MyVoice: Views of our readers 11th June 2022

NEET: Give weightage to pvt doctors, too

NEET UG and NEET PG are the competitive exams conducted year after year for prospective doctors in our country. There are nearly 1,20,000 MBBS seats and 44,000 MD seats offered in medical colleges in India. There are students who toil for 18 hours a day but still cannot make it either to MBBS or MD. So what ails the system? Besides the reservation policy that we have, the bigger problem is the demand and supply of doctors and specialists. Can we have a system where weightage is given to Intermediate merit along with the NEET UG score and likewise MBBS merit along with NEET PG marks? Understandably, weightage is given to those who serve in government hospitals. With better surveillance and supervision, weightage should be given for those who work in private hospitals, also. In these days of advanced technology, is it difficult to monitor doctors working in private hospitals?

D Nagarjuna, Hyderabad

Elevate V-P as President of India

Immediately after the release of schedule for Presidential polls, the ruling and the Congress parties have started mobilising other likeminded ones for arriving at a common consensus to be exhibited in the President election. BJP has in its mind many choices whether to go in for a backward class candidate or Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman or Telangana Governor Tamilasai Soundararajan or elevate the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. It is advisable to opt for people's opinion as the first citizen of this nation is not a political figure but a protector of constitution. Earlier many Vice Presidents have become Presidents. It would look well if the same tradition is continued.

N Ramalakshmi, Secunderabad

Covid rearing its ugly head again

It is shocking to note that the Covid infections are once again spreading in the most floating populous cities of the country, in Maharashtra, Delhi , Kerala and Karnataka. This is a very dangerous signal which clearly indicates that these states have literally dithered on making people follow Covid appropriate behaviours as advised by the central authorities from time to time. Not only this, even the local administrations have not seriously followed up all the steps in identification, testing, treating and vaccinating against the spread of the virus which are very important in controlling the spread of the virus. The country has seen huge economic disasters during the pandemic days but still we have not learnt the lesson of being vigilant.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao, Hyderabad

DMK's narrow mindedness to the fore

Apropos 'Hindi will reduce Tamils to shudras: DMK leader' (June 07, 2022). This refers to an irrational and illogical statement by TKS Elangovan, a DMK Rajya Sabha Member, who has said that National Education Policy 2020, in terms of Hindi, will not be applicable to Tamil Nadu. Elangovan's antagonism to Hindi took the comparison of Hindi, linking it to Manu Dharma, in order to make Tamilians shudras. But, the DMK leaders have failed to understand that learning Hindi is to the advantage of people of Tamil Nadu in terms of value addition to the new generation of students that will come in handy to enable them to face the language barrier in north India. The DMK government must come out of this mindset with regard to overt reservation for Tamilians in higher education, and not view TN as some sort of a separate entity from the rest of the country.

K V Raghuram, Wayanad

Make marital rape punishable

A division bench of Delhi High Court recently delivered a split verdict on whether exception to Section 375 of IPC i.e., marital rape exception is unconstitutional. This exception states that sexual acts by a man with his adult wife are not rape. A woman who faces non-consensual acts has been raped regardless of her relationship with the perpetrator. Thus, marital rape exception fails the test of reasonable classification and must be struck down as unconstitutional. National Family Health Survey 5 (2019- 2021) shows that over 95% of married women in India who endured sexual violence identified their husband/formal husband as perpetrator and only 9.5% women sought help. There is no forgone conclusion that marriage makes experience of non-consensual acts less wrong. In fact, forced acts by a person who is meant to love you can be even worse. The consequence of this split verdict is legal stalemate. We can only hope now that the matter will be resolved by the Supreme Court of India or preferably by Parliament itself.

Ishita Patidar, Ujjain