Letters To The Editor

—Rajesh Kumar, New Delhi

Debate, India

• Now that the Knowledge Commission has spoken, the onus will be on the Central government to initiate a national debate on the quotas issue. The government, in any case, needs to display a strong political will and allocate funds liberally for the qualitative improvement of our school education. It is also relevant here to remind HRD Minister Arjun Singh of what the Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy said in Bangalore the other day: “A whopping 98 per cent of IT revenue comes from abroad. The client does not know what caste you belong to or what language group. He only makes sure that you deliver.”

—V. Guliani, Bangalore

Reality check

• The National Knowledge Commission, headed by Sam Pitroda, recommends educational opportunities for all (IE, May 9). The question is: are there the required number of jobs? Recently the Ahmedabad railway station witnessed a crowd of about 5,000 for the Railway Commission’s competitive examination to recruit people for Class IV jobs! It appears that our planners are not bothered about the extent of manpower needed in various fields. The HRD ministry does not concern itself with bridging the ‘output’ with the ‘intake’. Meanwhile frustration among the young is growing and a day will come when our students will riot on the streets like their French counterparts.

—K.L. Khandekar, Vadodara

Dams abroad

• Apropos of the apex court’s nod for raising the height of the SSP to 121 m, we need to remember that in countries like the USA, China, Russia and Africa, the profiles of huge dams are neither decided nor monitored by the courts. In India, the height of SSP is being closely monitored by the Supreme Court, even though the SSP has not violated any laws.

—M.S. Rajagopalan, Ahmedabad

Hot times

• As the heat wave sweeps northern India, especially Delhi, it is important to remember that Delhi is divided into five zones — East, West, North, South and Central. The Met Department is located in Central Delhi and records Delhi’s temperature from Safdarjung Airport, which is surrounded by lots of greenery. The second place where the temperature is recorded is at Palam Airport, which is not as lush and hence the summer temperature here is about two degrees higher than that recorded at Safdarjung. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if the city temperatures published in the newsapaper follows the reading recorded at Palam, which is more representative of the four zones? It would, besides, boost our morale to know that we suffered a temperature of 46.4 degree centigrades rather than the mere 44.4 degrees recorded at Safdarjung!

—Rajeev K. Dhaumya, New Delhi