In order to sell their respective products and services by hook or by crook, the companies and the advertising agencies feel no qualms in committing inhuman acts and gross violations of ethics and minimum human values.

A few years ago a pictorial advertisement of a security agency came to my notice while travelling in public transport. It depicted a ransacked house with a heading which read “Because servants do not always serve”! Yes, certain servants can betray the landlord. Does there exist any sector in the society whose all members are nothing but epitome of accountability and honesty? Do all doctors, engineers, lawyers, policemen, corporate honchos, teachers always serve? Neither honesty nor betrayal can be the monopoly of any profession or sector. Yet the said advertisers unhesitatingly had taken resort to such crude path of character-assassinating the whole sector of domestic servants without displaying minimum sensitivity towards the sentiments of innumerable honest servants who are ready to even endanger their lives to protect the property of their employers. While the real estate firms lecture us with the manufactured “truth” of “Your home is your identity” so as to sell their high-end apartments, the garment empires “enlighten” us of the “fact” of “A man is known by what he wears”! Thanks to these vested interests, we have at last arrived at the realisation that a person’s worth is not a bit dependent upon his honesty, values, deed or behavior; but upon the house where he dwells or the attire he sports!

Indeed no condemnation will be enough for the advertising agencies and their clients who can all stoop as low as possible so as to meet their filthy commercial interests.

Kajal Chatterjee, Kolkata

Climate issue

It is genuinely horrifying when a country like the USA or otherwise tacitly understood as a policeman of the planet now seems to be morally reckless for its vested interesst by not being committed to the Paris climate accord. It is really unhelpful to see the Trump’s withdrawal from Paris climate agreement. He is not the man of telescopic philanthropy. He doesn’t care at all about the future of the coastal cities in other parts of the world. He thinks climate change is a hoax invented to endanger the prosperity of his country regardless of how much the world’s influential scientists have been underscoring the fact that this is an imminent threat to our planet. I am wondering what Donal Trump may know about the climate change issue that the rest of the sophisticated scientists do not know and what the main reason may be for him to be strong-headed today. One thing I am not well aware of is that America politically urges China, India and its allies to gain the international favour when it feels perceived or real threats from its fatal foes such as North Korea.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne