Every day we come across many biased and foolish
reports by most magazines in Tamilnadu against the ruling AIDMK, with the Times
of India also competing with the likes of Nakkeeran and Dinamalar nowadays. The front page prime news report in today’s TOI
newspaper makes the reader wonder whether the writers of that report have the
minimum acumen to understand a survey and make deductions in a logical way or
whether it was an intended news report of what we have now come to see as ‘paid
news’ or ‘presstitute’ behaviour.
The news report is titled “Do TN parties promise
what people want? No, says survey”. So you curiously read the news to know what
the promises are that the people want. The report also says that there is a big
disconnect between what people want and what the Government thinks. With this
preparation of your mind you look at the illustration given in prominent
colours. It is reproduced here. It includes the ranking that people had given
to the issues / promises that the Government had tackled.
The top 3 problems in the opinion of the surveyed
people are traffic congestion (48% think so), water and air pollution (35%) and
noise pollution (34%).
But they had given thumbs up sign to the way that
present Government had handled the water and air pollution issues. This issue
has been ranked first in terms of the attempts by the Government to solve it.
This is the trend for the whole of Tamilnadu according to this survey. This shows
that water problem and air pollution problem throughout Tamilnadu had been tackled
well by Jayalalithaa Government and people are happy about it.
This must find a place in the headline of this
report or in the report itself. Water problem is the biggest issue faced by the
people in most metros of India today. Cities like Mumbai and Bangalore are
going without water for many days at the present times. You can put up with
traffic and noise pollution but you can’t live without water. It is in this
area Jayalalithaa has been excellently and relentlessly working not only in the
current term that is going to end but also in her previous term.
The reporting
crooks of TOI may have completely failed to realise how important this issue is
for, whenever Jayalalithaa is there at the helm, water pinch is not at all felt
by the people. But could they not compare the situation with the rest of India
where there is a severe water scarcity presently?
Another major issue is air pollution. Who can forget
the struggles of Delhi Government in tackling this issue? But this is the best
tackled or solved issue as far as Tamilnadu is concerned, but TOI is not able
to accept this despite the fact that people had recognised it. The same TOI
published many statistics some time ago on comparative status of many cities and
States including Chennai and Tamilnadu on issues such as these. And in a
majority of issues Tamilnadu had fared better. Had I known at that time that
TOI is going to publish the kind of presstitute reports as it is doing now on
election eve, I would have saved or scanned those reports to just fling them on
its face now.
But truth lives on and the fact is that water
problem of Tamilnadu in general had been greatly solved by the Jayalalithaa
Government. People had ticked it as the best and the top one tackled by her
Government. But TOI carried a title contrary to that and writes in that report “It
asked the respondents to rank the performance of the outgoing government on a
scale of 1 to 25, best to worst. Guess what? They gave it 24 for road traffic
management and 21 for noise pollution.”
But where is water issue and air pollution issue
that was given the 1st rank by the people as the issue tackled
well?
The report ends with the sentence ““Noise pollution
is a major issue but nobody talks about it,“ Mandaveli resident Surekha Johnson
said. “Traffic too is a major problem.”
Noise and traffic – how best a Government tries to
tackle - does it not need people’s
cooperation also? And are these two
issues relevant outside the cities and in rest of Tamilnadu like water problem?
How many times U Tejonmayam and B
Sivakumar, the writers of this news report contributed to averting traffic
congestion or noise in the streets while they were travelling? Can they say
that they did not jump the traffic or not interrupt the traffic atleast once in
a day while crisscrossing the city?
**********
From
May 05 2016 : The Times of India (Chennai)
Do TN parties promise what people want? No, says
survey
U Tejonmayam & B Sivakumar
|
Chennai:
TNN
|
Traffic, Noise Pollution Top City Wish
List: Study
Freebies? Prohibition? No, thanks. Stick to the
basics and you'll form the next government.
A potentially electionwinning number of voters are
more concerned about issues that are staring everyone but politicians in the
face: 48% of respondents in Chennai in a survey by NGO Association for
Democratic Reforms (ADR) cited traffic congestion as the most important issue
for the next government to add ress; for almost 35%, water and air pollution
was the main concern; and 33% said they would vote for a party that delivers
steps to curb noise pollution.
The response from Chen naiites is part of a larger
study that the the NGO conducted among 16,000 people in TN and, if it is a
pointer to general sentiment, political parties across the field could well
trip on their election planks come May 16. The study exposes a clear disconnect
between what the people want and what the government thinks they want. It asked
the respondents to rank the performance of the outgoing government on a scale
of 1 to 25, best to worst. Guess what? They gave it 24 for road traffic
management and 21 for noise pollution.
The respondents ranked water and air pollution as
one of the top three problems the city faces but also gave the government the
best marks for its attempts to deal with the menace.
“Noise pollution is a major issue but nobody talks
about it,“ Mandaveli resident Surekha Johnson said. “Traffic too is a major
problem.“
