Just two days after the State Government placed senior officer IS Laishram under suspension, ostensibly for capitulating to the diktats of an underground organization, we saw Chief Minister O Ibobi striking a tough posture and announcing for all to hear and see that the Government will inquire whether the said officer surrendered to the outfit or whether he was abducted!

The question then staring all in the face is, why did the Government announce the suspension of the senior officer when it was not even sure whether he was abducted or whether he had surrendered to the outfit! Can we then take it that the Government was acting according to the statement of the KYKL that IS Laishram surrendered to them on August 30 in line with the ultimatum served on the officer on August 23?

Nothing can be quite as farcical as this. As if this was not enough, we now see that the State Social Welfare Department is set on testing the food stuff supplied to Anganwadi Centers for children. Mind you this also came after the outlawed UNLF served an ultimatum on five suppliers to surrender to them for supplying adulterated foodstuff to the youngsters under the Ready to Eat program!

The more we look at the conduct of the State Government over the last few years, the more we are apt to believe that the rein of administration has slowly and gradually slipped out of its hands. Why did it take the Social Welfare Department to wake up to the need to test the food stuff supplied to the children only after the UNLF took matters in its own hand and decided to pull up some suppliers. If the matter was not so serious we are sure the conduct of the Government would have evoked guffaws from all. And frankly speaking, we see no reason why the foodstuff should be sent to a laboratory at Kolkata for testing at all.

Any fool would know that the foodstuffs supplied to the children at the Anganwadi Centers are not at all fit for human consumption. We are not talking about the complicated process of detecting pesticides in a soft drink bottle, as presently witnessed in the allegations leveled against Coke and Pepsi, but about the presence of such objects as human hair, sticks and other particles that are harmful to health.

Mind you the hair we are talking about comes from different anatomies of the human body! The decision of the Social Welfare Department to send the foodstuff to Kolkata for necessary testing can best be interpreted as a knee jerk reaction of the Government working on hind sight. It will just be another exercise in futility.

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)