Freedom of speech?

Coming of age

• It’s high time to reduce the retirement age of central Government employees from 60 (‘Law Ministry OKs reducing retirement age from 60 to 58’). This will not only provide more jobs for the unemployed, it will give the government more money, which otherwise would have been paid as salaries to senior level employees. Some state government still follow the system of keeping the retirement age for its employees at 55.

— Viswanathan K.K. On e-mail

Talaq ban

• What Asghar Ali Engineer wrote about triple talaq (‘Ban triple talaq’, IE, June 17) is correct. What is currently implemented, especially in South India, are Hanafia norms which prohibit such a practice.

— Jassim On e-mail

Bad education

• This refers to Anil Sadgopal’s article,‘Elementary, it’s education’ (IE, June 16). I would request Sadgopal to find out how many Indians, after 50 years of independence, can draw the map of their country with the kind of education system he talks about, one that was perpetuated by his masters, the Congress seculars.

— D. S. Chauhan Ratnagiri

Not democratic

• Democracy has no meaning if the Cabinet rank was given to the Congress president. In no democratic country will you find an extra constitutional authority like that presently functioning from 10 Janpath. Also, even those who are out on bail from jail have become ministers. That proves that the Westminster model of democracy is not suited to India. We need a prime minister who is directly elected by the majority of the people and not one who gets the chair as per the whims and fancies of MPs, nay as per the wishes of a single person who has all the powers without the slightest accountability or responsibility. The ministers who are out on bail from jail can never be justified by any argument or counter argument. But the people of India have no choice but to tolerate such eventualities as a fait accompli.

— S.M. Acharya Mumbai

Write back

• Sanjoy Hazarika, a former correspondent of New York Times, who is also a research professor at the Independent Centre for Policy Research and consulting editor of The Statesman, has issued the following statement in response to a report in The Indian Express, titled ‘‘Ulfa rejects mediator, denies feelers to government’’, published in the edition dated 18 June, 2004.
I am appalled and anguished by the report in The Indian Express of June 18, 2004, where, in remarks attributed to Paresh Barua of ULFA, I have been falsely described as a an agent of the RAW intelligence agency. This is absurd. The reporter further claims that I had offered to mediate between the ULFA and the government. This is absolutely false. At no point of time, either now or in the past, have I offered to do anything of the sort. The statement that a few of us had signed a couple of days ago merely called for talks between the Government of India and the ULFA, if necessary in a third country, because Assam has suffered for too long from conflict, bloodshed and confrontation. None of us in that statement (see text below) offered to mediate.
I hold The Indian Express, a paper for which I have extensively written over the years, and its editors in high esteem. But this report has hurt me deeply because it impugns my integrity and character; it has caused great anguish to me and my family members. Your reporter in Guwahati did not have the elemental courtesy or professionalism to check with me before rushing into print. In the process, he did not remember that last December, in a move which was widely reported and appreciated, during the anti-ULFA operations in Bhutan, Jahnu Barua, Dr Indira Goswami, Patricia Mukhim, Bhagat Oinam and I had issued a statement urging for openness about the Bhutanese military campaign and demanding human rights for the captives, especially women and children.

• The following is the text of the appeal: We welcome the recent positive remarks of political leaders from Assam and of Shri Arobinda Rajkhowa, chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom, with regard to the possibility of opening a dialogue between the Government of India and the ULFA, and the need for a political solution to a problem that has affected Assam for decades. Assam and the North-East are weary of violence. We need peace, stability and freedom from fear. Too much blood has been spilt, too many lives have been lost, too many tragedies have taken place in the past decades. As a result, development has been disrupted and traditions have suffered. A majority of our people remain isolated from the processes of development, poor and marginalized. It is a time for healing and justice, peace with justice and dignity. We call upon the Government of India and the ULFA to begin the process of dialogue and talks, if necessary in a third country, with an open mind and determination to reach a political settlement so that a traumatic chapter in the life of our beloved Assam is closed and a new one begins. It is time to work together for a strong, stable and developed Assam, using the natural advantages, resources and skills of its people.

(The statement was signed by Jnanpith winner Indira Raisom (Mamoni) Goswami, filmmaker Jahnu Barua, journalist Sanjoy Hazarika and US-based scientist Atul Sharma)