The analysis by Narendar Pani (“Defective vision crashing the parties”, April 7) is interesting. Very few MPs and parties mean what they say. They only want to impress and fool the voters; local area funds are used to create vote-banks rather than for real development. Often, the funds remain untouched. Elected MPs and parties should periodically periodically what action they have taken and what they are going to do in the remaining period. The other shocking thing is the Budget in which many schemes, allocations are announced to create false euphoria but nobody bothers to see what actually happens. In 2009 rail budget, allocations were announced to upgrade Mangalore railway station to “world standards”. What happened to this no one knows.

M Sadashiva Rao

Mangalore

Too late

Regarding “Diesel opportunism” (April 7), you have to keep in mind that enough damage has already been done regarding inflation. It is too late use the diesel pricing formula given by an expert group for containing inflation in the last minute before elections begin. It is bad policy not to pass on the market price to the consumers.

CR Arun

e-mail

What about the investors?

The bottom line in the Sahara group issue is safeguarding the investor’s interests. Will SEBI compensate investors for the loss of potential returns on their investment? Why is the Supreme Court in a hurry to pronounce its decision when none of the investors is complaining?

Prashant Thakoor

Jaipur

Manifesto blues

The BJP’s election manifesto pales in comparison with the Congress party’s. It is lacklustre, cautious, risk-averse and far from innovative. There are promises galore, but they lack the specifics to deal with the challenges of hunger, poverty, illiteracy, failing healthcare, lagging education systems and crumbling infrastructure. It is clear the saffron party is not quite keen on waving the ‘Hindutva card’ in this election. The party seems to have sensed that it will produce only diminishing returns. At the same time, the inclusion of contentious issues goes against India’s long tradition of secularism. BJP’s reiteration of its commitment to building a Ram temple at Ayodhya albeit “within the framework of the Constitution” is cause for concern.

G David Milton

Kanyakumari

Colossal waste

There has been a big to-do over the BJP’s decision to release its manifesto on the first day of polling. Over 95 per cent of voters do not read any manifesto before deciding whom to vote for, every party needs to make millions of copies available, and in any case, the message, so far as the voter is concerned, is “give us a chance to plunder you and the nation’s wealth”! In the 50 years that I have voted, I have never read a manifesto. The intellectual activity of wording the promises and statements that are made in any manifesto, the astronomical amounts spent on printing them, as also the ecological havoc in felling trees to produce the paper needed to print this entirely wasteful document called the manifesto are a colossal waste, and best avoided entirely.

N Narasimhan

Bangalore

Food for thought

The article “Why you should pay your maid more” by Sudipta Sarangi and Chandan Jha (April 6) was thought-provoking. It is imperative we pay them well because that will give them economic strength and also make them feel important.

B Lakshmi Narasimhan

Coimbatore

Wagging the tail

With reference to “Watching the watch dogs” (April 5), while the auditor is a watch dog and not a bloodhound, he/she should not become a ‘pet dog’ of the client. Bringing a regulatory body like the National Financial Reporting Authority to keep a check on the auditor is justified; otherwise stakeholders’ money will be put to risk by unscrupulous people.

NR Nagarajan

Sivakasi

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