Seize the day
* This refers to the editorial The meeting point (IE,September 9). The PM has always been ambivalent in his approach to many vital issues. This has already landed the Congress and the UPA government in trouble. A meeting between Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif would be an opportunity to discuss several important issues reciprocal release of prisoners,MFN status,relaxing visa norms,facilitating people to people contact which could take the relationship between India and Pakistan to the next level. Even if the PM avoids meeting Sharif,foreign policy hawks will find some other reason to berate the government. Catering to the constituency of shrill warmongers would be playing into the BJPs hands. The PM must put national interest before politics and seize this opportunity.
Ashok Goswami
First draft
* This refers to Dead men talking by Shekhar Gupta (IE,September 12). Guptas new occasional series,Indias biggest stories: first person second draft,reminds me of a phrase made popular in the 1940s by Ernest Hemingway. He claimed that while writing fiction,all he did was write the way it was. Guptas account of Sri Lankas LTTE problem is surreal. It confirms that fact can be stranger than fiction. For several persons,including myself,the stories that Gupta will revisit have not been heard before. Theyre like first drafts for us. There are many people in our country who werent old enough to understand these events as they unfolded. This series
will serve to educate them about modern Indian history.
Nakul D. Gawande
Amravati
Good money
* This refers to Democracy vs Capitalism by Ashutosh Varshney (IE,September 11). If democracy is so wonderfully egalitarian,why are our development indices still worse than sub-Saharan African countries? Our expenditure on the right to education and its woeful results are too well documented to bear repetition. The hostile reactions to the food security bill have more to do with the wastage and pilferage associated with the PDS than with anything else. This bill is throwing good money after bad. Given the dismal state of our finances right now,we simply cannot afford it. With basic governance and last mile delivery still a critical sticking point,no amount of bills will make for a fairer society.
R. Chopra
A balanced view
*This refers to The encounter cop,a broken omerta by Abhinav Kumar (IE,September 9). The writer presented a balanced view of the fake encounter phenomenon,in spite of being a serving IPS officer. His points regarding the need for special protection for police and paramilitary officers who are engaged in fighting Naxal and other types of terror,and the injustice of courts not granting bail to police officers accused of murder and other heinous crimes are worth considering.
Dilip Aloni
Thane
