What about babus?

on mass leave in protest against the chief justice of the high court

questioning the free membership given to two serving judges to a

very prestigious and expensive golf club at Chandigarh was an eye-opener

(IE, April 20). In a similar vein, it is a pity that senior members

in the bureaucracy have turned a blind eye to the arm twisting by

the IAS lobby in wangling free memberships to the Delhi Golf Club

for as many as 175 serving officers during their postings at Delhi.

The other services — the police, the central administration, and

the judiciary — have also been included in this free bonanza. Incidentally,

the membership to the Delhi Golf Club, where there is a waiting

period of several years, costs a sum in six figures). It’s a pity

that in the entire administration at the Centre, there was, or is,

not one senior bureaucrat vigilant enough, like the chief justice

of the state, to question this blatant misuse of office for personal

gain.

With the elections, the terms “economic growth” and “development”

are bandied about. Though growth and development are used interchangeably,

these are two distinct phenomena. Economic growth means more output;

while economic development primarily needs more output as well as

changes in the technical and institutional arrangements of the production

and allocation of inputs by sectors (‘The poverty of election chatter’,

IE, April 16).

The process of economic growth cannot be sustained for long unless

it increases the productivity of labour. Besides there must be optimum

utilisation of this increase in the flow of material goods and services,

or the process of growth would get obstructed by market limitations.

The term “feel good” ab initio brings “welfare” to mind. However,

even when there is an increase in economic growth and development,

there may not be a change in the welfare of the masses. It is therefore

indispensable that the welfare of the masses should be the goal

of every state.

At least once a week, in some form or another, the matter of the

killings of the Sikhs after the murder of Indira Gandhi is publicised

in one form or another (‘1984 riots: R K Anand says he’s sorry,

recalls 25 yrs ago, Gurbani helped start his car!’, IE, April 19).

Either the Akalis take up this matter to deflect attention from

their own corruption or the BJP uses it as another weapon to attack

Sonia Gandhi with. This nonsense has been going on for 20 years.

Has any Sikh apologised to the Hindus for the murder of Indira Gandhi,

the greatest Indian in the last 1,200 years? After all what was

her fault. She was trying to save India from disintegration. After

the action she took, not many will be foolish enough to play with

India’s unity.

As the issue of foreign origin is presumably about to take the shape

of law, the new government should also bring in a new law preventing

people from becoming PM more than twice and also restrict the number

of terms an MP can win. New blood wipes out old corruption.