Letters To The Editor

Women officers are of course most welcome and are being recruited in the ASC, Ordnance Corps and the judicial branches. In fact today we have nearly a 1000 women officers, and no one has said that they are not carrying out their assigned tasks. But the combat arms are domains best left to the males, in spite of what Sushma Swaraj or the chairperson of the NCW might think. It also needs to be remembered as I recently highlighted on TV, that the Armed Forces are not to be equated with the police, since they deal with not law and order but live combat. So now can everyone please leave our army professionals alone to do their job?

— Maj Gen H.S. Gill (retd), Chandigarh

It’s vote bank

• Ila Patnaik’s ‘Bad Economic Zones?’ (IE, June 21) is a well-argued warning against, inter alia, the new tax haven called SEZ and the implications of programmes like the NREGA. I would like to add two more points. One, control of fiscal deficit is not the first priority of politicians because they need to cater to their vote banks. Two, there are already too many old type SEZs, such as the real estate market and retail business, where most of the transactions are in cash, resulting in the heavy leakage of tax.

— Devendra Narain, Gurgaon

Here’s why

• In the letters column (IE, June 20), Hansraj Bhat raises a vital question. The answer to his query is simple. The Indian government is not able to do what the Sri Lankan government is able to do because of its policy of appeasing minorities. Successive Indian governments have not been able to act against Pakistan-sponsored jihadis for fear of losing Muslim votes. For the same reason no government at the Centre has acted against Bangladeshi infiltrators, who pose a grave threat both to our security and economy.

— A.K. Sharma, Chandigarh

True to script

• The news report,‘What tiger crisis?’ (IE, June 20) reminds me of a skit that we used to perform in college. An illiterate villager gets a letter written to his uncle in Lahore. He dictates: “My dear chachaji, everything is well here and we wish the same for you. Last week the brown buffalo died, otherwise everything is fine. Ten days ago your nephew, Shera, killed the land owner, our neighbour, but everything else is fine. He is now in jail, but everything is fine. Your younger son failed in his class, but everything else is fine. During the rains our house developed leaks all over, but everything else is fine. Mamaji fell from his bicycle and broke his leg, but everything else is fine. Bebeji (grandmother) is very sick and the hakim says that her chances of survival are not good, but all else is fine.”

— R. Singh, Delhi