Do it yourselfs

8226; This refers to the 8216;India Empowered8217; piece by Raghuvansh Prasad Si...

8226; This refers to the 8216;India Empowered8217; piece by Raghuvansh Prasad Singh IE, October 3. He put it very well when he observed that India will be empowered 8220;when every home has its own bulb, tap and toilet8221;. But for the last 15 years, what did he and his party do towards achieving this in Bihar? All I can tell him is, Sir, when you are in power make sure that your party does not siphon off the funds provided. What we need is action and not your rhetoric. Do a little introspection, you are the intellectual of the party. It is time you stopped parroting party leaders.

8212; Vijay Shanker On e-mail

Bad precedent

8226; I fail to understand why the Supreme Court bowed to the sentiments of a section of the society and extended the use of loudspeakers by two hours 8212; till midnight 8212; during the Navratri festival. It has thereby created a precedent. In fact the law of the land should prevail upon everybody. A judgment is given after total scrutiny of the case and pondering over the merits and demerits, and due justice is imparted thereafter. When this is the case, the SC should not have made a departure from the earlier stance.

8212; C.J.M. Mathew Faridabad

Tragedy on track

8226; Train accidents have become very common. But the honourable railway minister does not take any responsibility for them IE, October 4. Every railway minister wants to do something unique. The earlier government introduced a safety cess of one rupee. This was just to mop up some additional revenue and fleece the common passenger. Just levying an additional cess does not work. The minister should act more pro-actively towards ensuring passenger safety.

8212; C.R. Ramakrishnan On e-mail

Pathetic Vadodara

8226; No one could have painted a more realistic picture of today8217;s Baroda than Lord Bhikhu Parekh did in his recent speech, 8216;My vision for Vadodara8217;. If a visitor like Lord Parekh is so anguished at the sorry state the civic body has reduced this once glorious city to, one can imagine the hardships suffered by common citizens. The city has been slowly and brutally killed by the builder-contractor-politician-bureaucrat combine. The mess, Lord Parekh, is totally man-made. Our civic officials are the main culprits. It is they who have allowed builders to make a fast buck by throwing all civic by-laws to the wind. It is they who have connived with contractors to allow them to get away with shoddy work. One cannot find even a 500 meter-stretch of road free of potholes. The city is pathetically short of parks while it overflows with roadside eateries. The civic officials have become a law unto themselves, not accountable to anyone.

8212; Kishore Karnad On e-mail

X-raying India

8226; The present government, like the one before it, has been unable to bring down the high level of corruption. Under the Common Minimum Programme, the UPA government promised to lower the unemployment rate but, unfortunately, it hardly seems to be taking the problem seriously. Every government has proclaimed its achievements at the end of its tenure, but so far no government has disclosed what they have not achieved. Why are the reports prepared by UNDP and the World Bank not discussed in Parliament? We need to be more self-critical if India is to progress.

8212; Hitesh Jhangiani New Delhi