Poll free

8226; I HEARTILY congratulate you for your excellent editorial 8216;The EC riders8217; April 24. You hit th...

8226; I HEARTILY congratulate you for your excellent editorial 8216;The EC riders8217; April 24. You hit the nail on the head when you say: 8220;The EC may be digressing from its core competency 8212; overseeing free and fair franchise 8212; and is in danger of becoming what it shouldn8217;t be, a poll-time government.8221;

You have cited two examples which clearly show that the Election Commission is overstepping its authority.

8212; Shreeram Paranjpe

8226; NOW it is clear that a ban on 8220;opinion or exit polls8221; would be unconstitutional. One cannot understand why political parties are pressing the Election Commission to check exit polls. The suggestion that it could be done through legislation has come up, as all parties are more or less of the same opinion.

Politicians must consider this question: would a ban on exit polls curtail fundamental rights, that is, freedom of speech for all. Any such move would not be in keeping with the spirit of healthy democracy.

8212; Gaurav Kumar Baroda

8226; A LOT many of 8216;the EC riders8217; this election season appear quite unnecessary, if not biased. The country cannot be brought to a standstill for almost two months. Covering the prime minister8217;s hoardings, putting political wraps on the unfortunate sari tragedy at Lucknow and objecting to media briefings on tax collections appear quite questionable.

8212; Raghubir Singh Pune

Violence unplugged

8226; PATWANT SINGH8217;S article 8216;Geography of hatred8217; IE, April 23 is a submission of truth by a person concerned about a massacre aimed against the Sikhs after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Today after 20 years he feels differently, because the black deeds of a few Congressmen in 1984 were a one-time event, but the happenings in Gujarat may not be isolated incidents.

8212; Surendra Gupta, Ludhiana

Winning duo

Story continues below this ad

8226; I FULLY agree with Harsha Bhogle, when he writes in his article 8216;Cricket8217;s Odd Couple write a winning script8217; IE, April 23 that the reason for India8217;s success is the division of work between Saurav Ganguly and John Wright.

Too many times before has the captain insisted on being the coach, and vice versa. This is particularly a common thing for former players. They tend to impose their thoughts on others, living in their own shell. The history of sport shows that a successful player has never been a good coach; the reason being that he cannot adapt to the different ways of different players, nor does he have the patience to wait for the players to catch up with him.

8212; Aditya S. Nerkar

Look who8217;s talking

8226; IN recent weeks and months there has been a lot of talk about BPO and outsourcing. I find that it is another example of American double standards. In the globalisation boom of the 8217;80s and 8217;90s big multinationals outsourced the bulk of their manufacturing jobs to countries like China, Malaysia and Thailand in order to make use of the cheap labour available there. Nobody raised any hue and cry then.

But today when blue-collar jobs are being given to competent and qualified Indians and Chinese, there is such a ruckus. As always, another glorious example of American hypocrisy!

8212; Karan Thakur, Chandigarh