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PAC coup: Ethics thrown to the winds

The news report "Cong does a coup, takes over PAC" (Apr 29) briefly and mildly sums up the coup in the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. The principles of ethics demand that the two members of the DMK should have abstained from voting, because their representative in the Cabinet A. Raja was being probed. It also appears that the honesty of the Prime Minister is failing to make any impact on the partisan politics inside Parliament.

There are pending CBI inquiries against DMK ministers and there are at present dormant inquiries against the Samajwadi Party and the BSP governments of UP. All those forces against whom inquiries are underway have decided to side with the government to upset the delicate balance in the PAC. No inquiry can come to a logical conclusion under such partisan circumstances.

Under similar circumstances when President Richard Nixon was embroiled in the notorious Watergate scandal, members of both Houses of the US Congress from his own Republican Party turned against him and joined the demand for his resignation. It appears that the Indian democracy is drifting away from ethics and not maturing. Both the treasury benches and the Opposition should learn from the British and American democracies.

HARJAP SINGH AUJLA, New Jersey

II

The leaking of the report and rejection of the same by the Congress and allied members of Parliament shows that parliamentarians do not perform their duties impartially and with an unbiased approach. Murli Manohar Joshi, Chairman of the Public Account Committee (PAC), has failed to maintain the confidence by outsourcing the drafting of the report and leaking the same. Similarly, the action of UPA members of the PAC who went to the extent of electing Congress Rajya Sabha member Saifuddin Soz as their chairman and rejecting the draft report is equally deplorable.

These seasoned parliamentarians are morally bankrupt. People cannot believe these unethical, biased and selfish leaders any more. They have no moral right to be on bodies of public importance. The nation is not safe in the hands of such unethical and shallow and narrow thinking leaders, who cannot see beyond the interest of their parties. They cannot mislead and misinform the people just to pursue their selfish agendas. They have made the largest democracy of the world a big farce and lowered the image of this great nation. People must rise to the occasion and revolt. There is an urgent need to overhaul the whole political system.

Capt AMAR JEET KUMAR (retd), Via email

Bird lover

The middle “Surprise in the love of life” (Apr 9) by Sanjeev Singh Bariana is a befitting tribute to the bird lover, the late Ruby (Vandana Sharma). Her unabated love for the avian populations was appreciable. It was shocking to know that Ruby died because of Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis (ABPA) which was caused by an allergy to bird-droppings.

The fungus that causes infection is harboured by these droppings. Ruby passed away on March 20, which also happened to be “World Sparrow Day”. Love needs-sacrifice and she proved so by paying with her life. May her soul rest in peace.

HARBANS SINGH, Ambala Cantt

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The middle was thought-provoking and interesting. It was ignorance on Ruby’s part to fall prey to the allergy due to birds’ droppings, which carry fungus infection. Indeed, her love for birds became her undoing.

RIKHI DASS THAKUR, Hamirpur

Funding elections

The article “State funding: An overdue reform” (Apr 13) by V Eshwar Anand has rightly pointed out that over the years, the reform in question has often been debated but never pursued to its logical conclusion. He has thoroughly weighed the pros and cons of the proposal and seems to have endorsed the predominant view that where implementation of the proposal would involve mind-boggling cost to the state exchequer, the outcome would be of dubious merit. It would be inadvisable to take a leap in the dark, under the circumstances.

TARA CHAND, Ambota (Una)

Mothers’ love

The middle “Mothers are special” (April 13) by Raj Mehta made an interesting reading as it beautifully brought out the writer’s ardent love, affection, attachment, respect and veneration for his mother.

Mothers are an epitome of selfless and self-sacrificing love, strength, composure, humility and generosity. Those of us who are fortunate and blessed enough to have mothers must celebrate and idolise them. The void created by mothers’ absence can never be fulfilled.

Tagore in his poem “I can’t remember my mother” poignantly brings out a motherless child’s yearning for the vivid memories of his mother whom he lost at a tender age. Nothing can make up for this irreparable loss because there is no substitute for a mother.

Similarly Nissim Ezekiel in the poem “Night of the scorpion” beautifully threw light on the attributes of a mother who undergoes long hours of acute pain inflicted by a scorpion bite on one of her toes. Her misery is doubled when her husband sets her toe on fire to neutralise the poison. When she recovers from the deadly effect of the poison, she first of all thanks god that the scorpion had picked on her and spared her children because it was unthinkable and unbearable for her that her children should ever suffer. There are many examples that justify the title of the middle.

TARSEM S. BUMRAH, Batala

Son fixation Nonika Singh’s middle “Oh brother…” (Apr 23) has well exposed our obsessive fixation for a son. In the same context I have also an interesting anecdote to relate. When my daughter was born, we distributed sweets among our neighbours and near and dear ones in the city. While accepting sweets, they instinctively congratulated us for “having been blessed with a son”. They could not imagine that sweets can be distributed on the occasion of the birth of a girl. Does not our desire to have only boys in the family betray our convoluted mindset? We do not realise that the human race will come to an end if female foeticide and infanticide continue relentlessly.  It is not understandable why women are considered inferior to men. In our society men are not ready to give the same freedom to women as they want for themselves. Honour killings are the result of their double standards. Whatever our religions or culture may profess, Indian society is not fair to the fair sex. SATWANT KAUR, Mahilpur