India has promise, but mind the mobocracy

Vir Sanghvi's South East Asia Diary (Counterpoint, March 4) was an educative and realistic analysis of India’s emerging position in South East Asia. The credit for this goes to Mammohan Singh and Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv brought in the IT revolution, while Manmohan launched the globalisation process and opened up the economy. But now corruption has multiplied even at the level of ministers and bureaucrats. The Indian democracy has derailed into a ‘mobocracy’. The increase in terrorism is also largely attributable to politicians and misguided governance.

Prof AL Agarwal, New Delhi

Tricky temper

This refers to Karan Thapar’s Why it’s better to get angry (Sunday Sentiments, March 4). It has been said, “There is no one in this world who has not been unsettled, at times, by anger.” While righteous anger that fuels our fight for a just cause is fine, in personal and social relations too it is better to lose the sangfroid, blow the fuse, let the kettle boil over and restore calm.

Dr RK Malhotra, New Delhi

II

It is better to get angry, is what Karan Thapar was trying to prove in the Sunday Sentiments dated March 4. Some time back, in these very columns, he unsuccessfully tried to prove why he doesn’t like the words ‘nanu’ and ‘dadu’. Mr Thapar, these sweet words are of Indian origin, what's the problem in adopting these, as grace comes with age.

GK Arora, Delhi

Spare the forces

In Scheduled for Recruitment? (Guest Column, March 4), Omar Khalidi suggests reservation for cadets in the defence services so that these mirror the country’s population. That is surely not the objective of the services. These are expensive and crucial organisations. Let Mr Khalidi locate other organisations/avenues to ‘mirror the diversity of population’.

Lt Col SK Gulati (retd), on email