Kudos to Nepal government for imposing a ban on vehicle horns “Honking ban in valley from New Nepali Year” (THT, April 4, Page 2).

Honking by motorists is the largest source of noise pollution in developing countries. The indiscriminate use of horn is due to lack of patience of road users to follow rules and regulations. Everybody wants to reach everywhere first! Indiscipline is the root cause of such rash driving using the power of one’s shrill horn.

Our growing sumptuousness makes us more anti-social, and loud obnoxious public behaviour appears to be the norm. While many drivers resort to using horn unnecessarily due to lack of awareness regarding the negative effects of noise pollution; however, most of them do it due to the lack of civic sense.

Motorists are also in a hurry at traffic signals. Unnecessary honking and using shrill horns are a menace and we need to appeal to all citizens to help curb it because no rule will help unless the driver changes his/ her mindset.

Lowering the decibel levels is a priority, and we have to educate people and if they still persist with honking, corrective action should be taken.

Vinod C. Dixit, Ahmedabad

Exploitation

Kudos to Mr. Sunil Kumar Joshi for the humanitarian article titled “Worker health and safety” (THT, April 4, Page 8). Blatant violation of human rights and ruthless exploitation, no less than slavery resembling the dark philistine age, is witnessed in the construction sector.

This type of inhuman torture is seen throughout the third world countries and in almost every sector, specially the private ones. Human rights organisations often point out highly inhumane cases of ruthless exploitation.

The shop assistants are forced to skip toilet during their longer than 10-hour shifts. Moreover, they are forced to keep standing throughout the shift which could result in cardiac arrest or serious permanent health damages.

It is the duty of the civil society, the State and the common people to protest such horrific inhumanity and gross violation of human rights being practiced in stores, shops, private establishments, factories and industries; and our “enlightened” “modern” friends in a section of the media and society shamelessly demanding “reforms” in labour laws and project trade unions as “obstacles” to the path of “forward movement” of society!

So it remains the duty of all to not to remain blind while in many industrial establishments workers are not allowed more than five minutes during the entire working day for visiting the toilet! Thus, the hapless workers find no other option but to drastically cut their intake of fluids, so that they do not violate their quota of five minutes of toilet visit per working day!

What a barbaric assault on human rights and health of the workers! Moreover, in many industrial units, workers are paid only eight hours’ wages for a piece of work that actually takes them no less than ten hours!

They do not get a penny for the two hours of extra work they do to fulfill their work norm.

Kajal Chatterjee, Kolkata