• In his maiden address to the nation Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has clearly stated his priority to help the downtrodden and women. He has also stressed on improving agriculture. These are good sentiments coming from an honest man. We have been hearing for quite some time what the United Progressive Alliance will do; the time has come to see at least the beginning of some action. Chanakya, the great administrator and wizard in politics, said: “Only accomplished deeds should be publicised.” From now on, we would like to hear from the prime minister and his colleagues what they have accomplished instead of hearing the oft repeated words, “We will do this and we will do that”. The poor cannot live by words, statistics and promises alone. —V.S. Venkatavaradan Salem Justice threatened • This refers to the article ‘Roll-back of the judicial code?’ by Manoj Mitta (IE, June 24). If this becomes a reality, then it would be a sad and dark day for India. Judges who participated in strikes and also misused their office should have been asked to resign. Condoning such members of the judiciary would shake the common man’s faith in the judiciary. —Ramesh Lahoti On e-mail Film of hypocrisy • The hypocrisy and double standards of the Bollywood audience have been exposed. On the one hand, they complain that Hindi filmmakers do not make a different kind of movies. But when good and realistic movies like Yuva and Dev are released, they ignore these movies and go for senseless mushy stuffs like Hum Tum and KHNH. While ignoring realistic movies, audiences cite and criticise the oft-repeated topics of politics, cops, etc, but they don’t have anything against the same oft-repeated mushy stuff and love stories being dished out to them. They say that the presentation in mushy movies is different. What difference are they talking about when these movies have the same old love stories, the same old over-the-top Punjabi characters, the same exaggerated display of Indian traditions, the same old balle balle songs, the same old foreign locations, etc. —Amjad K. Maruf Mumbai Gujarat shuffle • Your editorial ‘BJP’s moment of truth’ (June 16) concluded on a ringing note: “Narendra Modi should go because the BJP must atone for Gujarat”. This is indeed the bottomline. Atal Bihari Vajpayee set the cat among the pigeons in Manali by finally conceding that not removing Modi as chief minister of Gujarat after the riots of 2002 was a mistake, which contributed to the NDA’s rout in these Lok Sabha elections. The longer Modi stays in power, the easier it will be for the Congress to wrest Gujarat away and consolidate its support among the Muslims. —Vinod Chowdhury Delhi Smoked out • Varghese K. George has rightly commented on the consumerist dimension to birthdays (‘Candles and capitalism’, IE, June 25). In the last 100 years of phenomenal scientific advances, we have consumed more natural resources than what our so-called non-civilised ancestors could use in 5000 years. —Nidhir On e-mail
