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Journalism of Courage
• It is heartening that the Supreme Court has ordered the cancellation of 81 petrol pump allocations (IE, July 20). This is a great triumph for the Indian Express in the fight against corruption in public life. Now, L.K. Advani as president of the party-in-government at the time these allotments were made, should apologise to the people. Politicians implicated in these 81 allotments should be thrown out of the political parties they belong to. Ministers concerned with the allotments should take political sanyas. Of course, I know all of this is mere wishful thinking!
— Sudarsan Mumbai
Big deal!
• Considering that India has worked so hard to achieve self reliance in the nuclear field, why is so much noise being made about the Bush-Singh nuclear energy deal (provisional to US Congress approval)?
— Shekhar Naik On e-mail
It won’t happen
• Apropos of ‘Finger on their lips’ (IE, July 19), it appears that now the BJP should turn to the Indian Express to chart its political course. Your paper is making a concentrated effort to see that the BJP dissociates itself from the RSS. Publishing the Jinnah speech and Sudheendra Kulkarni’s paper are proof of that. I, as an RSS swayamsevak, would like to tell all the secularist media that this is just not going to happen. The BJP tried to chart an independent path in the mid-eighties and it reduced itself to single digits. To survive, the BJP must keep its Lok Sabha tally to an average of 150 seats and more. I will bet my shirt upon it, it can’t reach there without the RSS parivar. The Maharashtra assembly elections are proof of that.
— Shrinivas Deo Nasik
Good work!
• Apropos of the awards your reporters have received for the Bihar flood loot scam and the missing tiger investigations, I thank and admire the Indian Express for getting to the bottom of these scandals. I can imagine the effort it requires to get to the bottom of something like this.
— Rajesh Pandey On e-mail
In special zones
• The establishment of Ameri-Ind trade zones in each country will help revitalise US manufacturing while turbocharging India’s economy. Each such zone will have one part in the US and the other part in India to create a seamless economic, political and legal framework for the value-added chain. The zones will
operate under US laws. Domestic American groups fearing loss of jobs should note that such zones can help maintain local American manufacturing and other facilities, letting them work with Indian colleagues on the same team. By applying global talent to making the firm competitive and doing labour-intensive work in India, American companies can keep viable home country operations in the game.
— Arun Khanna On e-mail
Superb dignity
• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the US Congress was superb. Sitting in Kazakhstan, I felt proud to be Indian. He made it very clear to the Americans that improving relations and trade ties between India and America are equally beneficial to both. He covered all issues with dignity and never gave an impression of asking for a favour.
— Sham Lal Langer Delhi
