• Shekhar Gupta’s ‘Babuji dheere chalna’ has rightly captured the Indian “slowness” syndrome. However, the roots of this malady can be found in the typical Indian childhood — in the morals we are taught, specifically that slow and steady wins the race. Further, our political class is as yet nervous about defying this “tradition”. Thus there is no question of dreaming big.

— Rishibha Gupta

Delhi

• We Indians are usually content to just plod along. Innovation and change thus pass us by. In India, even post-liberalisation, mediocrity is thus evident everywhere. Our penchant for delayed projects, moving slowly because we fear the unknown — such as speed — is a remnant of a past we couldn’t leave behind. India’s developmental dreams are thus compromised. On the ground, what confound infrastructural projects are archaic laws, conflicting interests and litigations. Therefore, even zones created with an infrastructural focus do not deliver.

— L.K. Chawla

Gurgaon

Unmerited

• Let’s set aside the Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh for a while. Instead, let’s start by questioning if there’s a need to talk to Pakistan at all. Whatever happened to then-External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s claim that, following 26/11, relations with Pakistan wouldn’t be “business-as-usual”? That’s clearly not the case, despite the fact that Pakistan has visibly done almost nothing to merit the ground ceded by India at Sharm-el-Sheikh.

— Raghu Seshadri

Chennai

Dialogue matters

• The Indo-Pak joint statement and Manmohan Singh’s meeting with his Pakistani counterpart have sent out positive signals, notwithstanding the confusion and anxiety in various quarters about what exactly was discussed and what India has “conceded”. Frankly, de-linking terror from the dialogue process isn’t folly on India’s part. The PM’s statement in Parliament cleared the air on that — that bilateral dialogue can’t begin till the Mumbai attack is accounted for. Unfortunately, the subcontinent is still paying the price of the Cold War. Nevertheless, through the Cold War, the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union kept on talking to each to other to diffuse tensions.

... contd.