Call of reform

Arun Shourie’s article, ‘Dial reform’ (IE, October 15), is the perfect wake-up call for India. It outlines in painful and accurate detail the tangle the telecom ministry finds itself. Unfortunately, this tangle is not restricted to one field. Across the board, Indian policy makers are struggling to keep up with globalisation. But Shourie’s argument that prices are likely to fall once licences and charging areas are rationalised is not realistic. Unified licences can create telecom behemoths — one-stop-shops that provide local, cellular, long distance and international calls. While the company would make a huge saving, there’s no guarantee it will pass this on to the customer. To force the group to do so, would mean further regulation — just the thing one wants
to reduce.
— Deepanshu Bagchee, On e-mail

Simply Malaysia

You are right to focus on China’s latest achievement in space (‘Chinese leap upward’, IE, October 16) and juxtapose it with India’s excessive preoccupation with fruitless exercises like Ayodhya. It may be argued, however, that China has a political system which keeps it free from communal disharmony. Why, then, take China for comparison in a matter like this when we can draw inspiration from a much smaller country, Malaysia. By the end of this month, Asia’s longest serving democratically elected leader, Mahathir Mohamad, will step down after 22 years in office. During his reign he transformed a tin, rubber and palm oil producing country into a thriving hi-tech centre. He realised early on that no significant progress can be achieved without communal peace and social harmony.
— K. R. Rangaswamy, On e-mail

Your argument, comparing space research with kar sewaks, is flawed. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. If you want a realistic comparison you should look at the differences in the space programmes of the two countries. I don’t know why the Indian non-vernacular media leaves no stone unturned in telling us how pathetic we are at every available opportunity.
— Krishna Hebbatam, On e-mail

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Hail the EC

The Election Commission deserves all praise and thanks for taking bold steps for the cause of the people by way of directing the Centre that no ads with the objective of furthering the interests of the party in power should be issued at the cost of the public exchequer, more so at a time when assembly elections are being held. It has also done well to ask the chief secretary of Chhattisgarh to get all posters, banners, hoardings, cutouts and ads removed from the streets of the state with immediate effect.
— B.N. Pathak, On e-mail

OIC’s approach

Religion and politics do not make a good mix (‘The irony that’s the OIC’, IE, October 16). People who wrote our Constitution knew that. Unfortunately, most of the OIC nations did not have the luck to be blessed with such luminaries as we were in India. The mix of religion and politics can have disastrous effects — we have seen it happen all over the Islamic world and now we are seeing it in India too with the RSS’s agenda going into an overdrive again! For God’s sake (or Allah or Bhagwan), learn to live in peace and tolerance.
— Shariq Ahmad, On e-mail