defense contractors and their Congressional enablers. In 2009, President Obama signed a law to improve contracting, which created a new office to handle cost estimates and put increased focus on testing weapons before they enter production. Mr. Gates’s point man, Ashton Carter, issued new guidelines to the 147,000 Pentagon employees handling acquisitions, stressing affordability and controlling cost growth.

Still, a new study by the Government Accountability Office found that the projected costs of the Pentagon’s largest weapons programs have risen $135 billion, or 9 percent, to $1.68 trillion in the last two years. Some $65 billion resulted from decisions to buy more of some systems, like mine-resistant vehicles for Afghanistan. But more than half of the total — $70 billion — was caused by management failures.

That means Pentagon cost overruns amount to one and half times the State Department’s entire $47 billion annual budget. The worst offender (with a $34 billion overrun) is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by Lockheed Martin, intended as the workhorse jet for the foreseeable future.

The G.A.O. said many of the problems resulted because the Pentagon began building weapons before designs were fully tested and is still not “fully adhering” to best practices. In some cases, cost estimates have been revised upward because initial projections were overly optimistic and flawed — a longstanding Pentagon failing.

It is unrealistic to expect the Pentagon to reverse years of unchecked spending and inefficiency overnight. But clearly much more must be done to change the way the bureaucracy, defense contractors and Congress act.

Sunday Evening With Monday to Come

New York is a place people come to have jobs they can love. And yet a certain wistfulness always steals over Sunday evening. You can almost feel the people out on the streets — walking dogs, strolling home from dinner, running along the river — trying to make twilight last a little longer. Monday is gathering and they can feel it.

Surely not everyone is homeward bound by dark on Sunday evening, and yet that’s where everyone seems to be headed. Perhaps this is pure projection on the part of the observer, whose thoughts have already drifted into the week ahead. But Sunday evening brings a feeling completely unlike, say, Tuesday evening. The slower pace on the sidewalks feels like reluctance. The traffic seems almost melancholy. You suspect that the dogs, out for the last walk of the night, can smell the Sunday-ness of it all.

Everywhere there are people saying goodbye. Couples parting at street corners and brownstone steps, a man helping a woman into a cab and watching as it pulls away, a flock of teenagers noisily disassembling at a subway entrance. We don’t live in the midst of one another just for these moments, but these are the moments that make living in the midst of one another feel coherent, as though the city is something we create, in collaboration, day after day. We go home, go to bed and turn out the light, knowing that Monday will come at its own speed and that we’ll wake up already racing.

 

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE INDIAN EXPRESS, INDIA

Lankan media slam selectors for playing Murali

Sri Lankan media on Sunday gave mixed reaction to the country's defeat at the hands of India in the cricket World Cup final, with one newspaper scathing in its criticism of the team's selectors while another said Indians deserved the coveted trophy.

"Dhoni heroics make India world champs", read the headline of the state-owned 'Sunday Observer' newspaper. Commenting on "selection blunders", it asked "who picked the final XI?"

"It shocked everyone when Suraj Randiv was included at the expense of Ajantha Mendis," the paper said.

It was wrong to have played a half-fit Muralitharan, however much a great bowler he was, the paper said.

"Winning the mega final was much more important than giving a farewell tribute to even a great cricketer of Muralitaharan's magnitude," it said.

Commenting on the team's six-wicket loss to the Dhoni brigade at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium last night, the independent 'Sunday Times' newspaper said in its editorial that "crestfallen and sorely disappointed, most Sri Lankans would wake up today trying to reconcile with the fact that the national team emerged second best."

Lankan media give mixed reaction to World Cup loss to India

Sri Lankan media on Sunday gave mixed reaction to the country's defeat at the hands of India in the cricket World Cup final, with one newspaper scathing in its criticism of the team's selectors while another said Indians deserved the coveted trophy.

"Dhoni heroics make India world champs", read the headline of the state-owned 'Sunday Observer' newspaper. Commenting on "selection blunders", it asked "who picked the final XI?"

"It shocked everyone when Suraj Randiv was included at the expense of Ajantha Mendis," the paper said.

It was wrong to have played a half-fit Muralitharan, however much a great bowler he was, the paper said.

"Winning the mega final was much more important than giving a farewell tribute to even a great cricketer of Muralitaharan's magnitude," it said.

Commenting on the team's six-wicket loss to the Dhoni brigade at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium last night, the independent 'Sunday Times' newspaper said in its editorial that "crestfallen and sorely disappointed, most Sri Lankans would wake up today trying to reconcile with the fact that the national team emerged second best."

While opining that Sri Lanka had an easier passage to the finals than India, it said "India are the deserved winners, to them go the fruits of victory and all the accolades with it".

There was no disgrace in the defeat. "They lost last night to the top ranked cricketing nation before a hugely partisan and frenzied crowd, and away from home, and there is no dishonour in losing," the paper said.

However, it called for a probe of the defeat. "The time is now opportune to venture into an assessment of sports administration in Sri Lanka."

It argued that "cricket has been run by successive interim committees, most reeking with corruption, nepotism and political interference and mismanagement".

The 'Sunday Observer' said the cup was so much near yet so far for Sri Lanka which emerged runner-up for the second time in a row.

Though it described Sri Lanka's 274 for 6 in 50 overs as a challenging total and hailed Vice Captain Mahela Jayawardene for his blistering century, the paper said Gautam Gambhir's brave 97 runs resurrected the Indian innings following which it was too late for Sri Lanka to bounce back.

Most papers had page one pictures of Jayawardene who made a century, the only redeeming feature for the Sri Lankans in the cup final.

'Lakbima News' carried on the front page the picture of Thilakaratne Dilshan and Lasith Malinga celebrating the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, captioned 'Done Half the Job'.

Its main sports page caption was 'Cricket's Holy Grail with India for the Second Time', while the 'Sunday Times' headline was 'India Wins World Cup for Second Time'.

'India World Champs, SL Loses World Cup Final despite Mahela 100', read the headline of the 'Sunday Island', while 'The Nation on Sunday' wrote 'Lost but not Shamed'.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

Spying farce

PAKISTAN and India seem to have a built-in mechanism for sabotaging peace moves. This uncanny but recurrent phenomenon sows doubts in the mind of the international community about our public avowals of peace and arouses derision for South Asian governments` diplomatic gaucheness, besides disappointing people on both sides. Prime Ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh met at Mohali on Wednesday, their first meeting since Thimphu last year. Both displayed cautious optimism about the future relationship and seemed sincere in pushing the peace process forward. A day earlier — perhaps to create the right atmosphere for the two prime ministers to meet, the Pakistan and Indian home secretaries clinched a deal that among other things decided to establish a hotline to exchange real-time data on terrorism. Yet on the very day of the Mohali semi-final and what was billed as the third round of cricket diplomacy, Indian security agencies arrested a Pakistan high commission official to throw a spanner in the works. A day later, their Pakistani counterparts obliged with a tit-for-tat arrest that made Mohali appear a cruel joke.

The underworld of espionage and counter-espionage has its own rules of the game. Intelligence agencies across the world know more about things at home and abroad than their elected chiefs. Whether it is Pakistan`s ISI or India`s RAW, not to mention Raymond Davis`s ubiquitous agency, spying networks throughout the world exercise a certain degree of freedom of action which sometimes embarrasses their governments. Surely, those who arrested the Pakistan High Commission official must have kept him under surveillance for a long time and known all along what his presumed undiplomatic activities were. That they didn`t wait for the Mohali meeting to be over and arrested him that very day would make all well-wishers of peace wonder whether this was a deliberate act aimed at derailing a renewed peace process that looked like moving forward.

The Pakistan agencies too could have exercised discretion. Instead, by responding immediately to what by any standards was a provocative act at the Chandigarh airport they deprived their own government of any chance of occupying the moral high ground. Diplomats on both sides then got to work on what was a damage-control exercise; the Indian HC staff member was released after a phone call from New Delhi but the damage had been done. The invisible hands on both sides will now be hard put to explain to their governments and their own people what they achieved by enacting a spying farce that failed to evoke laughter. Let`s hope the episode proves no more than a minor setback in the peace journey.

Fee hike in private schools

IT is quite evident that private-sector education has experienced major growth in Pakistan. Yet many observers feel the state has failed to properly supervise the private sector, which has resulted in not only varying educational standards at these institutions, but also arbitrariness when it comes to setting fee structures. For example, a report in this paper says that private schools in Karachi have hiked tuition fees by between 25 and 45 per cent, which contravenes the Schools` Registration Act. By law private schools are allowed to increase tuition fees by five per cent in two years. Yet it is obvious many institutions are clearly violating this provision. Some parents believe officials in the Sindh government`s education department are facilitating these questionable increases because when the issue was brought to their notice, the officials gave the complainants a cold shoulder. It is true that inflation has affected all sectors; private schools, too, have salaries to pay and overheads to meet. Yet fee increases need to be in line with the law and cannot be abrupt and arbitrary. While some private educational institutions are doing a commendable job filling in the educational void, many schools are purely moneymaking concerns with hardly any state oversight where standards are concerned.

The public sector has failed to perform in many areas, and education is one of them. Pakistan is, as has recently been underscored, facing an `education emergency`. While the state cannot abdicate its responsibility of providing quality public education, it also cannot remain silent when so many parents across the country are sending their children to private schools. For example, in the recently released Education Emergency Pakistan report, it is said that more than half of urban children go to private schools; in rural areas the figure is over a quarter. Statistics from 2009 suggest that nearly 30 per cent of children in the country attend private schools. These are not insignificant figures. Hence the state`s mechanism to regulate private educational institutions needs to be strengthened so that private schools adhere to baseline quality standards and parents are protected from random fee hikes and other dubious charges.

Hindu marriages

AS part of the movement for the rights of scheduled caste Hindus in Pakistan, activists called on Thursday for the promulgation of a law formalising Hindu marriages. The fact that many Hindu couples still cannot acquire legal proof of marriage has implications broader than simply a lack of recognition by the state; it can become a significant hurdle when trying to get national identity cards, filing for divorce, obtaining property rights or even travelling within the country as a couple without facing harassment. Speakers at Thursday’s conference also pointed out that it makes it difficult to file cases in instances of abductions and forced conversions leading to remarriages, and that the lack of a CNIC makes it harder to cast votes. In the absence of legal documentation, Hindu couples are dependent on circumstantial evidence such as wedding photographs, the whims of the particular official they are dealing with, or lawyers’ affidavits, if they are able to procure these.

But more than an administrative inconvenience, this state of affairs runs counter to the constitution’s guarantee of equality for all citizens. Given the recent murders of two major public figures fighting for minority rights, now would be a good time to pass a law regarding Hindu marriage registration to reinforce that Pakistan’s minorities have the same rights as its Muslim population. Nor should it be a particularly controversial law for politicians to back; it is simply inertia, it seems, that has resulted in the long delay despite court cases, protests as well as a Supreme Court notice asking the government to look into the matter. Marriage is one of the most basic buildings blocks of our society and a common human aspiration. Denying its formal recognition to a specific portion of the population cannot be classified as anything other than discrimination.

 

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

Unending 'crossfire' deaths

ASK report yet another eye-opener 

The latest report by Ain-O-Salish Kendra makes dismal reading. In the past three months, according to the report, as many as thirty individuals have died in so-called crossfire incidents in the country while twenty five others died in police custody. By any standard of morality as well as legality, these incidents are appalling in nature. They fly in the face of the government's claims that no 'crossfire' deaths have occurred in all the time since it took office in January 2009. Now contrast that with a recent ministerial comment to the effect that crossfire killings have seeped into the system and it will take time for such killings to be brought to an end. Such contradictory positions are disturbing.

The figures released by ASK beg the question: what explanation does the government have on offer now that the truth is once more out there in the open? Note that ASK did not produce the figures but only put them together on the basis of news reports in the various national dailies. The one proper course for the authorities now will or should be an admission that these killings in 'crossfire' have indeed taken place and that these extra-judicial killings will be properly probed. With all the incidents of such killings that we have come across in the past two years, there can really be no point in the government's denying these reports or suggesting that the killings were basically a consequence of defence measures adopted by the law enforcers under attack from criminal elements. Such arguments lack validity and therefore credibility, for the simple reason that except for the ones killed in 'crossfire' none among the criminal gang is nabbed and none among the law enforcers is injured or killed.

The ASK report should be an eye-opener for the government, especially since the ruling party made it clear before the December 2008 elections that putting an end to extra-judicial deaths was a goal it meant to pursue. It is time for the government to adopt a definitive, decisive position against such killings through reining in the law enforcers.

We have been urging the government to realise how extra-judicial killings keep undermining the rule of law and damaging our image. Yet it falls short of responding. It is indeed high time they rolled it back.

Beaten up for a crumb of bread

We condemn the appalling outrage

A picture published in last Saturday's The Daily Star speaks volumes about our heavy-handed treatment to tender aged children. In particular it shows crowd's total insensitivity to a couple of poor and hungry urchin girls alleged to have stolen food. Whereas they should have been shown passion and the crowd feeling a sense of guilt that the society failed to provide two morsels of food to them, they behaved as if devoid of humanity.
Piya and Shumi shouldn't be more than eight years old, or even less, and their frailty is evident of the poverty that they are caught up in with teeming millions of children. They couldn't be habitual thieves; even if they were they hardly deserved to be treated so brutally. It seems to be a simple case of food-lifting by direly famished children.
In any case, the matter calls for some serious introspection at the societal level. Impoverished children in our country may be forced to resort to petty thefts for survival so that the problem is struck at its root.
There's huge wastage of food everyday from the households and the hotels. Leftovers are either taken away by people who don't need them or thrown into the bins for urchins to pick up. It's an affront to humanity.
We have our government, social welfare ministry, ministry for women and children affairs, children rights groups, human rights organizations and scores of voluntary bodies who work for distressed children. Sadly, whereas urchins should have been taken under the wings of shelter homes, they are falling prey to trafficking, sexual exploitation and petty crimes.
Instead of ensuring food and schooling for them we beat them up for nibbling food. Piyas and Shumis should be taken care of because we have a collective responsibility towards them.