CDS Bipin Rawat
The passing of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Mrs Rawat and other defence personnel in a helicopter crash in the Nilgiris is a huge shock. The nation can never forget his strategic leadership in connection with the cross-border strikes. While commanding Indian troops as part of the UN peacekeeping efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he kept the Indian flag flying high. As the first Chief of Defence Staff, he insisted on minimising expensive defence imports.
Adrian David,
Chennai
Crucial categorisation
I write this letter as retired Deputy Registrar General (Census), Government of India and UN Census Adviser. That there has been gross under registration of people with disabilities who have been vaccinated with both doses, would be evident from the following. In the 2011 Census, persons with disabilities were enumerated under these categories: disability in seeing; in hearing; in speech; in movement; mental retardation; mental illness and multiple disabilities. The census enumerators were well trained through instruction manuals and training sessions on the definition of each category so as to cover persons with disabilities in a household without omission. If such an approach had been adopted by the vaccination staff in identifying persons with disabilities, the correct number of persons with disabilities (as per the Census definition) who were vaccinated would have been known (Inside pages, “Vaccine coverage of people with disabilities is low, figures show”, December 8). Due to pressure of work, the vaccination staff should have registered a person as disabled only if he had declared himself so. Such declarations are usually not made voluntarily.
N. Rama Rao,
Chennai
TMC claim
The claim by the TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee is ridiculous (Page 1, “Trinamool is fulcrum of Opposition: Abhishek”, December 8).
TMC leader Mamata Banerjee has neither the experience of running a national coalition nor has adequate following outside Bengal. How does the TMC hope to become the “fulcrum of an illusory political front” without any consensus programme?
S.S. Paul,
Chakdaha, Nadia, West Bengal
