Apropos of the news story “Girl attacked with hot ghee” (THT, March 15, Page 4), this could be the news from the times of Joan of Arc.

This, along with the merciless beating of a school student in full view of the public including the local mayor in Dhangadhi, makes mockery of the recent celebration of International Women’s Day. These serious transgressions against women also make the far west, Province no 7, a new rock bed of vicious crimes.

If the government fails to control crimes and criminals by taking tough measures, the province might descend into lawlessness.

Meanwhile, I/NGOs working in and around the law abiding capital in Province 1 would do well to shift their bases and spread their activities in vulnerable areas like the Far-West, Kavre, Sindhupalchowk, Ramechap, Nuwakot, Makawanpur, Jhapa etc. We hope the two women of Dhangadhi who were subject to tortures practised in medieval Europe will receive justice and huge reparation for physical torture, mental anguish and public humiliation.

It is also to be hoped that the criminals will receive the full blow of justice as in the US. It is shocking to our senses that this once peaceful country is witnessing violence against men, women and children alike that most of us have seen only in movies. We need introduction of some tough punishments for those involved in abusing and torturing women and girls.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Hawking 

The news that “Stephen Hawking dies at the age of 76” (THT, Online, March 14) made me cry loudly in the form of sound of silence. I have been voraciously reading his book, more notably “A Brief History of Time”. This uniquely great personality will be the inspiration for the entire world to accomplish the task that seems to be scientifically notorious and extraordinarily challenging. Despite being in a vegetative state on an electric wheelchair he had been relentlessly engaged in a scientific endeavour.

What can be more inspirational and motivational for those scientists who are physically privileged and work without any hassles? We must cherish and celebrate the scientific parcels of knowledge he had bestowed upon human civilisation. His birth on this earth was itself a token of scientific legacy for mankind. He will remain in the hearts and minds of billions of people and the scores of generations to come. His three children – Lucy, Robert and Tim – have rightly said that “he was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years”.  Since 1974, Hawking worked extensively on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics  - Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers sub-atomic particles.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne