Unofficial Indian ambassadors abroad

Two crore Indians are spread over 150 countries. Of them 60,000 are doctors (27,000 in USA alone) and 20,000 academics (9,000 in USA). They are all professionals, who could have served the mother country, but chose to go abroad, because of the then prevailing political culture of corruption and crime. The former rulers generated a society of slum-dwellers, where bride-burning, suicides by young women and farmers, due to dowry, debt, poverty, unemployment, houselessness and rising prices were everyday events.

The Indians abroad are more nationalistic than us, because they work in a hostile environment built up on racial discrimination. But the successive Indian governments practised apartheid against them. This accusation is established by the fact that whereas the limit of holdings for an NRI in an Indian company in India has been fixed at 1 per cent (now raised to 5 per cent) the MNCs have been allowed 100 per cent holdings.

The issue of dual citizenship to NRIs has not been settled todate, to increase their participation in the economic development of this country, whereas the IMF-WB have been given free entry, at the cost of our national sovereignty. These western financial agencies have destroyed the economies of many nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia, within the past 10 years. They have now expanded their tentacles over the whole of India, leading to its destruction, besides being engaged in the act of perversion of our ancient values and promoting the western culture of nudity, through those Indians who have sold their souls for dollars.

Because the NRIs are an extension of India on a global level, they should be treated at par with Indians within, and allowed dual citizenship, besides voting rights by proxy, on the pattern envisaged for armymen, so that their children may not become rootless in future. If USA could bomb Sudan and Afghanistan with impunity, violate their sovereignty and kill hundreds of natives, as the price for the loss of a few American lives, the grant of dual citizenship and proxy voting rights to all NRIs is the least this government could do. Let every Indian abroad walk, holding his head high.

B. C. MAKHAIK
Shimla

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Removal of Verma

Nobody should question the BJP leadership’s choice of Mrs Sushma Swaraj as Chief Minister of Delhi because it is their internal matter. But, every Indian must condemn the way Mr Sahib Singh Verma was removed from office. I think it was personally insulting to Mr Verma and socially disturbing to the peasants of the country. Such a sudden removal of a Chief Minister with peasant background reflects seriously on the anti-rural and anti-peasant mind-set of the BJP leadership. It is really bad news for the peasants of this country. Mr Verma has devoted his entire life to BJP but finds himself let down by the same party.

There are newspaper reports that Mr Verma burst out in tears the day he was forced to resign. I am sure this incident is going to be remembered by the peasants of this country for long. The majority wanted him to stay in office but the top BJP leaders wanted him to go.

It is not really good for the health of democracy in our country. The top leadership of a national political party ought not to be swayed by petty considerations of caste and ethnic links. The former Transport Minister, Mr Rajendra Gupta, is reported to have very bitterly commented. “I was dropped because of my caste” (The Tribune, Oct 17). Mr Verma may, in future, may be assigned any responsibility by the BJP leadership but the recent incident will go down in the history of the country as the worst day on which a CM was removed from his office not on account of his performance but because of his social background. Even Mr Venkaiah Naidu, the party General Secretary and in-charge of Delhi affairs, gave a clean chit to Mr Verma: “The decision is no reflection on the performance of Mr Verma during the past two years” (The Tribune, Oct 11).

The top leadership of the BJP has certainly eased out Mr Verma from his office but the peasantry as a whole can’t be eased out from this vast land.

RAJ BAHADUR YADAV
Rewari

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Appointment of VC

Apropos of the news-item “Appointment of VC may be delayed” (Oct 14) the latest UGC Committee on appointment of Vice-Chancellors has recommended that the Vice-Chancellor of a university is “eligible for appointment for a second term in the same or another university. The term of three years is much short for a Vice-Chancellor to make any impact either academically or in administration. In the case of second term in the same university, the exercise of the Search committee may not be gone through and the appointment for the second term be through administrative order”.

Further, as per the news, the selection committee “normally takes over a month to suggest names for the Vice-Chancellor’s post” whereas the UGC Committee on Appointment of Vice-Chancellors says that “the Chancellor’s office should initiate the process and procedures for the preparation of panel for vice-chancellorship in a university at least six months before the office of the Vice-Chancellor is likely to fall vacant.”

Therefore, the Chancellor’s office should get an administrative order approved from the worthy Chancellor for re-appointing the present Vice-Chancellor for a full second term or part thereof and complete the selection process of appointing the Vice-Chancellor in accordance with the recommendations of the UGC committee on appointment of vice-chancellors.

OM PARKASH WADHWA
Gohana

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Anxiety disorder

We all need some anxiety to perform difficult tasks well, but too much of it can be incapacitating. Anxiety is the feeling of apprehension, tension or discomfort you get when you expect danger. If your anxiety ceases to produce a positive response, if it interferes with your functioning and constricts yourself in smooth functioning, you may be suffering from anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorder constitutes the most common group of mental illness, including the phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsion behaviour and post traumatic stress and disorder. Some of these diseases can be treated with medication, others respond to psycho-therapy, which may encourage the patient to confront the sources of his fears. Both will-power and meditation are the best answers to anxiety disorder from which 60 per cent of the Indians are affected.

Dr JEETENDRA SAINI and others
Patiala