Outside our control

Outside our control

The relatives of the Indian couple involved in the Norway row have asked the Indian government to intervene. But every issue involving an Indian citizen outside the country does not lie within the domestic remit. As External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has stated, this case falls under the Norway law and is not a government-to-government affair. Every person is subject to the laws and rules of the country he is living in.

— Kshitij Gupta, Narwana

Waiting to happen

A MISHAP at Old Delhi's Bhagirath Palace was waiting to happen ('Chandni choke', IE, December 14) and sure enough, a fire broke out on Thursday. The callous attitude of the civic authorities and the police is to blame for this. Neither has checked the unauthorised commercialisation that is rampant in the area. Unplanned construction has choked the alleys of Chandni Chowk, the low-hanging electric wires are a fire hazard and hawkers encroach on the footpaths. All of this might have hampered the progress of fire tenders, which needed to get there fast.

— Madhu Agrawal

Delhi

About Nehru

THIS refers to Ashutosh Varshney's 'Man with a Plan' (IE, December 14). The author points out that Nehru was the architect of central planning in India, which failed "to attack mass poverty". However, he defends Nehru by asserting that it was not simply a "mistaken individual faith" but "a failure of an entire generation of economists, intellectuals". This is poor consolation for the misery that central planning caused — shortages, the licence raj, corruption. In his earlier article ('Raising democracy', IE, November 30), Varshney seemed to give too much credit to Nehru as the "father of democracy" in India, overlooking the fact that many people were responsible for bringing democracy to the country.

... contd.

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