Dont concede
C. Raja Mohans Waiting for Pindi (IE,February 15) should act as an eye-opener for the UPA government,which has yielded to Pakistan on unconditional talks. Such talks are meaningless because the people with whom the Indian government is going to engage dont seem to matter as far as policy-making in Pakistan is concerned. And those who matter dont want friendly Indo-Pak relations because such relations are detrimental to their interests. Even the behind-the-curtains policy-makers in the US dont seem to be in favour of really friendly Indo-Pak relations.
A.K. Sharma
Answer first
It is unlikely that revenue intelligence officials subjected Rahat Fateh Ali Khan to long interrogation to grab the headlines (Facing the music,IE,February 16). Government personnel prefer to work away from the media glare. When a foreign national carries a large amount of foreign currency without declaration,hes liable to be questioned,independent of his celebrity. In fact,his reputation should make him behave more responsibly. Also,if we want our famous to submit to rigorous scrutiny abroad,why should we be soft on those visiting us and violating rules?
Y.G. Chouksey
What is wrong in questioning Rahat Fateh Ali Khan about the source of such big money being carried in cash? It is absurd that he did not know the rules. If payments to artists are made in black money,this practice needs to be checked. This episode calls for unearthing all such dealings done in the past.
R.K. Kapoor
Chandigarh
Bulletproof
The sum total of the prime ministers address to the
media on Wednesday seemed to imply that the recent scams are the price the country has to pay so that the Congress can keep Manmohan Singh at the helm of the government and use him as a clean and honest bulletproof vest because coalition dharma is more important than the national interest.
T.R. Ramaswami
Land deals
Deepak Pental,in his article Doing by learning (IE,February 16),is right in saying that agricultural R&D is weak in India. This can be overcome by learning from the best practices elsewhere in the world. To achieve inclusive growth in the agriculture sector,we need to encourage agriculture research for making it cost effective as well as remunerative,with reduction in post-harvest losses. There is a strong case for substantial funding to conduct high
quality research to find economically viable solutions to the emerging challenges. We need to understand the negative implications of the WTO on Indian agriculture. We need to bring more land under cultivation for which we may think of nationalisation of agriculture by acquiring land as advocated by B.R. Ambedkar.
M.M. Goel
Kurukshetra
