s venkatesan

Madurai Was Able to Prepare for COVID Second Wave. Why Can’t India Say the Same?

I take pride as a people’s representative in thanking all those who made Madurai’s increased oxygen storage capacity possible. Dear Union minister Harshvardhan, is there anyone you can thank now?

Last year, during the first wave of COVID-19, the country as a whole was facing an enormous crisis. At Madurai, we were constantly busy – myself, the district collector, hospital dean and district special officer. We held discussions, we locked horns with each other, agreed and disagreed on many points, yet we were essentially working night and day with a single focus – handling the pandemic .

We sped up our work when the pandemic became worse in Madurai. I complained to the state’s chief secretary about the lack of cooperation from the Madurai district special official. Convinced by my arguments, the chief secretary replaced him.

When I was informed that Dr Chandramohan, IAS, was taking over as the new officer, I spoke to him over the phone. He was in Madurai the next day. I met him at the guest house and handed him a long list of things that needed to be done in Madurai. He was on job almost immediately.

Last July, the Rajaji Hospital in Madurai had a 6,000-litre storage facility for liquid oxygen. This was sufficient only to provide for 400 beds. We urged the official to prioritise increasing storage. Dr Chandramohan and district collector Dr Vinay realised its importance and started acting on it. We worked in our own ways on obtaining the necessary permissions. Work was fully on.

As a result, the storage facility of liquid oxygen in Rajaji Hospital was increased to 20,000 litres from 6,000 litres by July and August. This would mean an additional 700 beds could have access to oxygen. Totally, the facility could provide for 1,100 beds .

The hospital in Thopur had a cylinder that provided for 30 beds. A new facility was set up and an additional 130 beds were able to access oxygen.

Dr Chandramohan, S. Venkatesan and Dr Vinay. Photo: Twitter/S. Venkatesan

It was not an easy road. We worked through a full lockdown. I am eternally thankful for Dr Chandramohan and Dr Vinay for their commitment and dedication, in bringing the resources and labour from companies in Pondicherry and Bengaluru. I extend my gratitude to them on behalf of the people of Madurai.

While the country suffers from an oxygen shortage, we are confident that Madurai will be able to handle the crisis. We owe this confidence to all the special work we had done during first wave, and the people behind that work. I am thankful to the hospital dean, Dr Sangumani, and Thopur hospital in-charge, Gandhimathi Nathan.

The question I wish to ask the Union health minister now is this: During the first wave of COVID-19, we have increased oxygen storage facilities by four times in a district that has a population of about 30 lakh. We did not beg anyone, steal anything or do anything else beyond our purview. We took into consideration the needs of the people, planned our work and put it into action. I take pride as a people’s representative in thanking all those who made it possible.

Dear Minister Harshvardhan, is there anyone you can thank now?

Translated to English by Kavitha Muralidharan.

S. Venkatesan is the Madurai MP and a member of the CPI(M).

Tamil Leaders Slam Centre on Prasar Bharati’s Latest Order to ‘Promote’ Sanskrit

A number of Tamil MPs of late have alleged that the Centre has been making multiple attempts to impose Hindi, and now Sanskrit, on Tamil Nadu.

Chennai: In a fresh round of controversy, a directive from the Prasar Bharati to its regional channels stating that a 15-minute Sanskrit news bulletin be telecast every day has irked leaders in Tamil Nadu.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president, M.K. Stalin; Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Katchi (VCK) MP, D. Ravikumar; Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP, S. Venkatesan; and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Vaiko, among others, have condemned the ‘imposition’ of Sanskrit and demanded that the order be withdrawn.

“It goes against the objectives of Prasar Bharati Act,” says Ravikumar. “According to the 2011 Census, 803 people speak Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu. If you are going to telecast a bulletin for them, why not telecast a bulletin for tens of thousands of Tamils living in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, and elsewhere. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of Sanskrit-speaking population. Even in that state, Tamil-speaking population is larger than that.”

Also read: To Counter Hindi Push, G.N. Devy to Launch Cultural Front to Promote Other Languages

Ravi Kumar says that both in terms of population that speaks the language and classical status, Tamil is in a better position and should ideally be treated better.

“But in the last budget session, the Centre said it would set up three universities for Sanskrit. Tamil is a classical language; I think it is time we start vigorously demanding that a Central university be set up for Tamil. Also, we should demand that Sanskrit spoken by only a few thousand people be removed from Eighth Schedule of the constitution, and languages spoken by over one crore people be included,” he adds.

In a tongue-in-cheek tweet, Madurai MP S. Venkatesan asked, “Not even five persons to listen to it, why would you need a six-inch conch?” He further adds, “How fair it is to spend thousands of crores of Rupees on a language spoken by a few thousands? The Centre has been consistently spending huge money on Sanskrit, but clearly ignores Tamil which is older than Sanskrit.”

In August, DMK MP Kanimozhi had tweeted about how an airport security staff in Chennai had asked her if she was Indian when she revealed that she does not speak Hindi. In a month, T-shirts carrying anti-Hindi slogans became viral in Tamil Nadu.

More recently, S. Venkatesan had slammed the Union minister of state for home, Nityanand Rai, for responding to his letter in Hindi. “It was shocking that legal and procedural aspects have been violated by replying in Hindi to my letter,” the MP wrote back. Venkatesan had written to the minister on October 9 demanding examination centres in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the recruitment of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) paramedical staff. “I had to assume that your response was to that demand only,” Venkatesan hit back.

Quoting from the Official Languages Rules, 1976, Venkatesan wrote that the response in Hindi is a clear violation of the said rules.

On November 23, he had filed public interest litigation (PIL) at the Madurai bench of Madras high court demanding that the responses from the Central government to Tamil Nadu government, its people and MPs should be in English. It also demanded appropriate action against government officials who violate the existing laws.

“For all practical purposes, Hindi is the official language in Parliament,” says Venkatesan. “We had once raised an issue about the regular circulars sent only in Hindi during a session from at least four or five ministries. The speaker agreed and said it should be sent in both Hindi and English. But in the next session, we had got the circulars only in Hindi from the same ministries.”

Venkatesan also points out the DMK MP P. Wilson had also received a response in Hindi for his letter on Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), and he had to fight for a response in English.

“All ministries are directly or indirectly moving towards only Hindi position, for us, it is clearly imposition,” he adds.

Kavitha Muralidharan is an independent journalist.

An MP Writes: Thank You, Prime Minister (And a Few More Things…)

S. Venkatesan, MP from Madurai, writes about a letter he received on his birthday and what it reveals about the apprehensions people have about the CAA and NPR.

The following is a translation of a Facebook post by Madurai MP S. Venkatesan. Translated from Tamil by Kavitha Muralidharan.

I was flooded with greetings from friends, comrades and readers for my birthday yesterday (March 16). I express my gratitude to everyone.

As Member of Parliament, I had also received the greetings from the honourable president and prime minister. I extend my warm gratitude to them.

Comrades at my MP office handed over a letter yesterday from a Mariam Beevi of Tiruchy. It was a letter written for some work that I had done as a Member of Parliament. The words in the letter are not something that I could easily get over. The letter carried love and overwhelming gratitude, for rescuing her from a particularly painful experience.

I received the greeting from the prime minister when I was reading Beevi’s letter. Both were written to me in my capacity as Member of Parliament.

In front of my eyes, there were words from the prime minister on one side and from Mariam Beevi on the other.

Beevi was struggling for over two years to get her birth certificate from the Madurai Municipal Corporation. From Tiruchy, she had travelled countless times to Madurai – 150 kilometres away – to secure her birth certificate. The corporation officials keep dodging her request, giving her a different excuse each time. She saw a poster announcing my participation at an anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protest in Tiruchy and decided to meet me in person, to handover a memorandum on getting her certificate. I couldn’t go to the protest. A comrade had asked an exhausted Mariam Beevi to send the memorandum by post. She half-heartedly did it.

On seeing the letter in my office, I wrote to the corporation officials in Madurai, after which action was taken. Mariam Beevi was contacted over phone, asked to come in person and had her birth certificate handed over to her. Her letter yesterday was to thank me for this act.

Honourable prime minister, a woman has to run pillar to post for two years to get her birth certificate. And she still couldn’t. She brings it to the notice of the MP and only after his intervention, she gets the certificate.

In her letter, an emotional Beevi writes that for as long as she lives, she will never forget the act of the MP in getting her the certificate. I could see the tears welling up her eyes, as she added that she would pray for my well-being and welfare. Every word, I know, carries the pain of her two-year struggle to get the certificate. The pain and the suffering led her to believe that my simple act is rather extraordinary. In return, she wants God to take care of me.

My dear prime minister, I have not done anything great to deserve the prayer of a woman I have not seen, for my well-being and good life. I merely forwarded a letter that my office had received to the municipal corporation. If people are expressing overwhelming gratitude for this small act, how strong could be the walls that prevent them from getting this work done?

Honourable prime minister, we have countless Mariam Beevis and Mariammas facing endless struggles to get their own birth certificates. But you have been asking them to get the birth certificates of their parents too.

Honourable prime minister, you have said in your greeting, that let my rich and varied experiences help the growth of this country. I write to you on account of the truth in the greeting: Please withdraw the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Please drop the National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercises. If you do that, there are countless ordinary people who will pray for your welfare and well-being. It will be a great step towards the real development of this country.

In the period we live in, the positions we occupy have their own meanings. We must use them to work to remove the sufferings of the people and to make this country a blessed land for them. The greetings I had received on my birthday had helped reaffirm this belief of mine and to further myself towards this goal.

I thank you again for your greetings.

Best
S. Venkatesan
Member of Parliament
Madurai
CPI(M)