Opinion Shop talk

How healthy?

• The suggestions in your editorial ‘Healthy volatility’,though novel,are not that healthy. Reduction in interest rates is not the panacea for all economic ills. Without increase in demand at both home and abroad,the economy cannot fully recover. Yet,it must be conceded that,as of now,our economy is not performing that badly in comparative terms. Monetary policy has its limitations. Fiscal measures and direct budgetary support may now be more worthwhile to stimulate demand. Further,in a country bereft of a good social security system,we cannot ignore the fact that many senior citizens depend only on small savings or post-office interest schemes.

— Bidyut K. Basu Kolkata

Iran,divided

• Protests in Iran over alleged fraud in the presidential election,and the government’s violent response,show a clear socio-political divide between reformists and traditionalists. Although one doesn’t know the right and wrong of the affair,it’s rather uncanny that in Tabriz — the capital of Moussavi’s home province — he could secure only 40 per cent votes against Ahmadinejad’s 60 per cent. Now that the Guardian Council has agreed to a partial recount,the air should be cleared.

— Manoj Parashar

Greater Noida

Hard China

• The editorial ‘Plans of action’,coming on the eve of the BRIC meet,is welcome. One is not amused by China’s pettiness. Till Kissinger and Nixon’s visits to China in the early ’70s,it was totally isolated. It was India that campaigned for China’s entry to the UN,with large-heartedness and a mature perspective on international affairs and despite the 1962 war. And how did China repay us? With cynically courting Pakistan,in nuclear and non-nuclear terms. Now China opposes India’s case for permanent UNSC membership; it wants Arunachal Pradesh. The ADB business was just that — a mark of how petty China is.

— Prasad Malladi

Nidadavole

Democratic deficit

• The logic of anti-incumbency doesn’t exist where a “total” regime wields power,as in West Bengal for three decades. Leftists don’t see any difference between party cadres and the police. After the Lok Sabha results,the opposition finally feels strong. If the CPM had allowed more democracy,this violence wouldn’t be happening.

— Ashwani Sharma

Ghaziabad