Statue of Unity
I take pride in that we have the world’s tallest statue in our country. Some of us
may have a different point of view that it is a wastage of public money and we
can build more schools, hospitals, roads and can use this money in other social
infrastructure. While building the Statue of Unity, 4000 jobs were created and
now after the completion of work more jobs can be created for the locals. With
the increase in the number of tourists, local people will have more employment
opportunities in the hospitality and tourism sector. Now, around 30000 tourists
are visiting the Statue of Unity daily in comparison to 40000 tourists reach to
see Taj Mahal daily. It is evident from the figures that the Statue of Unity has
prospects of attracting more tourists in near future.
If we talk about the location of the Statue of Unity, it is located in between the
Satpura and Vindhya range. According to the Ministry of Tourism, the most
visited state by tourists in Tamil Nadu, it shows that tourists are looking for the
destinations which are pollution free. And the location of the Statue of Unity
makes it suitable to attract more and more tourists.
Capital Punishment
I have an opinion that India must abolish capital punishment now. It violates our
fundamental rights under Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution. By
abolishing capital punishment, we can save precious time of our judiciary which
is being wasted by continuous litigation. Public money is also being wasted in
continuous litigation. There are 13 steps in our judiciary before criminals are
hanged till death. It includes appeal in a high court then confirmation by
honourable Supreme Court and at last, the prisoner also has the option of
submitting a mercy petition to the president under Article 72(1) of the
Constitution.
It is a very lengthy process and we spend our public money on the safety and
security of that prisoner. We are wasting the precious time of the state
government, honourable President, Ministry of Home Affairs and of our
judiciary. The question that arises here is how many are executed since
independence. According to official government statistics only 52 people had
been executed till now. By executing the criminals, we cannot say that the crime
rate will be decreased in society. Crimes are still found to be high where capital
punishment is legal.
The notion of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth has no place in a
constitutionally mediated judicial system. The main focus should be on providing
justice to the victims and for this, we have to focus on fast-tracking our judicial
process because “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”.
Opinion for Mission : Paper or Plastic
I have an opinion that plastic should not be banned because we do not have a
suitable substitute for this. Paper cannot be a substitute for plastic as its usage
is limited as compared to plastic. One thing that we can do is to mitigate the use
of synthetic plastic and start increasing the usage of bioplastic or plastic that is
made up of vegetable starch. Production of this kind of plastic will also help our
vegetable farmers as they will have a new segment of customers for their
produce. The plastic that comprises vegetable starch is totally edible and melts
in water at room temperature. As a result, will not pose any serious problems
like choking sewage lines, animals etc. Replacing paper with plastic only helps in
degrading our environment more. India has a forest cover of only 21% and it is
continuously decreasing. We all consumed 16.5 million tonnes of plastic in 2018
and imagine if we use paper instead of plastic, how many trees need to cut
down? According to US Environmental Protection Agency, paper generates 70
% more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic, because
4 times as much energy is required to produce it and 85 times as much energy
to recycle it.