Dear Sir,
It was great to see the picture of the newborn lion cubs with their mother, taken at the Doha Zoo (Gulf Times, August 30). I enjoyed the news and picture on the front page. 
It was refreshing – the type of good news we need in grim times like ours. “Cool” news and pictures on a hot summer day, so to speak!
Gulf Times should publish these type of feel-good reports regularly as our troubled world is producing enough violent and worrying news every day not only in newspapers but also on the social media. 

Joseph
joenimmie@yahoo.co

A shocking image

Dear Sir,

The shocking image of Dana Manjhi, a member of a tribal community in India’s Odisha state, carrying the body of his wife on his shoulder, with a sobbing daughter walking alongside, shook the conscience of the entire nation. Majhi had no vehicle to take home his wife’s body after she died  at a government hospital in Kalahandi, about 60km from his village. He says he pleaded for a vehicle, but was refused one.
So he wrapped his 42-year-old wife Amang Dei’s body in a sheet, hoisted it on his shoulder and began to walk home. His daughter walked by his side, holding a bag with their meagre belongings, weeping.
The Odisha state had launched a scheme in February this year, offering to transport bodies from government hospitals free of charge. But that service, for some reason, was not available to Majhi.
It highlights how the system has clearly failed to provide basic facilities to the common man in India. 
Many government-run hospitals in India are in a sorry state. The apathy and indifferent attitude of medical staff in these facilities has been in the news time and again.

Ramesh G Jethwani
(Address supplied)