He will be missed

With the sudden death of BKS Iyengar, an epoch has drawn to a close. Always the perfectionist, the yoga guru and scholar elevated the discipline to an art form. He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan and his books, Light on Yoga , Light on Pranayama and Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali were widely read and appreciated.

A tireless practitioner who refused to go to hospital even when he was ailing, his penchant for yoga was to be seen to be believed and it was this fire that kept him going for 96 years.

Many people who were unable to find a cure for their ailments or get rid of their handicaps finally turned to Iyengar and found relief in his brand of yoga which benefited both young and old alike. The discipline will be the poorer for his demise.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bangalore

Tighten the screws

The article “Fin min orders forensic audit of Dena Bank, OBC after reports of scam” by Beena Parmar (August 20) is a pointer to the structural weaknesses in the operation of banks, leading incumbents to indulge in corruption and fraud. The RBI governor has to tighten the screws and boost surveillance on the operations side, otherwise the Central bank will cut a sorry figure.

NR Nagarajan

Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu

Cash in on cargo

The plan to allow Indian private players in the aerospace industry is welcome. It may be recalled that in 2008, Bedek Aviation Group, part of Israel Aerospace Industries, was in talks with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to set up the first-ever aircraft conversion site in Bangalore. That facility could be dedicated to the conversion of 737 passenger aircraft to cargo freighters. This will return huge cost-cuts to the airlines because they would not need to send their aircraft abroad for this facility. The air cargo business will get a boost.

P Senthil Saravana Durai

Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu

We need peace committees

A small dispute between the land-owner and tiller in the Assam-Nagaland border had grown into inter-State violence. This will snowball if the Centre and States do not step in immediately and douse the communal fire. Shooting and tear-gassing will not help. Peace committees must be created in each and every village. Anyone found instigating and aiding the communal tensions must be arrested and punished. Only constant vigil will protect the North-east from its hard-won upward mobility.

A Prabaharan

Tiruchirappalli

The boundary dispute between Assam and Nagaland must be resolved at the earliest. With the Centre showing some earnestness in restoring normalcy in the violence-torn border of thee States the problem might not snowball into an unsolvable crisis.

Be that as it may, it is really unfortunate that India has border problems within the nation and the same with neighbouring nations too. If the areas to be governed are not determined, then, how is good governance possible?

S Ramakrishnasayee

Ranipet, Tamil Nadu

Weed out the terrorists

Kashmir has been an integral, indivisible part of India since Independence, therefore the question of its occupation by Pakistan amounts to nothing but theft of India’s land. All terrorism training camps, terrorists’ hideouts and their stocks of arms and ammunition should be destroyed at once. For this our security forces should be given a free hand. India does not want a single centimetre of Pakistani soil.

Hansraj Bhatt

Mumbai

The BJP has a hawkish view on India-Pakistan relations. It orchestrated this stance even more vociferously during UPA rule. This was reflected in Modi's election campaign . Then we had Modi inviting the Pakistani prime minister for his swearing-in but at the first show of Pakistani intransigence, we see him being bulldozed by party hardliners. Political nuancing on the threshold of Assembly elections has taken an upper hand. It is surprising that the much built-up halo around Modi as being his own man, should dim so easily and so quickly.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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Not a good idea

This refers to “Bring innovation into home loans, RBI tells banks” (August 21). Deputy Governor R Gandhi has suggested to banks to sanction housing loans taking the balance in the recurring deposit of a prospective borrower as collateral. Usually, home loans are secured by the mortgage of house properties.

Recurring deposit accounts may be opened by the salaried class or fixed income groups to build up savings for a particular purpose. Should a recurring deposit account holder wish to avail a home loan, asking him to keep the balance in his account as collateral will not be an attractive proposition. He might have opened the account to invest its balance in his future home project. What banks should do is offer interest concessions to recurring account holders if they need loans. This will promote the savings habits and induce banks to offer concessional loan interest rates to them. After all, interest rates on loans are normally higher than that of deposits.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

Mani matters

This refers to “Mani Shankar Aiyar is again in a ‘sea’ of troubles” (August 21). If you do not have any useful work to do but do not allow the tongue to go its way goes the saying… Similarly the senior Congress leader needs to strive hard to refurbish his party’s sullying image if he is really interested in the party rather than firing loose cannons at political adversaries. When the country has given Narendra Modi the majority, it is only incumbent on the part of opposition leaders to reconcile to the situation.

The senior leader could not win his Mayiladidurai Lok Saba Seat. In this context, his diatribes against the Prime Minister are graceless.

HP Murali

Bangalore

Mani Shankar Iyer is living in his own world it seems. His earlier remarks about Modi on selling tea proved to be a great gift for the BJP and Modi during the election campaign. Now, his statement of sending Modi to the sea shore is a great insult to Indian voters who sent him to Parliament as Prime Minister.

VS Ganeshan

Bangalore

Street rap

Street expenditure to Corporate income

Corporate expenditure to Consumer income

Consumer expenditure to Investor income

Investor expenditure to Market income

Market expenditure to Street income

Nagendra Bharathi

Chennai

Right decision

India rightly called off the scheduled foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, objecting to its envoy meeting Kashmir separatists on the eve of the dialogue. Also, Pakistan is continuing its attacks along the LoC. The Indian government policy with Pakistan is always to encourage Indo-Pak trade to improve relations between the two countries. The present scenario is not encouraging.

M Kumar

New Delhi

Border unrest

The vexed border dispute between Assam and Nagaland continues to defy a mutually acceptable settlement and sparks periodic spasms of violence. By killing 13 Assamese with the CRPF looking the other way, the NSCN cadres triggered the present round of violent clashes in Assam’s Golaghat district.

The Assamese Adivasis cannot be blamed for staging dharnas when two Adivasi students went missing. The finger of suspicion pointed at Naga insurgents. The Adivasis will be deprived of their livelihoods if the disputed area belt (DAB) land is forcibly taken from them. Seen from a historical perspective, the Nagas indeed have a legitimate claim over the disputed territory. It is failure of leadership to allow the dispute over land within a country to claim human lives.

True, it is difficult to reconcile the ‘historical boundary’ clung to by the Nagas and the ‘constitutional boundary’ accepted by the Assamese and work out a compromise formula acceptable to both sides. Still the Central government, the State governments of Assam and Nagaland and other stakeholders such as the NSCN of Nagaland and the KMSS of Assam must sit together to find a lasting settlement to avert further bloodshed and make the North-east a region of harmony.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

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