Inspiring speech

Like a child, I sat for two hours watching Modi's interaction with children, across the country, on Teachers' Day. I think it was an excellent idea which touched the children and sent a positive message of hope. He spoke on the role of a teacher and shared his experiences. A major part of the interaction went in answering questions from students, mainly from government schools of far-flung areas, including Leh, Ladakh, Manipur and Chhattisgarh. He told the children to enjoy their childhood and, in the process, grow up healthy. His emphasis on girls’ toilets, reading, development of skills, enjoyment of nature and aiming to do something rather than become something was inspiring. The PM mixed with the students and made them feel as if ‘Chacha Modi’ was in their midst. The move should be appreciated by all for the sake of good education, dignity of a teacher and a smiling child.

Col R D Singh (rted), Ambala Cantt

Reaching out

Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi's interaction with school students on Teachers’ Day is a path-breaking initiative and will go a long way in laying fthe oundation for building a world class human resource.

Such an exercise should serve as an experiment as to how the Prime Minister can reach out to millions of people through the use of technology.

The way the Jan Dhan Yojna for giving banking and financial services to each Indian household is being implemented, the Digital India initiative can be a significant enabler for reaching the development benefits to the interior parts of the country.

SC DHALL, Zirakpur

Teacher’s Day message

Narendra Modi has become the first PM to interact with students and answer their questions in a simple language. He touched the hearts of students with his impressive live interaction. The PM rightly pointed out that every great personality owes his achievements to his mother and teacher. But today, how many teachers are remembered by their students? The advice to the children to devote energy on working honestly rather than nursing big ambitions will have an impact on the new generation and make them hardworking without undue pressure.

Dr K D Lakhanpal, Bilaspur

Unfair condition

In the Haryana Government notification for around 7,400 posts of school lecturer, the eligibility criterion for the posts of lecturer in computer science affects thousands of candidates who have earned degrees through the distance mode as it says that only those who have done MCA and M.Sc (Comp. Sc) through the regular mode are eligible to apply.

How can a government bar those who studied through the distance mode? If it does not recognise such degrees, why are these courses being run by various universities of Haryana?

Lalit Kumar Sharma, Bhiwani

Fiscal pruning must

Apropos the editorial “Letter from Centre” (September 6), it has been rightly pointed out that the profligacy of a state cannot be financed by the hard-earned money of taxpayers. The stae governments have to be pennywise as the rising deficit in the central budget indicates the limitation of the Centre for providing economic packages.

The power subsidy which is more than the revenue deficit of Punjab is a major reason for the state’s financial woes. Many state corporations are money-guzzling institutions and the political appointments in them compound the problems. The government should either do financial pruning or dissolve the corporations and shift manpower to other departments. New appointments should be done in extreme conditions only as the salary and pension bill of the Punjab Government is extraordinarily heavy.

Sandeepan, Panchkula

Good growth

Reference the editorial “Good growth pick-up” (September 1), the uptick in economic growth is nothing but a dead cat bounce. It is not a credible sign of the economy turning around. The prices of food items are continuously on the increase. The drought will aggravate the situation further. The din of the ‘achhe din’ has already started losing its appeal for the people.

The economy can be put on track only if the bottlenecks and deadweight coming in the way of implementing economic reforms are done away with. The populist policies of the UPA being followed by the NDA, though under different names, are just palliatives and not permanent solutions to people’s problems. The NDA needs to take hard decisions to fulfil its electoral promises.

HEMA, Langeri