Give up gory rituals

All the praise for the editorial “Stop brutality” recently published in THT. It fully reflects what we have been campaigning for a long time. We pose ourselves as the followers of Gautam Buddha and principles of ahimsa. However, at the same time, we indulge in gruesome killing of innocent animals and birds in the name of sacrifice. One is dumbfounded to witness the so-called conscious, literate and high-profile people offering animal sacrifices and the media enthusing itself to bring out the news in a crude way. What kind of impact would such practices leave on people, especially the new generation? In addition, government-run Guthis continue practicing animal sacrifice on occasions like Dashain. Our government seems to be indifferent to the animal rights. Nevertheless, it has promoted and sponsored inhuman treatment of animals in one way or another. We, volunteers at Praani Tatha Paryaavaran Sarokaar Samooh who have been voicing for the judicious treatment of animals for a decade, are glad to see THT too calling for an end to gory ritual practices and denouncing the State-supported system of animal sacrifice.

The modus operandi of offering animal sacrifice to the Gods and Goddesses is very ruthless and cruel. Repeated encounter with such unsavoury incidents may make children insensitive; their delicate psychology is perturbed and they may become violent later on. Let us give up all those gory rituals and learn to live peacefully.

Jagdish Aarohi, via e-mail

No vehicles

I would like to thank the traffic police for the excellent traffic management at Thamel during the street festival on the New Year’s eve. Blocking vehicles at all the access points and making whole of Thamel area a pedestrian zone helped the people to enjoy the festival without having to worry about the traffic jams and parking problem.

The traffic police need to show similar cooperation on other occasions like during Indra Jatra and other festivals. If they could disallow traffic including motorcycles at Asan, Indrachok and Maru during chariot processions, it would make life much easier for the commoners and passers-by. It is distressing to see cars and motorcycles trying to squeeze in through the venue of the masked dances and disturbing the audience. Several parts of the city should be made a pedestrian zone. If this is possible at Thamel and New Road, though occasionally, there is no reason why it cannot be possible at Maru and other areas.

N A Pityata, Kathmandu

Help farmers

Being an agricultural country, Nepal needs to adopt modern technologies and scientific ways of farming to increase agro-production.

The only institute that can help make this possible for the farmers is the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS), Rampur. However, one of the IAAS professors was recently quoted as saying that the Institute “lacked” vision. Such a statement from a certainly well-informed academician is indeed an unfortunate prophecy. I have heard that many of the IAAS teachers are granted training opportunities in European and American countries to catch up with the latest agricultural management trends in the industrialised nations. The teachers seem to have utilised their opportunity in ways other than introducing reforms.

The Institute is forced to spend most of its budget on administrative costs and salaries. On behalf of the poor farmers, I request the government to pay attention to the better functioning of the IAAS.

Saurav Parmar, Janakpur