Robbed of Tagore

8226; One must sincerely ask, whether there is anything sacred anymore in India. Stealing and destroying our he...

8226; One must sincerely ask, whether there is anything sacred anymore in India. Stealing and destroying our heritage has become a natural 8220;affair8221; that one reads about it, closes the chapter and moves along with the day, as if it were just a petty matter 8212; and it8217;s not in my house, so what do I care! Destroying precious documents like those hoodlums did at BORI, shows how low the country has sunk. Now stealing the award of the first Indian, also the first Asian to be awarded the most coveted award, is a display of the new low to which the nation has sunk. Is this what India is Shining about?

8212; Ramesh Lahoti On e-mail

8226; Shocking news. The stealing of the Nobel Prize medal of the great Rabindranath Tagore shows where the nation8217;s attention is at the moment. Perhaps we were too busy watching the Indo-Pak series! India is really Shining!

8212; Tapan Jindal On e-mail

Lock them up

8226; Apropos of the report, 8216;For every child they sexually abused, Swiss couple pay Rs 1 lakh, walk free8217; IE, March 26, I am at loss of words to express how I feel. Outrageous would be a euphemism to describe this judgment. One lakh 8212; around 200 euros 8212; is a paltry sum for these people. To say the least, this couple should have been made to pay this sum in addition to a seven-year sentence. People who violate children should be quarantined for life.

8212; Sujeet Mate On e-mail

Regional ambition

8226; Once the two big parties, the Congress and the BJP, take steps to undertake and promote inner-party democracy, regional parties would lose much of their relevance. Regional parties give vent not to unfulfilled dreams of the people but to some strong political leaders.

8212; Anu Chatrath Chandigarh

Minority effect

8226; Apropos 8216;No Hindu-Muslim problem, if Togadia keeps quiet8217; IE, March 25, we need to take a closer look at some of Sardar Vallabhhai Patel8217;s quotes. He once observed: 8220;A people who could force the division of a country and frustrate a 75 per cent majority population cannot be considered a 8216;minority8217;8221;. How right he was! This is exactly what minorities are doing in this country.

8212; Kiran Patel On e-mail

Winnability, stupid!

8226; The BJP8217;s top leaders have been compelled by the winnability factor to discard their top spokespersons 8216;Electionless managers8217;, IE, March 25. None of them is a sitting Lok Sabha member. Three of them lost the 1999 Lok Shabha election and one of them 8212; Arun Jaitley 8212; did not fight at all. The BJP rightly thinks these so-called election managers are bound to lose, so why would it want to sacrifice four seats? If Sushma Swaraj fights against anyone other than Sonia Gandhi, people will think that the BJP has already conceded defeat. Pramod Mahajan8217;s record is not clean. His name has come up in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case and declaring that to the EC is not very palatable, either to the party or to the people. For Arun Jaitley a loss would mean a loss of face for the BJP8217;s star spokesman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has no base to fight. Hence it makes sense for the BJP to declare them elected through the RS in case the NDA forms the next government.

8212; Pradeep Nag On e-mail