Readers' Forum

Ignorant Jaitley?

Dear Editor,
Reacting to the observations made by some eminent writers and reputed columnists on Kashmir like Arundhati Roy , Vir Sanghavi , Swaminathan A Aiyar, Arun Jaitley of BJP has brushed them aside as " mere comments having no bearing on functioning of the government " and that "The writers don't run the state and their comments make no difference" in a programme telecast on private news channel. How sad, Jaitley is ignorant about the might of the pen?
He is suggested to at least go through the history of struggle of Indian freedom and he would be wise enough to learn as what major part has been played by the writers in this connection. I agree with Arun Jaitley that the writers don't run the state.
It is the sole prerogative of the selfish and incompetent politicians, who are not at all worried about the nation but are busy in sowing the seeds of hatred amongst various sections of the society only to keep their chairs intact irrespective of the damages caused to the general masses. Writers just cannot stoop to that level of politicians.
--S.I.H. Kazmi, Jammu

One-child norm
Dear Editor,
China made a welcome symbolic reference of adopting theory of one-child per family by presenting a sweet little girl-child to recite a beautiful poem at inaugural-ceremony of Beijing Olympics being live telecast for billions of TV viewers.
India ranking second to China in terms of population should take lesson from China to restrict family-size by law to regulate its uncontrollable and perhaps the biggest problem of population explosion.
--Madhu Agrawal,
1775 Kucha Lattushah
Dariba, Delhi

Monthly disposal at CIC
Dear Editor,
Central Information Commission (CIC) in its website has modified the field 'monthly disposal' by adding total till-date disposals.
This field should be further diversified by giving statistics for disposal of each of the individual Information Commissioner. Such a statistics will also make the Commission reform its own working by being vigilant about abnormal increase of pending cases with some Information Commissioner/s.
Some fields like 'legal opinion' at the Commission's website are not updated once after these were added to the website. Officers of National Informatics Centre at Commission's office should study each and every field of Commission's website. It is better to remove such fields which remain unutilised without updating.
-Subash Chandra Agrawal
1775 Kucha Lattushah
Dariba, Delhi

"Bitter chill of winter"
Dear Editor,
While going through the article (KT: July 6, 2008) titled "Bitter chill of winter" written by Tariq Ali, it is disgusting to observe that such a rude and distorted version of facts has appeared in this esteemed paper, which commands fairly good reputation.
The author has maligned the sanctity of Kashmiri Muslim women by mentioning "Women turned their backs and ....."
I conversed with many senior citizens to find oven a small clue to the rusting imagination of the author, the response was negative.
It would have been sensible for the writer to take into consideration the social set up of Kashmiri Muslim women of that era (more than six decades ago) which would have restrained him from using a bruising sentence, thus making it obligatory for the writer to apologise.
-G. Hussain,
Srinagar.