Candid address

In his last televised address, President Pranab Mukherjee said that the soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. He said it carries with it a history of ideas, philosophy, intellect, industrial genius, craft innovation and experience. India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. It guarantees freedom of expression so long as it is used constructively.

India is now faced with huge challenges and threats. These need to be tackled with foresight, determination, and purpose. The new incumbent is known for his knowledge, humility and simplicity. He has a tough job on his hands to uphold the spirit of India.

Srinivasan Umashankar

Nagpur

Blundering in Bihar

As expected the Nitish-Lalu honeymoon did not last. However, Nitish Kumar is one of the few leaders with a clean record devoid of corruption charges. He brought good governance to Bihar. But breaking away from the BJP was a blunder. Nitish and Narendra Modi are like two sides of the same coin. While Modi could gauge the people’s mood, Nitish could not. Fed up

The second blunder was joining hands with Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is famous for caste politics and misrule in Bihar. The biggest blunder was making Jitan Manjhi chief minister to woo dalit votes. Nitish should realise that India’s youth want jobs, economic growth and development and are not interested in politics based on religion and caste.

Veena Shenoy

Thane, Maharashtra

Nitish Kumar’s volte-facehas dealt a big blow to Opposition unity at the national level. As a man who put Bihar on the trajectory of rapid economic development and earned respect for his unflinching commitment to providing corruption-free governance, Nitish was left with no option but to take the high moral ground following the emergence of corruption allegations against his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD and his blatant refusal to put in his papers.

M Jeyaram

Sholavandan, Tamil Nadu

Welcome decision

The decision of Anna University to do away with the system of arrears from the current academic year is welcome. This will ensure discipline from students. Students must understand that they enter into the portals of colleges after paying considerable fees. Hence, it is imperative they reap maximum returns in the form of knowledge.

S Ramakrishnasayee

Ranipet, Tamil Nadu

Think before speaking

This refers to ‘Kejriwal fined ₹10,000 by court for not responding to notice’ (July 27). It is a lesson to the political class to be circumspect and weigh their words before levelling charges against political rivals without evidence. The Delhi chief minister and his party spokespersons have an irrepressible penchant for making unsubstantiated accusations thinking they can come out unscathed.

HP Murali

Bengaluru

Wake up, TRAI

The editorial, ‘Inflection Point’ (July 27) is a timely reminder to the Centre and TRAI to revisit and overhaul the telecom policy. The inspiration to serve maximum customers and optimise scale of economies is understandable but RJio should not try to monopolise the domain. RJio’s moves must be appropriately moderated and the right of the customer to join or opt out must be vested only with them. Otherwise, the big fishes will subsume the small fishes and the telecom turf will be controlled by hidden systems and tricky tariffs.

Small operators are only licensees. They are authorised to operate and not to make deals. The policy responses in this direction must be initiated forthwith to preclude cartelisation. The licensed operators must play within their stipulated conditions irrespective of their operational band-width and business volume and hence Bharti Airtel should also be restrained. The monopolistic tendencies of certain operators are confusing customers because of the mixed signals they send. TRAI must wake up and do the needful before customers are led further astray by the murky deals.

B Rajasekaran

Bengaluru

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