Laloo, blame yourself

8226; The unfortunate collision of the Jammu Tawi and DMU train killing does not...

8226; The unfortunate collision of the Jammu Tawi and DMU train killing does not come as a surprise IE, December 15. One serious rail accident every five or six months has become routine. The change of guard at the Centre and the entry of a new railway minister has failed to curb these disastrous incidents. Reforms like introducing khullars will not serve any purpose. The minister8217;s biggest responsibility is to ensure the safety of railway passengers. Laloo Yadav must hold himself responsible for this tragedy.

8212; Saifuddin Khan Aligarh

Accident8217;s signal

8226; I refuse to accept that those who issued line clears to the trains were unaware of the consequences of their action. If in this age of communications revolution and modernisation, passengers get killed because of the failure of an outdated communication system in railway stations, it is railway ministers, not petty functionaries, who should bear the blame.

8212; M.C. Joshi Kanpur

Safety device

8226; There was an item known as 8216;Anti Collision Device8217;, invented by the Konkan Railway and dedicated to the nation by the then railway minister. Why is this system not being fitted onto our rail systems so that such incidents can be averted? 8216;Why Laloo should give Metro Sreedharan a call8217;, Dec 15.

8212; Prem A.N. Mumbai

Excellent

8226; Arun Shourie8217;s8216;Listening to Sufi music as thousands are murdered8217; IE, Dec 15 is an excellent article. What is puzzling is that there seems to be no strategic direction. It is a known fact that China and Pakistan have a vested interest in fomenting trouble in India and have been successful to quite an extent through Islamic terrorism and left-wing extremism. We Indians 8212; Hindus in particular 8212; just do not care. We are all so busy with our own selfish, petty issues that we care two hoots about India. We boast of a strong space remote sensing department, so why not use it to survey each and every corner of our area? Does each ministry get such data? What do we do with the information gathered from space? Do we have enough coordination between the various agencies that deal with security?

8212; Ashish Gupta On e-mail

What8217;s new?

8226; I understand Arun Shourie8217;s anger and, yes, India8217;s inaction is deplorable. But what8217;s new here? What did the BJP do in the six years it was in power?

8212; Ananda On e-mail

Votebank politics

8226; After going through the first part of Arun Shourie8217;s article, one wonders how the state is allowed to neglect its fundamental duty 8212; of assuring national security 8212; in favour of votebank politics. All these politicians and secularists, instead of following Nehru8217;s woolly-headed philosophy, should emulate Sardar Patel8217;s realistic approach. Otherwise even the half of Kashmir that was saved
for India by the Sardar8217;s sagacity will be lost.

8212; R.C. Desai Vallabh Vidyanagar

Babus8217; agenda

8226; This article on national security, I8217;m afraid, is based on official handouts which were probably vetted a hundred times before they were made available to the public or media or 8220;leaked out8221; to a select few. You can imagine what the unvetted versions were like! In the name of national security our babus perpetuate national ignorance.

8212; G. Ravichandran On e-mail