Dear friends:

Yet again there is a delay in making contact with you all. Please excuse me. This was due to the pressure of work. Since this is the year-ending, we have to finish so many of our routine duties and this requires a lot of running around. We have also been trying to reach out to the people in many ways.

You may like to know that when we conducted a "Contact the People" programme in Thrissur town, most of the people's representatives, leaders of various unions, etc. expressed very useful suggestions and opinions. It was interesting that many of the participants mentioned that although the police have been organising such functions earlier also, not much action has resulted from such meetings. The point was made that by the time of the next meeting, usually after one year, the police officers would have changed, and therefore the views expressed at the meeting would have been forgotten, and hence there would be no follow ups to the decisions taken at the meeting. I admitted that this held true to some extent. My suggestion at the meeting was that similar meetings could be held on the second Saturday of every month, provided some group or body was willing to host the same. I was happy that the Municipal authorities represented by the Deputy Mayor Sri Radhakrishnan expressed support for this view and promised all support for this move. Therefore it has been decided that a meeting will be held in the Conference Hall of the Thrissur Municipal Corporation on the second Saturday of each month, regarding the problems being faced by the public of Thrissur, relating to the Law and Order situation. Let us wait and see how this decision works out in the implementation stage.

We have been continuing with our "Reach Out to Schools" programme aimed at direct interaction with school students of the District. We have also been able to bring out a special information booklet for providing assistance to the out-of state Sabarimala pilgrim. This booklet, intended to assist devout visitors to Sabarimala and Guruvayoor, has text in three other southern Indian languages, viz. Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, in addition to Malayalam. I am extremely glad that the Malayala Manorama group of publications has accepted the responsibility of printing and distributing these booklets to benefit the pilgrims. We hope that this turns out to be useful for the public.

Three other booklets relating to vehicle thefts, house thefts and atrocities against women are ready for printing and distribution. We expect that these will also prove to be useful and informative to the general public, and result in the prevention of many a crime.

Thanks and regards,

G. Janardhanan Nair IPS