Stand by him

You deserve praise for publishing the story about NSG commando Surjan Singh Bhandari 8216;Will someone get a hospital bed for this Akshard...

You deserve praise for publishing the story about NSG commando Surjan Singh Bhandari 8216;Will someone get a hospital bed for this Akshardham hero in Delhi?8217;, September 10.

Surjan put his life on the line to protect us from the evil creatures of terror. Anything that our country or our government can do to make his life easier would be a welcome start towards acknowledging his bravery. After all, he8217;s more than done his duty to India. Thanks again for bringing this story to light and for keeping another hero of ours from drifting into oblivion.
8212; Prasad Joshi On e-mail

Thank you for highlighting the plight of a brave soldier. I hope the government will rise to the occasion.
8212; M. Duraisamy, On e-mail

Wrestler8217;s trick

After the 8216;8216;infusion8217;8217; of strength to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav by the Congress, he has gone into 8216;8216;profusion8217;8217; mode 8216;Calling Sonia foreigner was big mistake8217;, IE, September 11. He is 8216;8216;profusely8217;8217; thankful to Sonia Gandhi for her support, and 8216;8216;profusely8217;8217; sorry for labelling her a 8216;8216;foreigner8217;8217; in the past.

Let the past be past. After all 8216;8216;somersaults8217;8217; are the best defence for 8216;8216;wrestlers8217;8217;, especially when flat on the mat.
8212; F.S.K. Barar, On e-mail

The healing touch

I fail to understand why India seeks cooperation from Israel to combat terrorism. Israel has been the target of terrorists for the past many decades, but has the level of terrorism against the country gone down even a bit?

The policy of ruthless repression of Palestinians has boomeranged on Israel in the form of increased suicide attacks. Deployment of sophisticated weaponry has made the Palestinians more determined.

Story continues below this ad

India8217;s policy to tackle terror has, in contrast, been that of providing a 8216;8216;healing touch8217;8217;. It may seem that it has been unsuccessful, especially after the recent spate of bombings. But it is at the same time bringing a lot of previously alienated people into the mainstream.
8212; Mohamad Junaid, On e-mail

Taxman8217;s defence

Your editorial 8216;Taxing the citizen8217; August 25 is shocking. Apparently outsourcing of the IT Department8217;s activities has been identified as the panacea for all aberrations at the root of public grievances. We are in total agreement with your observation that 8216;8216;getting a PAN card has become far too traumatic an experience8217;8217;.

This is exactly what we seek to highlight also. It is not a question of being convinced by our arguments or not. That the fiasco and mess resulting in unreasonable harassment to the public are due to the Department8217;s decision to outsource the bulk of PAN-related work to private agencies is a matter of record. Admittedly, this job was a fully computer-oriented work. The state of computerisation in the Department was too weak to take care of the huge volume of applications for PAN cards.

It was basically a managerial failure not to be able to develop computer infrastructure and train departmental personnel. With a view to covering up their own inefficiency, the authorities decided to outsource the data-entry work for processing PAN applications to private vendors. These vendors committed all sorts of mistakes in a large number of cases for which the basic data had to be reprocessed at our end and that took a lot of time.
8212; K.K.N. Kutty, R. Dasgupta, Income Tax Employees, Federation, New Delhi