Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
- Like ordinary consumers, police establishment got a rude jolt on Monday evening, when outgoing calls of all land-line phones were temporarily suspended for non-payment of bills.
By Dheeraj Fartode
What is the most basic requirement for effective policing ? Better communication with public, Right ? But neither the police administration nor the telephone service provider think so. As a result City Police on Monday had to face ignominy of discontinuation of outgoing facility of all its landline phones.
This includes, all the crucial phone numbers of Control Room, all Police Stations and all major police establishments. Their outgoing service was snapped on Monday night, leaving lower level police force in astonishment. This has also affected the internet connections of police establishment.
Apparently, due to delay from police headquarters to settle the telephone bill of state-run BSNL led to embarassing situation. Ususally, the BSNL rarely stops the outgoing facility of government establishments like revenue and police, due to security implications and in public interest. But when default persists, the BSNL, which is facing such a stiff competition from private phone service providers, has to take a tough and unplesant step of blocking the outgoing phone service in the first step. After the bill is cleared immediately, the service is restored after accounts are reconciled.
Many police staffers while talking to The Hitavada expressed deep anguish over this apparent mismanagement by Police HQ staffers, who did not bother to pay the bills. As a result on Monday every police staffer and officer has been forced to use their personal mobile phones to contact each other as entire telephone communication system of police establishment including Control Room remained partially dysfunctional to pass on instructions or collect information.
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