However, alongside this change in food habits, there has also been a shift in food production. Punjab was the wheat basket of the country. Over the years, it has shifted to to cultivating rice. While good quality rice fetches a better price, especially abroad, heavy use of water in paddy fields has depleted ground water levels to alarmingly extents. Today, it is difficult to produce both wheat and rice. Besides, grains like jowar and bajra have been increasingly discarded in favour of lucrative cash crops like sugarcane. Thus the pattern of food production has also had some effect on the current situation.

Punish performers

• M.R. Madhavan's article ‘Different value for different votes’

was somewhat amusing. He says the mandate not to change the number of Lok Sabha seats for each state will be unfair to states which have failed to check their population growth vis-a-vis the ones which have successfully controlled it.

Madhavan is also afraid that a lower representation of states with a high population growth may lead to “a further deficit in governance”. To what extent this is true is a matter of debate. Madhavan points out the Hindi-speaking states to be the ones with a high population growth and consequently disadvantaged.

India adopted family planning as a national policy in the ‘60s. Today, achieving zero rate of population growth is a necessity. Any state which works towards this end should be rewarded and not punished by reducing its number of Lok Sabha seats. In fact, the government ought to increase the representation of such states in the lower House by about 40 seats, while maintaining statewise allocation at the same level.

Coalition of rivals

• It is amusing and ironic that in Pakistan mutually opposing parties are working as coalition partners whereas, in India, the government’s coalition partners are acting as the opposition.

Bhutia, the Lionheart

• Baichung Bhutia’s refusal to carry the Olympic torch has caused a few red faces among the Indian communists. And they have asked Bhutia not to mix sports with politics. Bhutia’s courage must be celebrated and emulated. He has jeopardised neither the torch nor the Olympics; yet he has firmly upheld humanitarian and democratic values. This is what the Indian government should have done — announced an issue-based protest and won the respect of the world, including that of the Chinese, since everyone respects courage of conviction.