I agree with Bharat Karnad about India’s lack of a grand strategic vision (‘India’s vision void’, IE, July 2). If India is ever to be recognised as a great power, it needs a comprehensive grand strategic vision. Now is the time to move on this because we have what it takes: A young dynamic population with capabilities that can match the world’s best. A functioning democracy of more than a billion people. An aging western population. The sole super-power, caught in a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given these factors, there is need for a grand strategy as Karnad has indicated. If we play our cards right, we can be of help to the US and the West and use that as leverage to achieve our goals. — Ravindra Grandhim Dallas Get in touch • Apropos of the letter to the editor, ‘Heritage: my story’, by Rajkumar Kothari from Jodhpur (IE, June 27), regarding the Patwa havelis of Jaisalmer, Kothari has wrongly stated that INTACH is indifferent to the havelis and that it only concentrates on those belonging to the erstwhile Jaisalmer royalty. INTACH takes up only those properties where funding is made available as INTACH is not a funding agency itself. If Kothari wishes INTACH to take up conservation work of the privately owned havelis, it would be happy to do so provided he can arrange for the funds. — Dalip Mehta Member-secretary, INTACH, New Delhi What a fall! • Gautam Goswami has finally surrendered, much to the relief, and also shame, of the police (‘Hero as villain’, IE, July 2). If he is proved guilty for misusing the money allocated for flood relief, we would need to understand the real reason behind the fall of an IAS officer who, not long ago, had set striking examples of competence. — Arjun Chaudhuri Kolkata Some questions • The writer of the report, ‘Thirsty villages watch as Gujarat water goes waste’ (IE, July 2) should have asked some simple questions instead of blindly reporting what the Gujarat government officials told him. Questions like: What percentage of the rainfall that Gujarat received over the past week could have been stored in the SSP, if the height were to have gone up? What has Gujarat done to harvest the over 99 per cent of rainfall over the past week that the report said “was going to waste”? How much of the SSP command area is ready, with the full infrastructure, to receive SSP water? Why is it that not even 10 per cent of the command area is ready to receive water? Then why this talk of taking water to 10 lakh ha? What would have happened had water been released into Sabarmati and such rivers en route as suggested in the report, when these rivers were in spate? — Himanshu Thakkar New Delhi Sense at sea? • Having read the various articles and arguments for and against the Sethusamudaram Project, I feel convinced that we need to take a fresh look to identify if and how its benefits would accrue to southern India. In fact, the drawbacks in terms of possible environmental damage seem to greatly outweigh any short-term benefits. — Ranjan Pruthi London
