— P. Muraleedharan

Mumbai

Quota rush

• The Maharashtra government has rightly suffered the ignominy of the high court setting aside its resolution on 90 per cent quotas for SSC students in junior colleges. The move was nothing but a political ploy with an eye to the coming state elections. This mad rush to woo vernacular-medium students across the country must stop. In Maharashtra, after adhering to the Shiv Sena-MNS logic over the issue, how will the Congress-NCP combine set itself apart?

— Bellur S. Dattatri Pune

China in trouble

•The riots in China’s Xinjiang province are shocking. The number of lives lost and images of armed Uighur and Han gangs roaming, then those of the army moving in, are disturbing. China is multi-ethnic and multi-religious, and the Party has marketed it as harmonious. Twenty years after Tiananmen and close on the heels of the Tibetan uprising of last year, this must be very embarrassing for the People’s Republic.

— Fakhruddin Qasmi

Mumbai