Meerut witnessed a tragedy yesterday which will certainly recur in India many times over. Utter disregard for health and safety norms, unbelievably lax security and zero value placed on human lives. If I had my way, the persons responsible would be peering into a gun squad right about now. It is the responsibility of the Government, local authorities and police to approve of any such congregation - and I am sure they have guidelines for safety. The issue is that these rules are flagrantly violated by paying a piddly sum of money to the people who matter.
The bitter irony of the whole incident is that the Fair was called "Brand India Fair" - Brand India will always go up in smoke, killing innocent Mr. and Mrs. Gupta and their two little kids, who just wanted to enjoy window shopping of unaffordable ACs, plasma TV sets and microwaves from multinational brands!
But this, like countless other incidents, will pass! Our media ( especially the TOI) has better things to focus on - like the jail sentence handed over to that serial culprit Salman Khan. Today's front page in the Times of India devoted bold typeface 100 font for that verdict, and a smaller section to the 50 plus killed in Meerut. Clearly shows where their priorities lie.
Shameful!
2 comments:
It's frustrating enough to make you angry. I was shaken by today's HT which said that no less than 125 sales girls have possibly died in that Meerut blaze. All belonging to jewelery sellers, or LG, Samsung, etc. This is horrifying. Indeed the people responsible should be shot dead.
And even as I say this, guess what is on Times front page. Half page to one single picture of banyan-clad Salman Khan walking out of jail and the other half to mob violence in Bangalore. Amazing.
Yeah, I guess Bombay is worse, with more competition leading to more clonism! How is DNA? Their online edition seems better than most.
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