Right time to unite
There can be no second opinion that one leader who richly deserves theTamil Nadu chief minister’s chair but has missed it so far is MDMK’s Vaiko. It is an indisputable fact that he is a great scholar in Tamil, powerful orator, one who is always there to fight against any injustice done to Tamils and to protect their cause at any cost and more than anything, liked across the political spectrum. It was really unfortunate that he had to leave the DMK and part ways with his mentor Karunanidhi because of accusations against him which were later found to be fabricated by vested interests to divide the DMK. Otherwise, by now, he would have risen to a deserving and enviable position within the DMK and would have become an unbeatable force.
However, it is really laudable that realising the importance and necessity of leaders like Vaiko, the aged Karunanidhi and his son Stalin have offered an olive leaf to Vaiko and the MDMK leader has also very graciously acknowledged and accepted his gesture, particularly at a time when the political scenario in Tamil Nadu is passing through a very critical phase. As both Stalin and Vaiko have never been accused of any corruption or misuse of power and are known to be leaders with administrative acumen, one hopes that the mega alliance envisaged by the DMK would fructify and, when in saddle, these two leaders would work in tandem with the other allies and see that the best of benefits reach the people of Tamil Nadu.
Tharcius Fernando, Chennai
Plug Aadhaar loopholes
The government now intends to compulsorily link mobile phone SIMs with Aadhaar to curb the misuse of mobile phones for anti-social activities. The government claims that it is impossible to duplicate the Aadhaar, which has biometric information of a person linked to it. But this has been proved wrong as just few days back in Mangalore branch of a Mumbai head-quartered PSU bank, a person fraudulently opened a savings account with a duplicate Aadhaar number and defrauded the bank of R24 lakh by encashing three forged LIC cheques. In fact, the Mumbai head office of this PSU Bank brought this fact to the attention of the UIDAI which should help them in investigating and understanding the modus operandi of the fraudsters in generating duplicate Aadhaar card. Only then can the UIDAI come out with additional security features to the Aadhaar card and remove the shortcomings in the present system. At least now, the UIDAI should unilaterally take up the matter and investigate how the fraudsters managed to prepare a duplicate Aadhaar card and number, so that in the future the loopholes in the Aadhaar can be plugged.
Ravi Kiran Rai, Mangalore
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