Nuclear actor• Seema Chishti has rightly observed that Dr Manmohan Singh is neither an Indira Gandhi nor a Rajiv Gandhi, who had “a mighty mandate”. He is also not a P.V. Narasimha Rao, who manoeuvred to convert his minority government into a majority one, and ran it for a full term. Dr Singh, Chishti maintains, is not an Atal Bihari Vajpayee either, who is “respected for his political wile and artfulness, despite slippery ambiguity”. C. Raja Mohan, too, has rightly observed that “like Rao, Manmohan Singh did all the hard work necessary to change India’s nuclear standing in the world and gain access to global atomic energy markets”, and then the unexpected happened. Dr Singh “snatched a political defeat from the jaws of victory” in view of Prakash Karat’s rigid and outdated ideology. — Deepak Tandon PanchkulaGreat tinkers• I am of the opinion that the nuclear deal fiasco has been caused by policy discordance among the key players. It is a case of ‘many men, many minds’, or rather ‘many parties, many strategies’! But this doesn’t mean that the party is greater than the country. After all, parties are only a device to enable national development. These party leaders are all great thinkers, so why do they remain indifferent to the merits of the nuclear agreement? Just recently, Mohammad ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that the deal would end India’s nuclear isolation. In any case, India needs all the energy it can muster, from all possible sources, and nuclear energy may be the right choice, given global warming.Certainly, both the BJP and the Leftists must introspect. Their stances do not stand the test of reason.— Shivajirao G. JadhavPusegaon, MaharashtraAll ears to ground• The views of the National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan must be read closely, not only by the GoI, but, and more so, by the aam aadmi of India, belonging to all communities. What happened in Hyderabad and Ajmer could lead to a variety of interpretations. However sophisticated they are, no security agency can cope with such an enormous problem in a country of India’s dimension. M.K. Narayanan has rightly observed that “we need many more eyes and ears on the ground”. The top policymakers must work out a strategy to involve citizens, belonging to all faiths, and Muslims leaders in particular, in this challenge. Our government ought also to coordinate with international anti-terror agencies of India-friendly countries. In other words, India must cease to look like a soft state forthwith.— Parimal Y. MehtaVadodaraUp with the forces• It is understood that the defence forces, in a joint proposal to the government, have asked for a dramatic increase in their salaries. At the same time they are seeking modernisation in their equipment and new technology to increase their effectiveness. If you put these two approaches together, there can be no doubt that defence personnel should be paid competitive salaries and perquisites so that our youth are persuaded to seek a career in the military. At the same time, the forces should make an effort to reduce the number of personnel currently on their rolls, using new technology to offset the reduction. Simultaneously the defence services should weed out corruption from their ranks since it does not behove a force entrusted with guarding the nation to be seen as corrupt.— S. KamatBardez
