Letters to The Editor — December 18, 2024

Business in the Upper House

Eminent personalities and educationists in public life are among those Members who occupy the seats in the Rajya Sabha. But even the proceedings in this House are dismal. Of late, one is witness to uproarious scenes and frequent violations of constitutional values, so much so that its democratic functioning is flouted with ease and without compunction. It is time that the Members of the Upper House also realise that they are accountable and engage in constructive debate.

N. Visveswaran,

Chennai

Another angle to greenwashing the Indian Railways

As a regular train traveller, I would like to raise another very visible, yet blatantly ignored, fallout of the electrification of certain railway lines: the mindless destruction of greenery that was the hallmark of certain stations (Editorial page, “The hidden cost of greenwashing the Indian Railways”, December 17).

With deep pain, I highlight the total desecration of the enchanting tree-lined railway stations on the Shoranur-Nilambur railway route in Kerala, in 2024, in the name of electrification. As a septuagenarian, whose mother hailed from a village near Cherukara railway station, I have always chosen to travel on this route quite regularly on my visits from the Himalayan Arunachal. All these stations had century-old trees (Several YouTube vloggers had showered praise on these scenic stations). But, in February 2024, I received the shock of my life to find the total destruction of every single tree on the platforms of the stations between Shoranur and Cherukara. I learnt that all this was for electrification. It was even more distressing to have this happen in a State that won worldwide appreciation for saving the Silent Valley forests in the 1970s. Such trees are national wealth but the Railway authorities or their mindless contractors think otherwise.

Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor,

Lohit, Arunachal Pradesh

Ustad Zakir Hussain

The reports (Inside pages, December 17), on tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, brought out almost every aspect of his great life. Readers must be reminded about how he composed music for the Malayalam classic, Vanaprastham.

V.J. Sreekumar,

Coimbatore