Letters to the editor

8212; M. Salahuddin, Mumbai

Siachen pullout

8226; India8217;s decision to withdraw its troops from the Siachen Glacier appears imminent. This would give the public the impression that this glacier has little or no importance for the country8217;s defence. This is a fallacy. For one, Siachen is bounded on the west by the Saltoro Range. On the north, the Indira Col controls access to the Shaksgam Valley and the MacMohan Line beyond. To the east flows the Nubra river, beyond which is the Saser Range, then the Shyok River Valley abutting Aksai Chin. To the northeast lies the mighty Karakoram Range. Siachen in enemy hands will enable him to dominate this entire area extending many thousands of square kilometres. This fact alone should make its protection a primary national objective.

8212; Brig retd P.S. Bhandari, Batala

Pet the big cat

8226; With reference to Jay Mazoomdaar8217;s piece on tiger conservation IE, November 17, I would like to propose a more humane solution than that advanced by Barun Mitra to save the tiger, by making use of the economics of property rights. I might add that the solution of vesting property titles in elephant herds has been successful in thwarting poaching of the animals, which were a menace to fruit gardens in East Africa.

Since hotel owners that are located near a sanctuary have a stake in the lucrative tourist traffic to a sanctuary, one solution could be this: The owners of hotels and commercial establishments located within a certain area in and around every sanctuary are made to form an association, whose objective is to protect the tiger. The association raises funds from its members. The corpus can then be used to engage a security firm that will supplement the efforts of other authorities in protecting the tiger. Importantly, the contract should contain incentives and disincentives for the security firm 8212; including financial damages if a tiger is found killed in the sanctuary.

8212;Surendra Sundararajan, Baroda

Target: minorities

8226; The editorial, 8216;Back to school8217; IE, November 17 should come as an eye-opener to planners and political rulers. The other day, while addressing a CBI conference, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam condemned subsidies saying, 8220;dependency syndrome has stunted performance and diminished transparency.8221; Given the failure of most of our social goals, why does our political leadership clamour for a blanket quota policy for every conceivable chunk of the vote bank? Over the last 60 years, have we attained equality and social justice for the targeted minorities through the quota? Or is this largely an instrument for ensuring minority votes? It is time we initiated a national debate on the question.

8212; Ved Guliani, Hisar