To bully with

Indees it is a thumping endorsement of citizens8217; awareness that an MP could be ordered off the flight by the pilot for holding up departure...

8226; Indees it is a thumping endorsement of citizens8217; awareness that an MP could be ordered off the flight by the pilot for holding up departure and told that he had no business inconveniencing those who had paid for their tickets 8216;Brute power won8217;t fly8217;. It is yet another case for the people to raise their collective voice for the abolition of parliamentary privileges when the MP at fault threatens to move a privilege motion in the House against the pilot. In Britain, from where the fathers of our Constitution borrowed the provision of parliamentary privileges, they were provided centuries ago to protect parliamentarians from royalist intervention while serving the public interest. In India, our honourable MPs and state legislators have made these privileges an instrument of bullying.

8212; M.C. Joshi

Lucknow

New deals

8226; The Africa summit should bring India closer to the African continent, and open new frontiers of economic cooperation. It will be unrealistic to expect that India will catch up with China8217;s lead in Africa any time soon. But a beginning in the right direction has been made and these regional initiatives are very relevant in the 8220;post American era8221;, as Fareed Zakaria calls it. Another epoch-making development is going to take place with the commissioning of the Sittwe port in Myanmar8217;s waters which will enable the northeastern states of India to access the Bay of Bengal through the Kaldin river in Mizoram. This may end the land-locked status of the Northeast with the narrow chicken8217;s neck passage to the mainland. This port may even usher in a new era of prosperity for the entire region.

8212; N.K. Das Gupta

Kolkata

Terror without tag

8226; Terrorism knows no faith, ideology or caste. It only endorses mass killings under the names of different terror outfits such as the Maoists, the LTTE, the Taliban or the ULFA. Most of these outfits are killing their own people .

Unfortunately, some people promote the idea that the only terrorism in the world is Islamist terrorism. Is it not unjust to censure all adherents of Islam round the world because of a handful of wrongdoers?

8212; Majeed Mulla

New Delhi

Maya unfair

8226; This refers to the editorial 8216;Wash it away8217;. Mayawati8217;s attack on Rahul Gandhi8217;s visits to Dalit homes underlines the painful fact that, despite her recent inclusive rhetoric of 8220;Sarvajan Samaj8221;, she essentially retains her old and offensive hate-based casteist tendencies. She refuses to recognise that the fathers of the Constitution, despite their often upper caste status, incorporated provisions for the uplift of Dalits. These provisions were meant to wipe away the inequities of the past, promoting a just, egalitarian social order. The mass media and the bulk of the Indian people are the strongest advocates of this social transformation.

Of course, we still have many miles to go before the ancient orthodoxies and prejudices are fully overcome.

8212; M. Ratan

New Delhi