RIP Nanda
This refers to ‘Wife or spirited girl, she played both with elan’ (IE, March 26). The sudden demise of veteran actress Nanda has left thousands of her fans in gloom. In terms of dialogue delivery and body language, she took after another legendary actress, Meena Kumari. Nanda broke free from her tragic-heroine image in Jab Jab Phool Khile, a super-hit film in which she played a “modern” woman who fell in love with a Kashmiri boatman, played by Shashi Kapoor. Nanda started her career as a child star, and literally grew up on film sets. She will be remembered for her versatility.
— Azhar A. Khan
Lucknow
Cornered president
— Vinod Sharma
Moga
The party crisis
Apropos of ‘Congress (R) vs BJP (M)’ by Suhas Palshikar (IE, March 26), the election preparations are so centred around personalities that it seems political parties are redundant. This is bad news for democracy. Only the Left has kept its party structures relevant. But, of course, the Left is stuck in a time warp of its own. A major part of the leadership crisis in the Congress can be traced to Manmohan Singh. He ought to have spoken up more often. Narendra Modi is trying to channel the late Indira Gandhi. He too doesn’t care for his party or institutions.
— Parthasarathy Sen
New Delhi
Played by China
Ashok Choudhary is right in asserting the need to deploy “real hard power” along with “talks and superficial engagement” to tackle the growing Chinese challenge (‘Rising to the China challenge’, IE, March 26). However, the action, or rather inaction, of the present leadership points towards the fact
that the people in power feel more at ease with delaying tactics and prefer procrastinating hard decisions. Whereas the Chinese are working hard to build their military might and warm relations with all our neighbours.
— Ashok K. Ashu
Patiala
