Opinion Leading light
Street protests are no solution for the ills faced by our country
Leading light
Shekhar Gupta’s interview with CEC S.Y. Quraishi (Walk the Talk,IE,April 19),has nuggets of pragmatic wisdom from the CEC. Electoral reforms are long overdue. Street protests are no solution for the ills faced by our country. The real logjam is corruption and candidates with criminal antecedents contesting elections. The Election Commission can clean the Augean stables provided legislators back it. It is gratifying that many countries are looking to our Election Commission as a torchbearer of ideas and wherewithal.
John Alexander
Nagpur
Tongue tied
I endorse the views of the Chief Justice of India,S.H. Kapadia,that the judiciarys independence must be maintained by the judges at all costs (Clarifying lines,IE,April 18). He has rightly stressed judges should avoid mixing with people except when invited by some organisation for programmes. When there,they should avoid talking about judicial matters. The judiciary needs to be insulated from politics,money and muscle power. Even the Lokpal and Parliament should not be given the right to interfere with the judiciary.
R.K. Kapoor
Talk business
At present,India has no option but to follow C. Raja Mohans five propositions delineated in Two sides of the Durand line (IE,April 19) apropos its relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Formalising them will be a bit of a humiliation for India. All along,what India wanted was the acceptance of its legitimate role in the rapidly evolving situation. But it could not be possible,all because of Pakistan having the last laugh,thanks to President Hamid Karzais self-serving political agenda and the USs contradictory and short-sighted policy.
But now,instead of feeling dejected,India should cultivate the friendly Central Asian countries to keep interests alive in the region and not let Pakistan have the cake and eat it too. On the flip side,Turkey will be only providing legitimacy and respectability to the Taliban by offering to open offices in Istanbul. But India should talk to them only from a point of strength,if at all it is strategically necessary and useful for its regional interests.
Satwant Kaur
Mahilpur
Defending democracy
I read with interest the opinion pages of The Indian Express on the protests at Jantar Mantar. You maintain that such protests show a complete lack of faith in democratic institutions. How more democratically should civil society pressure the ruling class that believes in status quo on corruption and does not miss any opportunity to water down any substantial legislation that can make it accountable? Is the memory of attempts to do so with the RTI so distant? Why did not any MP protest all these years against the Lokpal bill gathering dust?
Adityavikram More
Mumbai
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