Opinion GoM time
It is sad that there appears to be no one in this government willing to take on inflation,that has touched double digits (No excessive step needed...,IE,June 15) together with food inflation at 16-plus per cent....
It is sad that there appears to be no one in this government willing to take on inflation,that has touched double digits (No excessive step needed…,IE,June 15) together with food inflation at 16-plus per cent. The second half of 2009 had set off the price spiral and the UPA had claimed then that the inflation was a sign of economic recovery! Later Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar,sobered by unprecedentedly high prices of sugar and pulses,promised to control prices by December last year. When nothing happened,he stayed away from quotes and the prime minister stepped in to lay the onus on bad rains. Now nearing July,the finance minister is also depending heavily on the rain gods. When 25-year-old skeletons in leaders cupboards threaten to tumble out,a GoM is promptly formed to report within 10 days. Why not a GoM for price control? It can then take a holistic view of the problem. Now like the blind men and the elephant,one talks of only a higher GDP and another of fiscal balance and the need to raise fuel prices. Uncoordinated steps such as these are bound to lead to another real/speculative food price spike.
R. Narayanan
Ghaziabad
On NGOs
Tavleen Singhs Fifth Column is usually a good,feisty read. But last Sunday,her take on Bhopal (The price of democratic feudalism,Sunday Express,June 13),was surprisingly insensitive. She draws a sorry picture of the downtrodden victims of the gas tragedy who,she asserts,do not have the resources to raise their voice against the huge injustice perpetrated on them by an indifferent feudal democratic order and have therefore,accepted the hand dealt to them in
virtual silence. We are astounded that Tavleen Singh seems unaware of the heroic,sustained and tireless struggle for justice of the survivors,mostly women.
Renuka Mishra & Primila Lewis
New Delhi
Entrance trouble
This has reference to your report about the controversy regarding the
centralised entrance examination in English at Delhi University,CATE (CBSE poem lands CATE in trouble,IE,June 16). I find the controversy entirely unnecessary. For if the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students had the advantage of familiarity with the given poem,then the Council for the
Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) students had an equal,if not greater,advantage of familiarity with and training in the kind of critical exercise they were required to perform on that literary text.
Javed Malick
Delhi
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