Dear Sir,
A year ago, the driver of a mini van lost control of his vehicle on Al Khor Road after a tyre blowout. The van overturned, killing many of its occupants. Press reports said the burst tyre was quite old. And soon authorities declared that tyres which are more than two years old since the date of manufacturing would not be allowed for sale. Some reports also blamed incorrect tyre pressure for the blowout.
But there are not many places for motorists to check tyre pressure in Doha. Waqood petrol stations offer the facility at a nominal charge, but sometimes the facilities there are either overcrowded or unserviceable. Many other petrol stations don’t have this facility at all.
In view of importance of maintaining proper pressure in tyres, I hope authorities will make it compulsory for all petrol stations to have such facilities. We hope this will help prevent many tyre-related crashes in Qatar.
Capt Devotta
Baseless assumption
Dear Sir,
This is in response to Matthew Simon’s baseless assumptions and statements in his letter “View out of touch with reality” (Gulf Times, May 12). As a 14-year-old teenager well-versed in the history and politics of the Indian Republic, I consider myself more than able to qualify as a representative of the youth in India. Let me assure Simon that the youth in India at present are perhaps so disgruntled with the sorry state of its politics that they feel being involved in it is akin to forsaking their value and ethics.
Simon’s first point was that the Indian youth are happy with the present state of affairs. No, sir. We do want change; in fact we crave for it. We have been hoping, and hoping against all odds, that a revolution, a major transformation would happen any time soon, for decades now, but the lack of realisation of this wish has led to despair among us in Indian politics.
In response to his second assertion that “India has made vast progress in various fields....”, let me please remind him that Sri Lanka and Pakistan - two neighbouring countries lacking in the type of resources available in India - have outperformed my country in several indicators, such as life expectancy, access to water, etc. It is thus safe to dismiss Simon’s second assertion as government-fed propaganda/fodder, magnified by Bollywood propaganda films.
In response to his third assertion that the Anna Hazare movement had fizzled out because the youth were content with the country as it is, let me remind him that it had failed simply because the youth felt that such measures were woefully inadequate to tackle the problems faced by the country.
In response to his fourth assertion “that a new breed of politicians are evolving”, it is quite obvious that these “new breeds” still carry the same old milieu, in the sense they still belong to “dynastic” parties like the Congress and the BJP, and are likely to remain a puppets in the hands of their masters.
Simon’s letter is an exercise in optimism inflated to the point of bursting and should not deserve more attention than a third-grade child’s treatise on nuclear power.
Aswin Anilkumar
(Address supplied)
Please send us your letters
By e-mail
Fax 44350474
Or Post
Letters to the Editor
Gulf Times
P O Box 2888
Doha, Qatar
All letters, which are subject to editing, should have the name of the writer, address and phone number. The writer’s name and address may be withheld by request.