Letters To The Editor

The boiling pot8226; A superb article as usual. Shekhar Gupta8217;s 8216;Long live our dead ghosts8217; IE, April 8, makes everyone th...

The boiling pot

8226; A superb article as usual. Shekhar Gupta8217;s 8216;Long live our dead ghosts8217; IE, April 8, makes everyone think. Would you please look at another significant aspect of the matter. One party makes strange promises in today8217;s context but does the right things when it is in power. The other has politically correct slogans but does strange things in today8217;s context. The voters are baffled. The BJP wins an election by promising voters to build a Hindu temple. After it comes to power, it doesn8217;t build the temple but builds highways. The Congress wins by assuring secularism, infrastructure and absence of caste- class- and religion-based politics. When it comes to power, it almost halts the construction of highways, reservation comes back, and people start drinking tea from earthen pots.

8212; Milind Kulkarni, New Delhi

8226; While reading Shekhar Gupta8217;s 8216;Long live our dead ghosts8217;, I wondered why he brought the BJP into his argument. Arjun Singh has made a mess, so why drag L.K. Advani8217;s name into it? What8217;s wrong if Advani takes a yatra to highlight the issue of national security to his country men? What he is trying to achieve is Indian nationalism, not Hindu nationalism.

If Advani is strengthening Indian nationalism through his yatra, Arjun Singh is dividing the country! There8217;s a huge difference between the two.

8212; Karthik, New Delhi

8226; Excellent! Wish the political 8220;elite8221; would absorb the edit page piece by Shekhar Gupta 8216;Long live our dead ghosts8217;.

8212; Shankar Acharya, New Delhi

8226; I totally agree with Shekhar Gupta8217;s piece, 8216;Long live8230;8217; Our leaders they think of themselves as leaders, we certainly do not are in the last stages of their lives. What stake do they have in the country8217;s future? Why should they work

towards building a better India when they know that they will not live to benefit from it? Therefore they take decisions dictated by short term interests.

8212; Sonu Bhasin, New Delhi

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8226; I am a regular reader of the Indian Express for the past so many years and mainly because of Shekhar Gupta8217;s column, 8216;National Interest8217;. Here I refer to his article 8216;Long live our dead ghosts8217;, IE, April 8.

Nobody in his right sense would oppose empowerment of the downtrodden. Unfortunately, at present, the empowerment of the backward community is a matter of vote-bank politics and no political party would dare to make any drastic change. A corrective now would be to enlarge the base of 8216;creamy layer8217;. Going by the article, 8216;The ABC of the OBC8217; IE, April 8, the creamy layer is categorised as class one officers, among others. It is argued that since children of lower income groups are deprived of better education and therefore are not able to compete with others, reservation is the only way out. With this reasoning, even class two employees will come under the creamy layer

8212; Jose Verghese, New Delhi

We are from Mars

8226; Remember the novel, War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, in which Martians invade Earth? Now we are told that there is evidence to support the fact that life on earth began with microbes that originated on Mars! The Martians are not coming 8212; they are already here and it is us!

8212; T.R. Ramaswami, Mumbai