Hardly a blueprint

The editorial, ‘Positive outlook’ (November 3) is a dispassionate dissection of the draft National Civil Aviation Policy 2015. Even a cursory look reveals that this approach-paper is like an expression of intent rather than a blue-print for action. The growth momentum was visible in 1992 itself with the advent of liberalisation and the exponential curve of the IT industry but India lost one more opportunity to tap the moment for economic development.

Initially, the private sharing of the sky by Tata was nullified and when private operators were allowed, the mushrooming number of companies was not adequately streamlined with the desired template of rules for equitable expansion eventually resulting in unfair competition. Some firms crashed in the turbulent sky of impracticality.

The National Aviation Company of India Limited still shows streaks of Air India and Indian Airlines defeating the merger purpose its services should have been objectively covered in this draft to showcase a demonstrative cause for enriching civil aviation. The less said about the contribution of The Helicopter Corporation of India (Pawan Hans Limited), the better. This draft needs to be revisited pervasively and the lingering serious problems circumvented to project a balanced policy.

B Rajasekaran

Bengaluru

Circle of life

This refers to ‘Time we managed forests differently’ by Ghazala Shahabuddin (November 3). A few decades ago in the northeast of the US, a forest was getting reduced without any deforestation by humans. Researchers found that lack of iodide in the soil was the reason for the death of trees. After a few years the forest was growing back and expanding.

Biologists found out what was happening. There was a river nearby into which salmon fish swam upstream from the ocean. The fish were full of iodide. The bears in the forest would eat the fish and then poop in the forest.

Bear poop contained the iodide nutrient which was lacking in the forest land; this vital nutrient saved the forest and made it grow back. Nature delivers vital nutrients, free. We should learn from that. When the cycle breaks we lose forests and the animals living there, and with them we lose our planet’s biological balance forever.

CR Arun

Email

No skills, no use

The article, ‘Demographic dividend or damp squib?’ by Charan Singh (November 3), makes good reading. The necessity to take up a job when the young are on the curve of learning seems inevitable and inescapable to drive the engine of family smoothly. Given the poor infrastructure, even impoverished families think several times before sending their wards to such institutions; and they certainly cannot afford the fees charged by private institutions.

So they make their wards work, thereby killing the school-going spirit. The curriculum should be changed so that students acquire knowledge when they work after studies. An education without knowledge in core subjects or skill is of no use. It is time to bridge the shortage of skilled manpower.

HP Murali

Bengaluru

Damaging silence

The Bihar campaign is degenerating to street-level polemics. The silence of the PM on many symbolic but vital issues is intriguing. There could be as much a case for the Oppositon labelling intolerance as the leit motif of the BJP as it can be for forces within the parivar to undermine the PM. How else can one explain the persistent attempts by the fringes to speak out of turn and sprout controversial issues that are patently cutting into Modi’s main theme of development?

His lonely campaign in Bihar further raises pointers to a chasm within. Internecine squabbles in the BJP dramatically elevated Modi in the first place; these are perhaps simmering even now. If the parivar cannot find solutions for its internal rifts it will lose credibility.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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