I was at New Delhi in connection with a training from 11th to 20th Jan 2003. Due to this and other urgent official engagements I was not able to correspond with you periodically.

The festival season is on. All religious denomination are celebrating their different festivals with utmost pomp and festivities. It seems that for most of the people festivity means consuming as much liquor as possible. This undermines their natural behavior and make him into an animal which reciprocates sharply and destructively with vengeance at any opportunity. People also see festival venues as places where they can retaliate for past real or imagined slights and indignities. All these create problems for the police and causes all kinds of inconvenience for the common people who have no axe to find and who wants to only enjoy the festivities undisturbed. I sincerely request the public to bear in mind the desire of the common people and allow them to enjoy the festivities peacefully. Those people who have axes to grind and scores to settle please postpone it to some other time or otherwise approach us with the problem so that we can sort it out nicely. I hope you all share my concern and act accordingly.

While observing the traffic during checking and at other times it is observed that many of the people driving all kinds of vehicles are either ignorant of the traffic signals or not. For example, when crossing junctions most of the vehicles show both the indicators together. It is not necessary. When you do not show any indicator it means that you are not turning and going straight. Showing both indicators together should be only in times of emergency. Also, when overtaking some vehicles especially lorries show their right indicator meaning that overtaking can be done by the right. But the signal actually means that you are going to turn right. Then how can anyone overtake you? Therefore in such circumstances you put on your left indicator to show that you are keeping to the left and the vehicle behind you will overtake without fear. More about this later.

Thanking you,

G. Janardhanan Nair IPS