M A I L B A G

PPSC scam and bias

It’s really very heartening to read about your crusade against corruption especially about the PPSC recruitment scam. I think your paper has become a little biased about this scam as not even once you have highlighted the problems of all those innocent persons who will be affected by the government’s decision to terminate the services of all those recruited during Mr Sidhu’s time.

I got selected as Medical Officer (PCMS) through the PPSC in 1998. I have an excellent academic record through out my education which I have received till date with always a first division in every exam I took. For the last four years I have served in many rural areas of Punjab in conditions which I would say very harsh. I couldn’t do my postgraduation (PG) because I was bound to the Government of Punjab to serve a minimum period of three years in the rural areas after which I will be eligible for my PG in 60% quota (for in-service doctors). Now I have successfully completed my three years in rural service. If the Punjab Government goes ahead with its decision to terminate the services of PCMS doctors, I won’t be able to do my PG and without a PG degree I can’t imagine my career as a doctor. With neither a job nor any speciality degree, I and many like me will have to face a very hard time in future. I would have been very happy if the government had not given me this job; at least by now I would have completed my PG and would have settled in the private sector.

Secondly, thinking that it’s a permanent job I have got a loan of Rs 10 lakh from HDFC Bank (for housing purpose). Without a job I don’t know how I’ll be able to repay this loan. Similarly a friend of mine also (PCMS) has got his car financed from the bank. There will be many more like me whose whole life will be shattered because of the government decision as 4-5 years in service is a long period by any means and everyone must have planned his/her life accordingly.

Dr JAIDEEP SINGH, Amritsar

This isn’t consensus

This has reference to Mr Hari Jaisingh’s article “Kaun banega Rashtrapati: why not someone with outstanding track record?” (June 7). In the ongoing debate on the issue, one must not ignore two crucial points. First, the role to be discharged by the President in the formation of a government after elections or whenever the majority support of the government is in doubt. With no single political party enjoying monopoly over power anymore for the past over a decade and a half, the President’s role would certainly be decisive and he will not merely be a rubber stamp as is being presumed.

Secondly, the President, instead of being a constitutional head, will have to defend the Constitution which is facing a potential threat at the hands of communal forces bent upon destroying the vital components of secularism and federalism, which form the basic structure of the Constitution.

Both the two paradigms have become all the more important today in the background of the BJP holding the levers of power at the Centre. This party and its RSS mentors have never eschewed their contempt for the secular tenets of the Constitution.

The Tribune Editor has named certain personalities who could be suitable for the top post. Many of these would hardly impress any if one goes by, their public stature notwithstanding, the contribution they might have made in their respective fields.

The BJP’s game in this respect needs to be understood in the right perspective at the present juncture. If Mr Vajpayee had really meant the consensus approach, he should not have shown discourtesy in virtually conveying the ruling NDA’s intention of not favouring another term to Mr K.R. Narayanan, particularly when the Congress and the Left had already made their choice public, i.e. for Mr Narayanan. What the NDA has done now is not consensus but rhetoric and facade in the name of consensus.

The BJP would have definitely liked a person of its own choice — one who would be as pliable as many of the Governors appointed by it in the recent past. But this is not feasible given the present arithmetic of the electoral college of which a substantial chunk belongs to non-BJP constituents of the NDA allies. Therefore, it wants to push through someone who may be less self-assertive as President.

INDERJIT SINGH, Secretary, Haryana State CPM Committee, Rohtak

Diplomatic efforts

As long as Pakistan remains the “epicentre” of Islamic fundamentalism, the threat is not only to India but also to the USA. If the communal genie in Kashmir is to be put back in the bottle, India has to fight the scourge not to the satisfaction of some white men but to the satisfaction of Indians through dialogue.

India is giving diplomacy every chance to deliver the goods as Hindu-Muslim violence, which has shaped India’s history, is not viewed as a new story.

The moot point is: whether all the diplomatic traffic among Pakistan, America and Britain in the recent months has not derailed India’s 30-year-old stand that Kashmir is a bilateral issue to be solved by the two.

UMED SINGH GULIA, Gohana