In the nick of time

: •This refers to Shekhar Gupta’s ‘Mulayam and his moments’ . It came as a big surprise. I doubt many people know much about the new avatar of this salt-of-the-earth politician, a true nationalist who doesn’t believe in the politics of exclusion. Mulayam should thank The Indian Express for presenting such a positive picture of him when he most needs it. His act of extending timely support to the UPA Government over the Indo-US nuclear deal should be praised. He should also be grateful to the Left for providing him the vital “opportunity” to occupy the centrestage.

— S.K. Gupta

Delhi

•Shekhar Gupta, in his article is quite appreciative of certain traits of the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. In a leader, it is a raiseworthy tendency to keep the channels of communication and compromise open and to maintain one’s faith in the politics of inclusion, as there are indeed no permanent friends and foes in politics. Almost all our politicians have these characteristics in some form. But with the politics of opportunism all around, the important thing is how one uses these talents. For example, is the channel of communication used to threaten a journalist doing his/her duty? Are compromise and inclusion used to gain political mileage?

Hisar

Given the stick

•THIS refers to ‘Karat to carrot’.In their three decades in power in Bengal, the Left has seldom created wealth, but had distributed some of it in the initial years of land reforms. Hardcore Left ideologists are taking to pragmatic economic reforms, even in the erstwhile communist bloc countries. In India, however, the Left has had an extended honeymoon, ideology included; and its friends with so-called secular inclinations have covered for leftists so far. Now, however, these secular parties want to have less and less to do with a Left that is an adamant ideologue, bereft of vision. For this downturn in the Left’s prospects, Karat and his myopic friends are largely responsible.

— R. Narayanan

Pune

Wrong choices

•THE analysis by Ila Patnaik, ‘Central bank misrules’, made for interesting reading. India’s economic downslide is attributable to inconsistent economic reforms and the appeasement of various cross-sections of people and interest groups at each stage. RBI is armed with the outdated tools of monetary control from another era. It is surprising that with such low economic growth, RBI has targeted direct taxes on revenues of Rs 39,000 crore.

... contd.