Letters to the editor

Taints and tints8226; THE letter to the editor carried in these columns, 8216;Insult to women8217; IE, July 19 by Rani Jethmalani and o...

Taints and tints

8226; THE letter to the editor carried in these columns, 8216;Insult to women8217; IE, July 19 by Rani Jethmalani and others, really exposes the bankruptcy of these famous women rights activists. They appear to be living in a world totally removed from reality. About 40 per cent of our elected representatives to whom they are appealing to exercise a vote of conscience have criminal records and the remaining lot have long buried their conscience under the weight of power. The question is, why don8217;t these women activists realise that the entire politics of the country, including that of numerous women politicians like Mayawati and Jayalalitaa, is tainted, and that finding a clean politician for the post of president is a near impossibility? Given this situation, the ordinary voter is bound to ask whether a tainted president poses a greater danger for the country than a tainted political system. Mera Bharat mahaan, hum sab beimaan.

8212; Vitull K. Gupta, Bhatinda.

Left indulgence

8226; THE article by Shekhar Gupta, 8216;Victims of Errorism8217; National Interest, IE, July 7, the writer has rightly observed that the Congress has fallen prey to minority-ist politics and has not resolved the mystery of nine major terrorist attacks claiming 300 lives. The Congress has also authorised the Left to certify their secular or non-secular commitments. This approach has led to the distortion of our foreign policy and is now damaging our internal security policy. It is likely to blight our economic policy as well in the near future. For this both the Congress and the nation will have to pay a heavy price. Unfortunately, the Left parties, instead of performing their proclaimed ideological responsibilities of resolving the economic grievances of the poor, whose custodian they claim to be, have of late been indulging in political charades.

8212; Singh Ram, Ambala

Vicious Gulf venture

8226; ACCORDING to recent polls, 80 per cent of Iraqis want the American occupation to end in Iraq. But none of this seems to matter to US President George Bush. What possible outcome could justify the enormous harm that is being inflicted on the Iraqi people? How can one even imagine a final chapter in this tragedy that could compensate for the loss of Mesopotamian blood and treasure? What exactly is left to win? It isn8217;t likely that Bush will ever admit to losing this debacle. So it will be left to others to lose the war for the president. The bottomline is that we can either wait for the next president to stop funding this illegal war or get Maliki and his sectarian parliamentary colleagues to invite Bush to pack up by simply refusing to renew his UN mandate. Anyway they play it, this vicious venture in the Gulf should end.

8212; Mohamad Salahuddin, Mumbai