Let us vow to reform ourselves first, let us adhere to the moral values and principles, let us give ear to the call of our conscience, and let us try to be true to ourselves. It shall not only cleanse ourselves but gradually lead to betterment of society, the system and its constituents.

SANJEEV TRIKHA, Fatehabad

Child counsellors at schools There is a need to substitute the rod with psychologists and child counsellors at educational institutions who can address the problems of the students and guide them if they go off-track (editorial “Spare the rod”, July 27). At the same time, teachers should be made to understand that the complaint mechanism is not undermining their authority and respect. The concerns of the teachers should also be accommodated. There is a need to take into account multiple factors while trying to curb corporal punishment at schools. Some students do engage with teachers in such a manner where the teacher must resort to some form of punishment. In fact, physical punishment is an ‘easy way out’ when the real need is for teachers to be patient with students. Similarly, there are parents who choose to punish their child instead of talking to him or her. H DEVDHARMI, Chandigarh

Met dept’s failure

The Meteorological Department has failed to predict monsoon rains over India. The failure is more reprehensible as India has spent billion of rupees in making the weather prediction precise and accurate. Latest gadgets, equipments, and the INSAT series of satellites are examples of how the country has poured in money to help our agriculturists. However, all this has come to naught as meteorologists have not predicted rain or lack of it correctly even in one area of the country.

It is a matter of grave concern because over 68% of our population is directly or indirectly related to agriculture. They look forward for weathermen’s forecast for indications to begin their sowing activities. But the Met Department keeps changing dates and fails to give any conclusive or concrete forecast.

They have played with figures by averaging the rainfall across the nation, for e.g. they disclosed overall 22% rain shortage in the country. Here they have added the flooding rain of Assam to the figures of rain in Punjab and Haryana which is short by 70%. The department has let the nation down. There must be a probe and fixing of responsibility.

SAROJ SHARMA, Amritsar

Casting ballots

A whopping 81 votes in the Presidential election were declared invalid including, 15 by our fellow parliamentarians. Though Election Commission's rejection of vote cast by Mulayam Singh Yadav can be understood as he was wrongly issued a second ballot paper after he tore the original ballot paper after realising that he had cast his vote in favour of PA Sangma rather than Pranab Mukherjee. But what about other lawmakers, both MPs and MLAs who wasted their vote? Lawmakers don't even know how to vote in such an important national election. It is highly deplorable that those who are duly elected by the electorate don't even understand how to vote a paper ballot.

Haryana earned the dubious distinction of polling the highest number of invalid votes.

HEMANT KUMAR, Ambala

Help small farmers

In Punjab, free electricity is given to all farmers irrespective of the size of agricultural land holding, big or small. My suggestion is that the farmers who own 10 acres of agricultural land or less may be provided free electricity for running tube wells. The big landlords living in the cities, having given their agricultural land to be cultivated on contract basis, are getting unnecessary subsidy. They can easily afford to pay the electricity bills.