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Letters

Human Trafficking
With one child going missing in India every eight minutes , it's no surprise that India tops the list with the highest number of people in modern slavery.

Although the problem is of serious concern throughout the country, West Bengal is emerging as the centre of human trafficking. With no law pertaining to placement agencies in West Bengal, children and women continue to fall prey to illegal recruitment agencies that entice them with false job offers, and then trap them into domestic slavery.

Earlier this year, the government of Chhattisgarh took an admirable step and adopted a law to regulate placement agencies, the first state in India to do so.

Civil Rights bodies must ask the Chief Minister of West Bengal to enact a law that will regulate and register placement agencies.

United Nations Office on Drug and Crime states that out of over 19,000 children and women who went missing from West Bengal in 2011, only 6000 have been traced.

Anti-slavery organisations believe that many of those have been trafficked to cities as domestic workers, where they remain at the mercy of traffickers—abused and exploited. By calling on the state government to take immediate action, people can together help protect children and women from false allurements of traffickers.

There are thousands of people vulnerable to trafficking in West Bengal today. By taking action now, one can ensure that important steps are taken to protect them from the nightmare of modern slavery.
Kamini, Ravi, Jaspreet and the teams at Walk Free and Shakti Vahini

"The Other Side"
This has reference to the editorial "The Other Side" [Frontier, Vol 47, No 18, November 9-15, 2014]. The Editor focused a good and alarming subject in his well written editorial 'Other Side'. However, I would like to concentrate on the increasing Bangladeshi immigration into India, and the defence and support of illegal migrants from Bangladesh by the ruling party and even the left parties in West Bengal. It is to be noted that one of the not-achieved dreams of the Muslim separatists like Choudhry Rahmat Ali, Mohammed Jinnah, Allama Iqbal et al in undivided India was the creation of East Pakistan including entire Bengal and Assam, which had to be toned down to East Bengal minus the present West Bengal and Assam. That dream is not yet shed by Muslim fanatics though East Pakistan got separated from the West Pakistan and became Bangladesh, mainly due to the aid and support of India. Unless this ever increasing immigration of Bangladeshis, especially Muslims, is immediately curbed, dangerous consequences will ensue. Also unless a speedy and effective process of disenfranchising the Bangladeshi Muslim migrants who have come after 1990 at least [if not from 1971 as demanded by AASU and AGP of Assam] is begun and strictly implemented, in course time the dream of creating a greater islamic Bengal by the Muslim terrorist and jihadi groups, now spread in both Bangladesh and India, would become a reality and lead to dissolution of the Indian Union and untold genocidal atrocities on Hindus and other religious communities in India. Those who are identified as illegal migrants from 1990 onward should be categorized as refugees and their burden should be placed on the United Nations with a clear 5-year-deadline for them to get out of the country.
I Mallikarjuna Sharma,
Hyderabad

Mushrooming Dental Colleges
Reports reveal unplanned rapid rise in number of dental colleges in the country which may create problems for new passing-out youngsters to find proper professional placements in future. Undoubtedly people need better medical facilities with adequate number of specialists in different fields of profession. But care must also be taken that fresh graduates in dental surgery must not be frustrated to remain unemployed after spending so much mind and money on their studies.

Permission to open private Dental colleges has become a lucrative business with students paying money in tune of millions for admission. Politicians play big role in managing permission for new dental-colleges which have mandatory requirement of approval by Dental Council. But it is shocking to know that many private colleges manage 'floating staff with all fabricated employment-record to 'satisfy' visiting teams from Dental Council. Even though members of the inspecting-team may know the reality, yet it is helpless to challenge such irregularities.

It can be implied that students getting degrees fiom such ill-equipped colleges cannot be expected to become good dental-surgeons in practice, and may rather prove to be a liability on the society!
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi

Compulsory Voting
It refers to nod by Gujarat Governor to the totally unconstitutional and undemocratic bill for compulsory-voting for local bodies in Gujarat in name of making democracy more people-participatory! Provisions of the Bill may unnecessarily create fear-fever amongst many for compulsorily voting, and thus also violate their normal human rights. Therefore apart from courts taking suo-motto cognizance of the matter, it is also an aspect to be considered by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Most people who do not go to vote do so because they do not find any candidate fit for being voted. 'None-To-The-Above' (NOTA) is simply of theoretical value with no practical result on election-results. Even if NOTA gets maximum votes, then also candidate next to NOTA is declared elected. At times, voters are forced to select best out of the worst candidates in absence of 'Right-To-Reject' (RTR).

If ruling party is really sincere towards better voting-percentage, then it should convert NOTA into 'Right-To-Reject' (RTR), where re-election may be held in case NOTA gets maximum votes with all candidates getting votes less than NOTA being disqualified for life to contest any election in future even in constituencies where NOTA might not have got maximum votes. However to avoid chain of re-elections because of NOTA getting maximum votes every time, NOTA-button may be disabled in case of re-election caused because of NOTA getting maximum votes.

'Right-To-Reject' (RTR) will make political parties put good persons as their candidates. 'Right-To-Reject' (RTR) should be implemented at all levels including for elections to Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies (civic-bodies and village-panchayats).

Instead of giving 50-percent reservation to women in local bodies, 33-perecent Women-Reservation should be at all levels from Lok Sabha to local bodies including state-assemblies. Election Commission's formula making political parties compulsorily field at least 33-percent women candidates state-wise is the best compromise formula.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi

Frontier
Vol. 47, No. 22, Dec 7 - 13, 2014