Why Are We Being Penalized For Their Fault?

I obtained my Permanent Ration Card on 4-6-2009 by paying a fee of Rs. 60. Now the state government (Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs) has issued an advertisement in several leading newspapers (and also on their website) stating that the data on cards issued before December 2010 have been destroyed and that the public who have such cards should again pay a fee of Rs. 50 and get their fingerprints taken again before 31-3-2013.

A rumour is making the rounds that the the government did not pay the concerned private contractor and in a pique, the contractor destroyed all the data. Whether this is true or not we do not know, but what we know is that the government has lost the data. It is understandable that the government wants to collect the lost data once again, but why is it charging Rs. 50 from the public? Why are the public being penalized for a mistake committed by the government?

G.L.Nagaraj Urs, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

Are They Serious?!

The Union Ministry of Tourism has announced that Mysore Railway Station
has won the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India" award. This
is probably on par with Mysore City Corporation winning the "Second
Cleanest City in India" award. It is either a joke or the other railway
stations in India must be truly horrible.

The reason why it is not easy to muster any enthusiasm for the award is
plain to see. The shortcomings of the Mysore station are endless. Let us
list just a few.

Seating on the platforms is seriously inadequate. Similarly drinking
water and toilet facilities. These problems are especially acute on the
CFTRI side where there are no seats, no drinking water and no toilets.
The only toilets available in the station seem to be pay toilets. Since
there are no free toilets, everyone uses the toilets on the trains which
are standing on the platforms leading to stench all through the day.
Due to lack of proper policing, people also use the open area at the end
of the extended platform for urination and this makes the seats on the
extended platform unusable because of the bad smell.

The station is very unfriendly towards the disabled and the elderly.
Wheelchairs take forever between the station entrance/exit and the train
for platforms other than No. 1. Since the platform heights do not match
the floor height of the trains, the elderly and the disabled have a
tough time climbing aboard or alighting from trains.

What few facilities are available, they are available only on platform
1. The other platforms have no food or beverage vending, no information
booths, no newspapers and not even dust bins.

One can also add lack of proper parking facilities both on the main and
CFTRI side, fleecing by the parking contractor, inadequate ticketing
counters during the peak hours, inadequate information boards on all the
platforms and an inefficient public announcement system.

With so many glaring problems, it is astounding that Mysore station has
been voted the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India". We have
been campaigning for several years to get the facilities improved, but
our requests have been ignored for one reason or the other. Now, with
the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India" feather in their
cap, the authorities are even less likely to listen to the complaints of
the public.

R Chandra Prakash, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Anti-Kannada Discrimination by LIC

We have received complaints that when you take a policy with LIC and sign your name in Kannada, LIC demands that someone else should vouch that it is your signature. This requirement is not imposed if you sign in English. We wish to point out that this anti-Kannada requirement is illegal.

According to General Clauses Act, 1897, a sign is any mark that is put to authenticate a document. It need not be in any specific language and need not be in any language at all. So if a person says that the mark he is putting is his signature which authenticates the document in question, there is no need for anyone else to attest to that fact.

We are writing to LIC head office in Mumbai and the Directorate of Public Grievances in Delhi to stop this needless harassment of Kannada-writing policy holders.

M.A.Sridhar, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

World Consumer Day Celebrated

To mark World Consumer Day, Mysore Grahakara Parishat and Bahadur Institute of Management Sciences of Manasa Gangotri held  a daylong consumer awareness program today for the public.

In this programme, students of Vidyashrama and Sri Chhayadevi BEd. College gave demo-exhibitions on detection of food adulteration, making water potable, rain water harvesting and removing pesticide residues from vegetables. Lectures for the public, especially commerce and MBA students were given on right to information (by RTI expert Prof. S.Sekhar), water potability (by Dr.K.S. Manja, former DFRL scientist), consumer courts (by Uma Shenoy, former member, Mysore District Consumer Forum) and ground water (by V. Mahesha, formerly geologist with the Department of Geology).

S.Sekhar, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

MGP To Celebrate World Consumer Day

As part of its celebration of World Consumer Day, Mysore Grahakara Parishat is holding a daylong consumer awareness program for the public on Friday, 15-3-13. MGP has been conducting such programmes for the last 24 years in various parts of Mysore. This year's programme will be held at the Bahadur Institute of Management of the University of Mysore (Hunsur Road) between 10AM and 5PM.

In this programme, MGP members will give demo-exhibitions on subjects such as detection of food adulteration, making water potable, etc. Interaction with the public will be held on topics such as consumer problems, ground water, right to information, removing pesticide residues from vegetables, etc.

The public is invited to participate in the programme.

S.Sekhar, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Pointless Work

Drains are being built on Chaduranga Road (the road in front of JCE)

The above photo shows the new storm water drain next to JCE compound. The drain is higher than the road and so water from the road can not enter the drain. On top of it, the drain is covered, making doubly sure that rain water does not get into the drain. If rain water can not get into the rain water drain, why build it?

This photo shows a drain being constructed across the road. As seen, there are several underground pipes and cables along the road and the new drain is being constructed right across them.If any of these pipes or cables needs to be repaired, the drain will have to be dug up. If a little foresight had been used, this situation would not have arisen at all.

B.V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

Claims about GM crops proved wrong

It is the claim of  the biotechnology industry that genetically modified (GM) crops give higher yields. Lured by this claim, more and more farmers are switching to GM crops. But recent research funded by the US government seems to have debunked this claim. It is also the claim of the industry that GM crops need less pesticides and that they will not contaminate non-GM crops. Research funded by the government of UK seems to have debunked these claims also.

In the first study, published in the February 2013 issue of the prestigious journal Nature Biotechnology, a team of scientists funded by the US Department of Agriculture, looked at the yields of several GM and non-GM varieties of corn during the period 1990-2010. They did not find any significant increase in yield in GM crops. In fact, many varieties of GM crops, including Bt varieties gave lower yields than corresponding non-GM varieties.

In other studies sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of UK, it has been found that GM farming would pollute the countryside for generations. Pollen from GM plants can contaminate non-GM plants as far as 26 km away. If a GM crop is grown only once on a field and a non-GM crop is planted afterwards, more than 1% of  the later crop will show GM characteristics for as long as 16 years unless the field is sprayed heavily with chemicals. This is bad news for conventional farmers who can not sell their products if GM contamination levels are more than 0.1%. Beekeepers will also be hit because they face similar restrictions.

A study by the scientists at the University of East Anglia has found that the growing of GM crops can result in a reduction of upto 90% in weeds. While this may be good for the farmers, it might result in the disappearance of several species of birds which feed on these weeds.

What is significant about the above findings is that they were not produced by anti-GM lobbyists, but by reputed scientists funded by the governments of US and UK which have supported and encouraged GM crops for a long time. People opposed to GM crops are happy that their position has been vindicated by the government studies.

K.N. Ramachandra, Mysore Grahakara Parishat