• Bibek Debroy’s ‘Save lives, not laws’ clears the air in the thicket of confusion and inconsistencies on the subject of organ transplant. The recent scandal of illegal organ transplants which has come to light in Gurgaon is nothing new. There are many other racketeers yet to be caught by law enforcement agencies. Everyone knows there is a problem of asymmetry between demand and supply.

There is one aspect to the problem not properly addressed, however. And that is the prevention question. Many cases of organ failure may be due to poorly functioning vital organs like kidney, liver and heart. Most people are not fully aware of the consequences of neglect and poor healthcare. In our country many people go to a doctor when the symptoms are grave. In the first place we need public awareness about organ donation by the relatives of the dead and sophisticated medical infrastructure to keep the organs in conditions fit for transplant.

— John Alexander

Nagpur

Jewels around

• This refers to your editorial ‘Bharat Apna?'. Amidst growing demands from political parties for Bharat Ratna for their patrons in recognition of their contribution to the nation, I have a question: why have successive regimes at the Centre not bothered to confer the award in the past seven years (the last time was in 2001, to Lata Mangeshkar and Bismillah Khan)?

Was no Indian found suitable for this recognition all these years? The fact is, several eminent Indian personalities have brought laurels for the country in different fields, the most recent being R.K. Pachauri, under whose stewardship the United Nations’s IPCC was jointly chosen for Nobel Peace Prize.

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