Letter of the WEEK

While India focuses on the LoC, it disregards the Durand Line.

While India focuses on the LoC, it disregards the Durand Line. In a letter earlier this week, John Alexander from Nagpur argued that Musharraf’s exit or a change in Indian foreign policy cannot alter the significance of the Durand Line.

• OUR obsession with the line of control, which separates the Indian and Pakistani administered areas of Kashmir, has made us myopic with regard to the Durand Line, which separates Pakistan from Afghanistan. It is this region that al Qaeda and the Taliban use as a sanctuary and recruiting ground for jihadis. Even if India changes the contours of its foreign policy, it cannot change the geopolitics of the Durand Line. A post-Musharraf Pakistan will not change this reality.

Human resource

• The editorial, ‘Shoot to skill’ was precise. We have traditionally assigned the responsibility of business training to the second rung of the executive ladder. Such training must involve the most successful of businessmen. For instance, people like N.R. Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji must be a part of such programmes. If the government sincerely involves entrepreneurs and business gurus of their calibre, India will have a first class work force within a couple of decades. Of course, it might help to retire the likes of Arjun Singh.

— Parimal Y. Mehta

Mumbai

Apple of no eye

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• This refers to the editorial, ‘Apple in Bharat’. The iPhone looks attractive but the price tag has killed the lust in most prospective buyers. The price is more than twice what the media had guessed and what we had expected. With no Bluetooth, and a weak camera, the present version is not value for money; it is only a status symbol. However, one expects that Apple will soon come out with an improved version with a cheaper price tag. After all, the company must improve its sales figures in this part of the world.

— S.N. Kabra

Mumbai

Sports drought

• When the sports minister, M.S. Gill, did not recognise Pullela Gopichand, the former All England badminton champion even as he greeted Olympic loser Saina Nehlwal heartily, he unwittingly showed his knowledge of sports and his priorities. His gaffe symbolised a significant reason for the long Indian drought in international competitions. Since our sports policies, if any, are decided by ignorant ministers and implemented, if at all, by sports bodies overcrowded with full-time politicians, there is little possibility of discovering and nurturing potential winners. We suffer from a dearth of passionate sports administrators, not talent.

— Y.G. Chouksey

Pune

Back with a blast

• While the coalition partners wrangle over residual issues such as the reinstatement of apex court judges, the blasts — two near an ordnance complex near Islamabad that killed 65 and one in the northwest of Pakistan that killed 25 — bode ill for the entire subcontinent. The Taliban has already claimed responsibility for the Islamabad blasts, and it appears that terrorists once again enjoy their day in the sun in Pakistan. The democratic government must quickly check the menace before it overwhelms us all.

— R.J. Khurana

Bhopal