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Safety
of our ports
This refers to Vijay Sakhuja’s feature ‘How safe are Indian
ports from terrorist activities?’ (Jan 3). If one delves into
the annals of history, it will be gleaned that intrusions
through the water route have been sporadic and whenever they
have taken place, they have either had a commercial orientation
or were attempted by countries that had a strong maritime
presence. In modern times as well, terrorist-related activities
have not extended too much to water bodies.
The vastness of water and its nature of marooned isolation
deters intruders to take recourse to these routes, as in general,
the preferred mode of intrusion is stand alone or in groups
of three-four that escapes detection. Intrusion through water
is primarily a group-based activity that involves great logistics
and is bound to come under scrutiny at one point or the other.
In the Indian context, the intruder has to traverse a long
distance if (s)he so decides to use the water channel and
the time incurred in commuting stealthily may not be available
to terrorists. Moreover, the primary target of terrorists
is North India, which does not have a maritime boundary with
our neighbours. Another facet of the feature is that taking
recourse to water may not have entered the minds of the intruders,
but somebody out there after reading this feature may start
having ideas about adopting this route as well. Therefore,
a note of caution needs to be exercised in expressing opinions
of such kind for public consumption, especially in these troubled
times.
— Nalin Rai, on e-mail
Policy reform
This refers to P N Vijay’s article ‘Time the nation
got back to business’ (Jan 3). It is high on generalities
and low on specific action that is needed to get the nation
out of its economic morass. Coming as it does from a person
intimately connected with the BJP, it seems that the party’s
think tank is also a hot air factory. Does it need a dire
economic scenario to act, like 12/13 which roused the polity
out of its slumber with respect to terrorism?
If the polity is really concerned about the poor of this nation,
the actions needed are simple. Our ministries should begin benchmarking
their goals and actions internationally. If the tourism ministry
can’t make India a competitive destination as compared to China
and Thailand, it has no real reason to exist. The same goes
for labour, public health, education etc. The institutions that
act as checks and balances like the courts and anti-corruption
departments, or those which serve social purposes like the police,
health and education departments should be provided the necessary
resources and autonomy to perform their mandated tasks. It’s
better to have a regulatory regime than a minister wherever
possible, as Trai, Sebi etc have shown.
The e-governance campaign should be extended to put government
tenders, development projects, government departments’ and
political party finances online. The MP fund should be scrapped
as it often gets diverted to other causes. Fiscal responsibility
should extend to the municipality level. And it all begins
with restoring a political process where the ordinary citizen
standing for an election has an equal chance against the current
system of party goon vs party goon. The politician in power
must stop equating a speech with work done.
—K Yogi, on e-mail
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