— Sonia Jabbar

New Delhi

Soft on terror

•Shivraj Patil’s statement, drawing a parallel between Afzal Guru and Sarabjit Singh, was irresponsible and shocking. Afzal Guru is an Indian national, convicted and sentenced to death under Indian law for his alleged link to the attack on the seat of Indian democracy. Sarabjit Singh is an Indian national, sentenced to death by Pakistan for alleged involvement in blasts in Pakistan. Throughout his trial, Sarabjit was wrongly identified. Moreover, Sarabjit’s family and friends, and most importantly, Pakistan’s former human rights minister, Ansar Burney, has said that Sarabjit’s appears to be a case of mistaken identity.

There is absolutely no similarity between the two cases, and even the Pakistan government hasn’t taken the stand our home minister has. The government has been sitting on Afzal Guru’s mercy petition for long. Patil’s statement reveals that the UPA doesn’t intend to carry out the Supreme Court’s verdict. If any proof of the UPA being soft on terror was required, Patil’s statement has provided it.

— M.C. Joshi

Lucknow

Peace pipe

•The ongoing peace talks between India and Pakistan have generated more expectations than concrete results. It’s evident that the Pakistani leadership is engaging India at the diplomatic level but continues to bleed it dry. It hopes that a weak India will finally give up its claim on Kashmir and also lose its pre-eminent position in South Asia. Meanwhile, Indian expectations of normalcy with Pakistan are based on a false premise that a democratic, united and economically vibrant Pakistan would allow economic and cultural engagements between the two countries and thus take the focus off Kashmir and terrorism.

— Amit Pradhan

Baroda

Salad days

• If I ever chuckled, from the first line to the last, it was on reading Gopinath Mavinkurve’s ‘Middle man’.The middle of a middle-aged man does have much to do with food, especially gulab-jamuns or rosogollas, if you like Bengali sweets. But there is a simpler way out — begin with a plate full of salad and end your meal with more salad, eating only salad through it. If you fill your stomach with salads alone, neither will you yield to temptation nor will you sport a paunch.

— Parimal Y. Mehta

Mumbai