Voternama

• This refers to the article ‘Negative voting is a right’ by Rajindar Sachar IE, April 27). If ne...

• This refers to the article ‘Negative voting is a right’ by Rajindar Sachar IE, April 27). If negative voting is incorporated in ballot papers (or EVMs), it would make a mockery of our electoral process. It would diminish the effort of those of us who stand in queues for hours waiting for our turn to vote because we believe that there is indeed someone who can honestly serve our nation
Governance is serious business. We need someone to run the economy, to formulate our foreign policy and someone to supervise our domestic administration. Elections are thus about choosing the right person to represent us in that endeavour. People who do not wish to vote for any candidate might as well stay at home on election day.

— Indrani Bhattacharya Pune

Part-time jobs

• Gurmeet Singh’s article ‘Que sera sera’ (IE, April 27) is wonderful, dripping with sarcasm and frustration, frustration at the venal and ill-informed politicians we still elect as our representatives. That our democracy is still immature is borne out by the way electoral candidates have been behaving this election season. Instead of nurturing their constituencies at all times, these politicians show up only at the time of election.

— Satyam Jayanth Bangalore

Number game

• I was perturbed to learn that the voter turnout in the first two phases of this year’s general elections has been quite low. What does this indicate? That the common man is fast losing faith in the political system of our country? Or did this happen owing to the lack of proper choice of political parties for the electorate to opt for? It is necessary that both our political leaders and the Election Commission jointly address this issue and come up with some remedial measures to improve the voter turnout in future elections.

— V. Rajesh On e-mail

Another innings

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• After being beaten by India in the ODIs and the first Test match, Pakistan were being rightly criticised by everyone. Pakistan, however, sprang a surprise by winning the second Test at Lahore. This sudden ‘‘pleasant’’ shock woke up the selectors, the captain, the manager, the coach from their slumber. They all started shouting, threatening to resign from their posts for the criticism that had been levelled against them. The management went mad praising themselves, trying to outdo each other to get the credit for the victory. It was all very well but then Pakistan lost the final Test and the series without putting up a fight. What happens now?

— Ashfaq Ahmad On e-mail

Deserving Azhar

• I don’t think that excluding Mohammed Azharuddin from the pension for cricketers would be proper (‘BCCI loosens purse strings’, IE, April 28). This proposal just shows the dictatorial attitude of the BCCI. Any pension is linked to a person’s working life and not related to controversies later on.
Azhar was one of the finest batsmen and most outstanding fielders of his time. I think he deserves the pension, even if it is such a small amount.

— Bijayendra Singh On e-mail