Quaint contention

Ananya Jahanara Kabir8217;s reading of Kashmir8217;s history is biased Our way or the highway?8217;.

8226;Ananya Jahanara Kabir8217;s reading of Kashmir8217;s history is biased 8216;Our way or the highway?8217;. Her thrust seems to be the vilification of the erstwhile royals of Kashmir and the portrayal of the pandits as the villains in the Kashmir saga. Economic exploitation was not unique to the princely state of Kashmir. The real issue for those who opposed Kashmir8217;s accession to India was religion. Moreover, there is not one word on Pakistan8217;s relentless support of terror, nor any on the PoK and Pakistani infrastructure designed to support terrorists.

8212; Rahul Naik Ahmedabad

He8217;s just pro-Marathi

8226; Farah Baria8217;s article, 8216;Why does bigotry surprise the BJP?8217; was impressive. But when discussing the maverick leader Raj Thackeray, I could not help feeling that the glasses of her prejudice were firmly in place. The MNS is not anti-English, but pro-Marathi. As a young and smart Mumbaikar, Raj Thackeray knows that English is the world8217;s language and should be encouraged. What he does stress, however, is that Marathi should not lose its place to other regional languages like Gujarati and Hindi 8212; least of all in the Maharashtra capital.

8212; Varsha Desai

Mumbai

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Bandh brigade

8226; This refers to your editorial, 8216;Left with no word8217; . The CPM leadership asserts that it is the workers8217; fundamental right in a democracy to strike and Sitaram Yechury has gone a step further in saying that it is the 8220;pent-up frustration of the people that forced us to tread the path of a bandh8221;. Do the bandh squads ensure the supply of essentials to the law-abiding citizens? Will Prakash Karat answer whether the 8220;fundamental right8221; to generate chaos is enjoyed by those people who follow the CPM8217;s dictates of taking the law into their own hands? I wonder whose economic and social interests are served by bandhs.

8212; Ved Guliani Hisar

8226; Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is supposed to be a liberal face among the Marxists 8216;In Citu8217;, . His recent remark on bandhs should be an eye-opener to comrades who have institutionalised the bandh in their politics of protest. Bandhs caused serious economic losses to Bengal and are among the main reasons for its continued developmental plight. Marxists need to introspect and think of the public interest before calling unwelcome bandhs.

8212; Dheeraj Pandey

Ghaziabad

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Forget the figures

8226; The editorial 8216;Poor little government8217; was interesting. I have been reading articles on poverty reduction and its causes since 1967, and nobody has yet satisfactorily defined poverty. The Arjun Sen Gupta Committee says that about 70-77 per cent of people in India are earning less than Rs 20 a day while the World Bank says that India has decreasing poverty levels. Which opinion is correct? This is an endless debate leading us nowhere except criticising the government8217;s failure to deal with poverty. Let8217;s forget the statistics and act.

8212; S.C. Aggarwal New Delhi