The same budget?

• In the run up to the budget, hopes are high that the FM will do magic so that the economy s...

• In the run up to the budget, hopes are high that the FM will do magic so that the economy sees a GDP growth of 7-8 per cent. But I think that even this time, the budget will be the same sordid saga of setting ambitious targets and then scaling down. Although business confidence in India is at an all time high, the economy still suffers from lacunae and the woes are still far from over. We definitely need some hard decisions to spruce up the bottomline while at at the same time not hurting the topline. To boost the economy, the purchasing power of the common man and the poor, and not just the rich, has to be increased.

— Siddhartha Raj Guha Jabalpur

Centre versus state

• While campaigning for the Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand assembly elections, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the electorate to vote for Congress state governments stating that better Centre-state coordination will be possible with same party governments at the Centre as well as in the state. Such statements from the PM set a dangerous precedent. So should the people of Rajasthan, MP, Gujarat and other non Congress ruled states in the country expect step motherly treatment from the PM? Is Manmohan Singh the PM of only the Congress ruled states? Such campaign rhetoric should be unequivocally condemned.

— Saurabh Rajadhyax Durham

India’s strategy

• India should have good relations with Iran in the political, petroleum and business sectors. Irani and Iraqi Shias will come together anyway. So we can look for good relations with both. We must have a say in the negotiations with the US and Europe in Iran-US-Europe non-nuclear negotiations like China has had in the case of North Korea.

— Balevadu On e-mail

Don’t trust US

• Your article on India’s quest for US Patriot missiles stunned many readers (‘Next Steps in missile defence’, IE, February 22). The US has always been a Pakistani ally, offering them F-16s, which are then used against India. We should therefore not spend our money feeding US defence firms that make the Patriot missiles. Moreover, the US is crafty. It will not sell us the latest Patriots, but the stuff they don’t need.

— Hemant Kumar Boston

Tainted mess

• Apropos of the editorial, ‘To each its own’ (IE, February 22), it has scanned the present ‘‘morality status’’ of the politicians, and future MPs and ministers. The Supreme Court in its wisdom leaves the ‘‘taint’’ issue to the legislature to debate and decide. Unfortunately democratic debates are always inconclusive. Firstly, it is impossible to decide as to what is a ‘‘taint’’? Secondly, the wish to do so is lacking. Thirdly, without tainted politicians, political parties cannot survive. Fourthly, it would be difficult to find ‘‘untainted’’ politicians to debate the issue, as the ‘‘tainted’’ will hurl taint on the ‘‘untainted’’ and fifthly, how do we decide upon the norms and rules to grade various ‘taints’’?

— F.S.K. Barar On e-mail