•Apropos Abdul Karim Telgi and the stamp of doom, (The Sunday Express, November 16), the article notes that ‘‘The counterfeit stamp and stamp paper scam is threatening to become the biggest and most damaging business scam ever in India.’’ In fact, high stamp duty also results in creation of black money as people in order to avoid stamp duty or to pay lesser amount of stamp duty do not disclose true value of transactions which require stamp duty to be paid. Even millions of family disputes are not settled especially involving immoveable properties of families as they call for heavy stamp duty. Even genuine transactions between blood relations — if they are to be settled by reversing some earlier settlement — too require payment of heavy stamp duty as these are treated as sale when in fact there is no sale and such family disputes remains unsolved. Such provisions are absurd and must be rectified by suitable amendments in the Stamp Duty Act in which all family transaction of transfers/settlement/sales if any should be exempt from the provisions of Stamp Duty Act. In fact, Stamp Duty should be totally abolished. Mahesh Kapasi • This refers to Coomi Kapoor’s Inside Track (The Sunday Express, Nov 19) notes ‘‘Backburner bench’’ and ‘Need for cover’. The ‘‘democratic’’ dictatorship of Tamil Nadu Assembly in misusing immunity available to legislature by punishing The Hindu and some others will initiate a wrong trend. Earlier also such an immunity has been misused by not adequately punishing legislators for resorting to violence in the Assembly. It is high time that the Centre may initiate measures to bring legislative proceedings under normal laws of the land like it has done to modify POTA provisions visualising its misuse in certain states. Jayalalithaa should rather be congratulated for her action which has highlighted the urgent need to amend faulty constitutional provisions. Subhash Chandra Agrawal •I agree with Tavleen Singh’s views on foreign goods in India (What US steel tells Indian state, The Sunday Express, November 16) being good for healthy competition and exposure for Indians. Sub-standard, outdated, expensive imported goods or cheap undependable Chinese imports are lapped up by the Indian public, in the name of an open economy. The after-sales service of most of the imported consumer products are either suspect, expensive and tedious. India has the potential to manufacture and maintain an indigineous consumer productivity, without the assistance of other countries. After all, for them, India is just another international dumpyard, commercially viable for their consumer rejected goods. Jayati • Tavleen Singh makes a valid point in that more attention should be paid to economics. Even educated Indians repeat arguments like those of Praveen Togadia without realising where it is leading India to. Is politics the sum and substance of life? I wish somebody would also write a well-informed article on fiscal deficit ballooning along with scam amounts! Was Rajeev Gandhi responsible for accelerating it? But would we have got IT benefits without his bold step, a risky gamble at that time? Srinivasan
