Arunachal express

'The forbidden land’, and the earlier report on Tapir Gao’s comment highlight the sense of exasperation caused by India’s neglect of Arunachal Pradesh...

• The editorial, ‘The forbidden land’, and the earlier report on Tapir Gao’s comment highlight the sense of exasperation caused by India’s neglect of Arunachal Pradesh, a key border state. Sadly, Arunachal continues to suffer so many years after the Chinese invasion of 1962. Even as China continues to publicly lay its expansionist claims to Arunachal, our response in integrating the state in real terms has been is diffident and indifferent. Hopefully, Tapir Gao’s frantic call for rail connectivity in particular and rapid development in general will find enough support across the country to stir the political establishment into action.

— M. Ratan

New Delhi

Epicentre Kannur

• The editorial, ‘No way to protest’, rightly argued that ideological battles cannot be decided by angry thugs. The violent ways of the RSS and the CPM in Kannur have taken many lives over the years. The problem attracted the national media’s attention only when it reached Delhi in the form of the attack on the CPM office. How a localised conflict reached the national capital even before it spread to Kannur’s neighbouring districts seems curious. It may not be a coincidence that the RSS/BJP vandalised AKG Bhavan within a day of E.P. Jayarajan’s statement accusing the RSS national leadership of engineering the Kannur violence. The Kerala CPM, however, blames the Delhi police for the attack. The Kannur conflict must be stopped from spreading, but in doing so it may not be a good idea to go by the CPM’s understanding of the problem alone.

— Fasil K.

Aligarh

Nuke flurry

• This refers to Rajesh Rajagopalan’s article, ‘Don’t count on a third chance’. In some quarters nuclear power is considered the ultimate solution to India’s energy needs. But nuclear power is only one of our options and it is not the most economical. It is still not certain that the nuclear deal will enable India to get uranium supplies, enrichment technologies and capital from other countries. Even if India manages to do so, the question of fiscal feasibility will remain.

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One is not sure if the deal would preclude future nuclear detonations by India and whether present and future US laws can prevent the supply of raw materials and accessories to the Indian plants. Nor can we rest assured that a future American government will not ‘guide’ our foreign policy by legally throttling the supplies to our nuclear plants. Finally, the matter of reusing spent fuel is also unclear. Therefore, one can conclude that all is not well with the deal and competent experts in Delhi must study it in detail. There is no hurry since even 20 years after signing the deal India will satisfy only 7 per cent of its power needs from the nuclear plants.

— K. Raghu

Ahmedabad

IHF letdown

• It seems that the movie, Chak De India, stirred only the Indian cricket team to some extent. As a sports enthusiast I am extremely disappointed with India’s hockey fiasco. This once-invincible team is today struggling for its existence. The Indian Hockey Federation alone is responsible for the debacle and the sports ministry should replace it with a transparent and pro-active body.

— Bashishth Verma

Delhi

Slack laws

• The reasons behind frequent incidents of violence and terrorism in India are our easy ‘jail and bail’ laws, as well as the abolition of Tada and Pota.

Unless there are strict laws against criminals, there will be no peace and order; and ultimately India’s economic growth will be harmed.

— Hansraj Bhat

Mumbai