Criminal confidence

Bhatinda

Beach spat

• The Scarlett Keeling murder muddle, after a series of stupefying twists and turns, seems to have taken a backseat, with the focus shifting to the war of words between Scarlett’s mother and the Goa home minister. Since the best detectives in the state seem to have bungled, the request for an unbiased inquest and a plea for justice from the heart-broken mother reflect the sorry state of policing in India. An outcry with international ramifications has forced the authorities into tying up of the loose ends.

But it did little to shore up the reputation of the police. That the cops would go all out to harass the mother in retaliation was a foregone conclusion. Any mother, who is yet to come to terms with the mysterious death of her child in a foreign land and frustrated by the apathy of the authorities, would react exactly as Fiona Mackeown did.

Margao, Goa

Vote purchase

• After ignoring farmers and the poor for more than five decades, the Congress has suddenly discovered that it is deeply concerned about them. It is now bent on proclaiming this newfound love from the rooftops. The loan waiver is a vote-buying gimmick devoid of any principled approach towards helping farmers. The waiver is only for loans taken from the banks and credit societies and, thus, would not benefit farmers who have borrowed from private money lenders. The most disappointing aspect of the waiver is that it discriminates against those farmers who had paid back their loans, some of them even doing so by borrowing money from money lenders. Farmers and the poor don’t need election-time alms but consistent reforms to enhance their quality of life. Election-related gestures lack any genuine concern on the part of the government.

Unfortunately for the UPA, the poor understand this and so does everybody else.

Pune

Consider the facts

• Your editorial, ‘Ports of no recall‘, would have been appreciated if you had taken into consideration the facts upon which the airports, or for that matter the Special Economic Zones in Goa, were approved by the government.

It must be noted that in a democratic system, the people are supreme, and you must realise that any decision taken by any government has to be transparent and in consonance with the will of the people and in their interest.

Panaji