Fall fixation

Sir — The balmy season of autumn is upon us. But the excitement around it is not limited to the festivals, the changing colour of leaves, or the fall fashion. Ironically, the thriving fall content on the internet, including cosy videos featuring fall aesthetics, has led bloggers to simulate the season throughout the year. Worse, picturesque towns are seeing an influx of fall enthusiasts who have been creating a nuisance while taking pictures. Perhaps these content creators should be more mindful of their transgressions given that autumn is disappearing from the seasonal calendar owing to climate change.

Sudeshna Dutta, Howrah

Publicity machine

Sir — The order of the department of revenue, under the finance ministry to nominate bureaucrats as ‘rath-prabharis’ for tom-toming the achievements of the Narendra Modi government is deplorable (“Officials turn govt ‘pracharaks’”, Oct 23). In a democratic framework, bureaucracy is required to be independent and neutral. The order thus indicates the Centre’s blatant attempt to politicise the bureaucracy.

It is the role of bureaucrats to ensure the smooth delivery of government schemes and services to the public. However, assigning them the responsibility of publicising the government’s achievements will turn them into a submissive workforce. The bureaucracy prioritising the interests of the ruling dispensation will lead to the erosion of public trust in it.

M. Jeyaram, Sholavandan, Tamil Nadu

Sir — Having served both in the Indian army and as an officer of the Indian Revenue Service, I was aghast at the Centre’s decision to deploy senior government officers as ‘rath-prabharis’ for the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra (“Drum beats”, Oct 26). The defence ministry has also directed armed personnel to create selfie points with a picture of the prime minister across nine different cities. The orders set a dangerous precedent and betray the government’s bid to politicise these two independent institutions.

In order to prevent the government from going ahead with the plan, several former bureaucrats and activists have sought the intervention of the president, Droupadi Murmu, as well as the Election Commission of India, in view of the upcoming assembly elections in several states. This is heartening.

S.K. Choudhury, Bengaluru

Dubious text

Sir — A high-level committee on social sciences constituted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training has recommended that ‘India’ should be replaced with ‘Bharat’ in school textbooks. The NCERT’s repeated attempts to tailor educational content — chapters on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and periodic classification of elements have already been omitted from the syllabus — to accommodate ancient science according to the ideology of the ruling regime are disconcerting.

These sections are important yardsticks to develop a scientific bent of mind in students. The removal of these sections runs contrary to India’s aspirations to be a frontrunner in the scientific field.

H.N. Ramakrishna, Bengaluru

Sir — The NCERT is set to introduce modules eulogising the prime minister’s knowledge of aerospace technology and rocket science (“For publicity”, Oct 20). Instead of recognising the contributions of real scientists and institutions, such as the Indian Space Research Organisation, the government seems to be going out of its way in hijacking the credit for India’s scientific achievements.

These amount to hoodwinking citizens and will only lower the stature of
the prime minister in the eyes of the younger generation.

Avinash Godboley, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh

Secular festival

Sir — The Nandi family at Pandua in the Hooghly district deserves recognition for continuing with a 225-year-old family tradition of offering the first bhog to a pir on Mahanavami (“Puja where a pir has pride of place”, Oct 25). Similarly, drawing inspiration from Swami Vivekananda’s Kumari Puja, a Durga Puja organiser in North Calcutta chose a Muslim girl to be worshipped this year as the goddess in human form, symbolising divinity in a person. At a time when our fellow Muslim citizens are being increasingly portrayed as the ‘Other’ by the ruling regime, these Puja organisers are providing excellent examples of communal harmony and religious syncretism that is the ethos of the country.

Kajal Chatterjee, Calcutta

Standing ovation

Sir — The spectators at the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai are some of the most knowledgeable and appreciative in all of India. In 1999, fans there gave a standing ovation to Pakistan when they took a lap of honour after defeating India in a thrilling Test. Twenty-four years later, the iconic venue was witness to a similar sight when Afghanistan defeated Pakistan in the ongoing World Cup. The partisan crowd at Ahmedabad should learn a thing or two from the fans at Chepauk.

Ranganathan Sivakumar, Chennai