On the ATS

The editorial, 8216;Take no prisoners8217; rightly assessed that 8220;Advani has sacrificed good sense and national interest to short-term ambition8221;.

The editorial, 8216;Take no prisoners8217; rightly assessed that 8220;Advani has sacrificed good sense and national interest to short-term ambition8221;. The prime ministerial candidate of the opposition has indeed painted 8220;himself into a corner if Thakur and Purohit are, in the end, proved to be guilty and by smearing our law and order mechanisms as politically pliable, he could inflict deep injury on the credibility of these institutions.8221; Actually, ever since the probe into the Malegaon blasts linked the suspects to Hindu terrorist outfits, the BJP has gone on the offensive because it feels nervous and disoriented, not knowing which way to turn.

8212;B.K. Chatterjee, Faridabad

Several counter-terrorism experts and commentators have disapproved of the Maharashtra Police8217;s reprehensible resort to a public trial of the blast suspects through selective leaks to an obliging and unquestioning media. The relentless media campaign against the so-called 8220;Hindu terror network8221; seemed designed to mark the detained suspects like Sadhvi Pragya and Lt-Col Purohit guilty even before a trial.

8212;M. Ratan, New Delhi

Heed the law

This refers to your editorial 8216;The offence of defence8217;. Being the president of a national political party, Rajnath Singh is not supposed to issue a clean chit to those accused of terrorism simply because they belong to a community the BJP professes to be the sole custodian of. Even if the BJP8217;s political adversaries were to make scapegoats of the accused, the party ought to stay aloof from them.

8212;Hemant Kumar, Ambala

Unity8217;s moment

This refers to 8216;The Malegaon precipice8217; by Pratap Bhanu Mehta IE, November 18. It is really thought-provoking and scary since the threat of the balkanisation of India is now very real. We need to emphasise and implement the 8220;One Nation, One People, One Rule8221; principle without any further delay. And without asking for any quarters.

The laws governing us also must be rewritten urgently. Most of the laws of day-to-day governance were drafted by foreigners with the idea of governing a large unwieldy local population with a handful of rulers. The British never used similar procedures in their homeland. We have been independent for too long to not have devised laws and procedures for self-governance.

8212;Anil K. Singh, New Delhi

In our genes

This refers to Nalin Mehta8217;s article 8216;Barack Singh Dhoni8217;. He compares the electoral system in India with that of the US and has a view that the US has a better system since it elected Barack Obama. But it is meaningless to try and emulate what others are doing, which from a distance looks good. Every country evolves its own system. The same system need not be workable in another country. In India, heredity is an established and sustaining system. There is no point in denigrating that and clamouring for disregarding it in our life.

8212;K. Raghu, Ahmedabad