Bond beyond faiths

• Rizwanur Rahman’s death is a serious blot on India’s secular credentials. Our Constitution guarantees a secular nation and protects the rights of the individual. So why is it that when it comes to marriage, all hell breaks loose if one dares to fall in love with a person from a different faith? More than anything else, marriage has to be an understanding and when two consenting individuals want to enter into matrimony it is but natural that they would have thought through the consequences. Should not a personal decision of two adults be respected? CBI probe or not, the gross reality is that Rizwanur is dead and his wife, Priyanka, is left to lament her fate. It is not only her father Ashok Todi who is to blame, but all those in our society who bring up their children with much fanfare but refuse to respect their decisions. If Todi is so innocent, why hasn’t he come out in the open even once on this case? Why is Priyanka being kept hidden? The police commissioner of Kolkata should be sacked immediately for dismissing the death as suicide even before the medical reports came in.

— Neha Rathi New Delhi

Gowda and gaddi

• Now that the political situation in Karnataka has become clearer, the only conclusion one can reach is that H.D. Deve Gowda can go to any extent to retain power. The man who was once the prime minister of India exhibits no shame about indulging in amoral politics.

... contd.