Letters to the editor

We the closed minds• THIS is with regard to your editorial, ‘Colour-blind research’ (IE, February 15). One wonders whether ou...

We the closed minds

• THIS is with regard to your editorial, ‘Colour-blind research’ (IE, February 15). One wonders whether ours is a democracy and whether our universities are autonomous institutions of higher learning when every matter, from admission to affiliation, from fee to foreign visits to conferences and to research, needs a prior permission from the government of the day. As such, our academic pursuits become more of a bureaucratic file system than any serious intellectual enquiry and achievement. Ironically, we are trying to compete with China and boast of being an open society as against the closed society of that country, little realising that while China has an open mind to intellectual interaction we officially have a closed mind. The so-called ‘liberal and democratic’ India had only 13,267 foreign students on roll in 2005 as against 141,087 foreign students enrolled in China. Our refusal of international engagement and interaction has made our institutions of higher learning no better than watertight compartments.

— Ved Guliani, Hisar

Forced to forget?

• THIS refers to M. Ratan’s letter (IE, February 13). Sure, everyone wants to forget the gory happenings of 2002 in Gujarat. But the anti-Parzania faction in Gujarat has been threatening theatre and multiplex owners with dire consequences in the event of the film’s screening. Is outright hooliganism the right way to make people forget the past? On the contrary, such unruly and intimidating behaviour will only perpetrate an uncanny sense among the masses that the real was not so real after all. The past can be forgotten only if the present is made congenial.

— Ishtyaque Ansari, Bharuch

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• YES, we should inculcate the spirit as M. Ratan suggests. The question is, how do we create this spirit? It should be noted that the saffron brigade, which is against the screening of the film in Gujarat, played a major role in creating the 2002 tragedy. And they want to

dictate what we should see or not see. An argument of the pro-Parzania elements is simple: it is the basic duty of the state to provide security to those who want to screen and see the movie.

— Ghanshyam Shah, Ahmedabad

Greed kills

• I AM not surprised at the corruption being witnessed in Vidarbha today. It is really shocking that the money announced by PM to help farmers rid themselves of debt is seen in the hands of corrupt officials, who are demanding bribes for lending the help. As many as 200 relief-seeking farmers of this suicide-prone district have filed affidavits complaining against government officers who allegedly asked for bribes to disburse sanctioned relief. The farmers, some of whom say they actually paid bribes up to Rs 2,000 to get relief cheques worth Rs 5,000, handed over their affidavits to P.K. Mishra, agriculture secretary of the Central government, in Pune recently. Man’s greed, it seems, can never be addressed.

— M. Ziyaullah Khan, Pune

Token cutback

• THE government’s decision to decrease the prices of petrol and diesel is commendable. Nevertheless the cutback is not proportionate to the decline in the price of crude oil in international market. As the inflation rate shoots upwards, the poor are trying to keep their body and soul together with great difficulty. Here the price of petroleum products can play a significant role in helping them.

— Hemant Kumar Jain, Kota