Letters to the editor

• While commenting on the selection of Nobel laureate maybe the prerogative of intellectuals like Bibek Debroy ‘Noble, in theory and practice’, he seems to be piqued by the choice of Leonid Hurwicz, as the latter does not meet the columnist’s personal criteria for the prize. Debroy then goes on with a rambling analysis of the award winner’s work and ends with the sentence, “The level of understanding among the average economist isn’t terrible high either.” He has in this sentence unwittingly summed up the worth of the obscure contribution that economists claim to make to the modern world. It is said that if you give typewriters to an infinite number of monkeys, they could well come up with a Shakespearean play. I say that if you give typewriters to an infinite numbers of economists, no two opinions would ever be the same.

Bipartisan n-talk

• This is with reference to the report on the observations on the nuke deal Brajesh Mishra made before Shekhar Gupta in a ‘Walk the Talk’. The observations could be considered an indirect signal by the BJP to the Congress about its willingness to have a bipartisan approach to 123 agreement. Can we expect both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi to shed their rabid hatred of the BJP and talk to that party’s leaders in order to get on with nuclear deal?

After all, the BJP is as secular or communal as the Congress. The Congress Party, in fact, if full of caste and communal biases, so its holier-than-thou approach cannot be justified. It is time for India’s two main parties to develop a bipartisan approach to politics, especially in matters of national importance. Can we expect some positive signals from the Congress before more n-power stations shut down?

— R.P. Desai

Mumbai

Justice delayed

• October 24, was certainly a great day for the rule of law in this country when four different courts awarded life sentences to 60 persons, including the high and mighty. The list consists of 31 activists of the outlawed Al-Umma, including its founder S.A. Basha and his close associates, convicted in the Coimbatore bomb blasts case; 10 Delhi policemen, including a former assistant commissioner of police, convicted in the Connaught Place shoot-out case; Samajwadi Party MLA and former Uttar Pradesh minister, Amarmani Tripathi, his wife and two others, convicted of the murder of Tripathi’s pregnant lover, Madhumita Shukla; and the 15 accused, including Pushpendra Singh Yadav, a Congress leader and a practising lawyer, convicted in the Kanpur riots case, where 11 persons were killed in the the riots which broke out after the Babri Masjid demolition. However, this does not mean that it was a great day for justice. The fact that the Kanpur riots case took almost 15 years, the Connaught Place shoot-out case took 10 years, the Coimbatore bomb blast case took nine years and Madhumita murder case took four years in seeing preliminary judgments, indicates the pathetic pace of our criminal-justice machinery. It stands in dire need of revolutionary reform.

— M.C. Joshi

Lucknow