Opinion Foot the bill
Bihar CM Nitish Kumars decision to introduce the Right to Service Bill is commendable
Bihar CM Nitish Kumars decision to introduce the Right to Service Bill is commendable (Right to Service Bill by April: Nitish, IE,December 2). Amid news of scams and stalling of Parliament,this is a welcome change. Scams happened because the officers and politicians concerned did not perform their duty as required. Those ranting about taking the culprits to task should take a cue from this bill. To weed out corruption,we need a simple law like the one proposed by Nitish,not a logjam in Parliament.
Amanvir Singh Tiwana
Patiala
Trading WMDs
Surjit S. Bhalla does himself great disservice as an economist by arguing,stock market exchanges are a national treasure to be controlled and run by bureaucrats is antithetical,I think,to most notions of financial markets,corporate governance and efficiency ( The killing of competition, IE,December 2). This in the face of even the regulators failure to regulate Wall Street. Bhalla is apparently unaware of the current debate that rages in not only America,but the rest of the world,on privatisation of profit and socialisation of loss. That competition does not regulate should be pretty apparent by now. The lure of profit is too great for a disinterested regulator not to be in place. Private owners of stock exchanges will only be interested in more turnover on the exchanges. Warren Buffett has rightly called derivatives the financial weapons of mass destruction.
D.S. Gulati Aurangabad
Green signal
Your report On Lavasa,Pawar disagrees with Ramesh (December 1) was upsetting. Why is the agriculture minister trespassing on the environment ministrys domain? Mumbai has been turned into a concrete jungle and now the areas in its vicinity are in for similar treatment. The politician-builder nexus is destroying the environment,hiking property prices and creating environmental and social problems. Jairam Ramesh,as environment minister,has every right to question projects which harm nature even though they may have been passed by other agencies. Unemployment of labourers due to stoppage of work is a lame excuse.
S.N. Kabra Mumbai
Roys impact
This refers to your editorial Dont book Arundhati (December 1). Your arguments are not out of place but the counterpoint also requires attention. The impact of such statements on the forces engaged in Kashmir and on those who have been dislodged from the state needs to be understood. Arundhati has spoken to creating a sensation; this may have been done for publicity which will improve the sale of her books. Armchair commentators must refrain from making statements which add nothing to resolve an issue. Why is she silent on Tibets annexation by China? If the boundaries of countries are to be decided by the people,then the world map will have to be redrawn and there will be more countries than we can imagine.
Ashok Goswami Mumbai
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