Prima facie evidence supports the allegation that the Minister of State for Education Ram Shankar Katheria altered mark sheets to show that he had higher marks than he was actually awarded. The forgery charge, not denied convincingly, has not only shown Katheria’s unsuitability to serve as the junior minister for education but also dented the image of the Modi government irreparably.

Ideally, an education minister is to be a role model for the rising generation of students to emulate. Admittedly, he knew how to convert even his below average, if not poor exam results, without burning the proverbial midnight oil, to move up the career ladder.

But India’s structured education is bound to collapse if students begin to prove their academic brilliance by tampering with marksheets in the manner their supposed model did. Now that he has come under a shadow of scandalous forgery, a crime worse than copying in exams, the decent as well as the logical thing to do is to quit and fight to clear his name. His continuance as Minister for Education has become untenable and he must resign or get his marching orders.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

Watershed verdict

The judicial verdict sentencing seven Army men, including two officers, for life imprisonment for the fake 2010 encounter which resulted in the killing of three young men in Jammu & Kashmir’s Machil is a watershed moment in the history of India.

It is more than obvious that the Army men have paid a heavy price for the conspiracy of murder and falsely describing the victims as terrorists. As Chief Minister Omar Abdullah put it “this will send a very strong signal to the people of the valley and serve as a warning to those tempted by these incidents”.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bengaluru

No open-air zoo this

This refers to the article “Control Freaks” by Dhiraj Nayyar (November 14). In this country, we just don’t value the lives of our poor and spurious drugs make the problem even worse. The tablets given to the hapless women were not working, according to the doctor who treated them. Blame it on high corruption, which helps such drugs enter our hospitals.

Also, educating women is one investment which we need to make for us to handle our population problem and more awareness among our people for having fewer children.

We need to invest in these areas and not just play lip service to population growth. The new government wants to clean this country, which is fine, but what is its position on the population problem that we have, which is the elephant in the room?

The Government’s silence is strange and dangerous. The Centre should lead this campaign to value and save all our citizens no matter where they live and their financial background. This country is not an open air zoo, these are people, treat them like one.

CR Arun

E-mail

Dhiraj Nayyar’s article is an enlightening eye-opener. Target-oriented family planning often leads to the ‘going after’ of weak and mild women folk. In a vast number of poor households women are the real breadwinners. Coercing or inducing them to go in for sterilisation procedure is akin to adding more weight to her already overloaded baggage of domestic and filial duties. As rightly said, education and prosperity are the keys to family welfare and planning. As the intended beneficiary is often deprived of the cash incentives by her spouse, it is always advisable to give her proper medicines, and nutritious food for the overall welfare of the family.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

All for money

With the decision to hike excise duty of petrol and diesel, the NDA has proved that it is no better than the UPA. In fact people were waiting for a cut given the fact that oil prices are falling globally.

Alas, the government has chosen to deliver a shock. Rulers are always worried about revenues and not about welfare of people, be it the Congress or the BJP.

Kalyanasundaram

E-mail

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW