Letters to the editor

We must give serious thought to this issue and suggest ways in which teachers can discipline children. Children too need to be guided, given the rise in juvenile crime. It doesn’t help if teachers adopt an indifferent attitude to children and give them free rein. We as parents must work with teachers and ensure the development of India’s future citizens.

— Lt Col (retd) I.B. Dutt

Ahmedabad

Left slumber

•I read Coomi Kapoor’s article on the Chinese and Indian leftists ‘Mr Karat, the Chinese are moving on’, with interest, but I am quite sure that it will have no impact on our communist friends. This is because they are a totally confused group of people who cannot make out the difference between their principles and how countries should conduct themselves. They are also irresponsible and don’t mind pulling down a government in order to ‘conserve’ their image.

— A.S. Kanal

New Delhi

Tied to registrar

•This refers to your editorial, ‘Marriage tie’. Your outright emphasis on the need to get all marriages registered is praiseworthy. You have expressed concern about all those who are in unregistered marriages. Almost all Hindu marriages are unregistered. Both Muslim and Christian women can establish their marriages with the help of nikahnamas and church registrations respectively, but a Hindu woman is unable to prove her marriage when her husband or his family chooses to deny it.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that the Bombay Marriage Registration Act was operative in Gujarat from 1963 onwards. However, after May 2005, when the Supreme Court asked for legislation on the subject, the Gujarat government suddenly repealed the Act and replaced it with a new Gujarat Marriage Registration Act passed in 2006. The previous legislation contained a clause that if a marriage was not registered, it did not become valid. We as women activists had requested the Gujarat law minister to make the registering of all marriages compulsory. But our plea fell on deaf ears. To make matters worse, the rules for the new law are not yet framed and the mechanism to bring it in is not yet in place. Consequently, while the earlier law is not in force, there isn’t a new one.

— Illa Pathak

Ahmedabad

Unacceptable regime

•The South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) unequivocally condemns the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan and the arrest of political activists, lawyers and human rights activists, including I.A. Rehman and Asma Jahangir, who are among the most respected members of SAHR. We also deplore the blatant interference and intimidation of the judiciary and demand immediate revocation of emergency rule as it flies in the face of democratic values. We urge democratic governments, the international community, and civil society organisations to impress upon the rulers of Pakistan that they desist from all actions that violate norms of democracy and human rights and restore Pakistan to the rule of law.

We express solidarity with the people of Pakistan who have always struggled against undemocratic and authoritarian governance.

— I.K. Gujral

Former PM and chairperson, SAHR, New Delhi