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Journalism of Courage
8226; Amar Singh8217;s article 8216;To be secular or not to be8217; is a diatribe against the Samajwadi Party8217;s bete noire, Mayawati. Singh explains the SP8217;s possible alignment with the Congress for the coming general elections even as he justifies the SP8217;s earlier stand against the Congress. All this is supposedly in the name of secularism. And why doesn8217;t Singh explain why his party had opposed Sonia Gandhi8217;s shot at the PM8217;s post?
A Congress-SP alliance will be nothing if not a marriage of convenience 8212; a ploy to keep the BJP and Mayawati out of Delhi. Only time will tell whether such opportunism will politically benefit both parties.
8212; Tarsem Singh
New Delhi
Wrong pitch
8226; One wonders why Amar Singh chose to address the secularists. As a member of a so-called minority community, I don8217;t see any difference between the BJP-led NDA and the Congress-led UPA in their adherence to secularism. As for Mayawati, she is fighting for the lowest stratum of society, and has every right to garner support for her cause by whatever means. Only the Muslims, voting as a bloc, can be of help to Singh and the SP. Memories of the Babri Masjid demolition and the Gujarat riots are still strong enough to keep the BJP out of power.
8212; Rufus D8217;Souza
Lady Lazarus
8226; This refers to Nandita Patel8217;s 8216;Man enough to make it8217;. The mindset of ordinary people towards women is changing, slowly but surely.
Perhaps it is only a ripple on the surface, but it is heartening to see so many young women from modest, middle-class homes venture outside the domestic space and join the workforce. They are bolder, braver and more confident than their mothers were, and surely they will be the harbingers of change. They will teach their daughters to be even more self-confident and assertive.
8212; Radhika Chand
Ahmednagar
Ask again
8226; In the editorial 8216;Days of reckoning8217;, your advocacy of going ahead with the nuclear deal, even at the cost of the government, is well-intentioned. But one feels that it is tantamount to bypassing the democratic mechanism. The question is: should such a significant decision, which binds the country in many ways and over which not only the two major political parties but the experts are also sharply divided, be left to the wisdom of a minority government? Moreover, the unusual and persistent insistence of the United States to push the deal through and its willingness to work on it till the end of the Bush administration8217;s term in office, appears suspicious. Who indeed is the real beneficiary here: us or them?
8212; Y.G. Chouksey
Pune
