The core issue

This refers to the article, ‘The beti-maru mindset’ by Pamela Philipose (IE, Sept 15). The writer has put all the bl...

This refers to the article, ‘The beti-maru mindset’ by Pamela Philipose (IE, Sept 15). The writer has put all the blame for female foeticide on the medical community and has decried the small family norm without considering the fact that India faces a very serious threat from its growing numbers. If we talk at the macro-level, there is no denying that adverse sex ratio is increasing with passage of time and a day is not far off when the situation of China will get repeated in India. Secondly, female foeticide is wrong socially. But why don’t we address the cause of female foeticide: the poor status of women. I know a couple who after the birth of their second daughter took a bold decision not to have any more children some 35 years ago. Now when their daughters are married, the couple are left without any support in their old age. This is one reason why parents today have become cleverer and opt for pre-natal diagnostic tests to ensure at least one male child. If we want to save women, we have to raise their status to that of men. Unless this happens, female foeticide will continue.

— Rajiv Ahuja Parwanoo

• Population explosion is an important national issue on which there must be a public debate. Laws should be framed to disenfranchise those who have more than two children. Nobody should be allowed to contest any election if he or she has more than two children.

— K.G. Acharya Mumbai

Uma dimmed

• One wishes that our media would learn from Lady Margaret Thatcher’s words that “publicity is oxygen for terrorists”. Mercifully Uma Bharati, after the initial media blitz, was relegated from front pages to the inside pages and, now, is hardly mentioned at all. After her speech in Bidar/Udgir on “foreign rule in Delhi and how under the new government 100 crore Indians do not know what is going to happen tomorrow” her fire seems to be petering out.

— Mukund B. Kunte New Delhi

Just one question

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• Kudos to Murli Deora for his courage and outspokenness in writing a letter to PM reminding him about the unanimous decision taken by the parliamentary committee about five years ago to put a cap on FDI at 26 per cent for the insurance sector (IE, Sept 13). But would Deora have taken such an unprecedented step had Sonia Gandhi been PM?

— K.R.P. Gupta On e-mail

Jaipal’s tax

• Apropos of the editorial, ‘Licence raja’ (IE, Sept 14), this is one more result of universal adult franchise: leaders have been thrown up to head ministries without having even a bare knowledge of the problems and intricacies of the matters they handle.

— V. Narayanaswamy Chennai

Icon and image

• Two postage stamps bearing the likeness of V.D. Savarkar should be issued, differently coloured but each of the value of Rs 2.50. Millions of letters will then travel across the country with both stamps pasted on them to make up Rs 5. This will bring alive for the masses the man’s two radically different historical roles as well as his historic double-facedness (‘Holding out for a hero’, IE, September 16).

— Mukul Dube Delhi

EAM Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Rubio hold bilateral discussions in New York

India2 hr ago

Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar and US Senator Rubio met in New York to discuss the 25% tariff on Indian oil imposed by Trump. This was their first in-person meeting since the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting. India and the US also began talks for a trade agreement, with positive discussions during a recent visit by US trade officials to India.

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