A barbaric act

A barbaric act
The assassination of Pakistan’s minister for minority affairs Shahbaz Bhatti for his criticism of the Islamic Republic’s contentious blasphemy law  is a barbaric act and deserves to be condemned (‘Minister shot dead in Pakistan’, March 3). That this has taken place in less than two months after the murder of Salman Taseer is even more shocking because it seems the government has no control over hardliners.  Strangely, the security guards provided to Shahbaz Bhatti were absent when the Taliban jihadis attacked him. Thus, the collusion of his security guards cannot be ruled out. The question thus arises: Who will be next? How long will the Pakistani government allow such atrocities to happen? For India, a Pakistan seized and controlled by jihadis is a potential threat due to its proximity and its hostility. 
— Valli S Rajan, Kalyan

Restore the old glory
I have been a subscriber of DNA for the last 2 years. I am very disappointed with the changes that have resulted in reducing the business supplement in size and content. When DNA started, it brought a very wonderful combination of a general newspaper with a strong business content. It had a full page on stock prices and other important details about companies. I believe, this was the USP of the paper. But the business supplement is now only 6 pages with increased ad content. To my dismay, I now find that the paper has stopped publishing the stock-price table too. Instead, it is publishing the NAVs of mutual funds. NAVs are very slow in movement as compared to stock prices. The day-to-day variation of NAVs is not as dramatic, and hence, not as newsworthy as stock price variation. I request you to restore the business supplement to its older glory. 
—SS Gangurde, via email

Motormen’s demands
It may sound insignificant that a few motormen have recently raised demands for better work ethics, timings and facilities but when you consider that they ferry almost 7-8 million passengers each day in Mumbai, the magnitude of the problem becomes nerve-racking. These motormen are denied leave owing to shortage of back-up staff, they don’t get clean rest rooms, they don’t have proper drinking water facilities nor decent toilets, the railway officers don’t issue sickness certificates, forcing them to operate the trains even when they are unwell and under enormous stress, no adjustment of working hours which forces them to operate without any breaks. Moreover, in recent times the number of services and frequency of trains has gone up and this adds to the high pressures in which these motormen have to work. The railway authorities claim that with the technology on hand they can prevent mishaps, instead of the safety factor being at the hands of the stressed out motormen alone. But, occupational hazards render that same technology useless and leaves a veritable death trap for lakhs of commuters.  
—Deepak Agharkar, via email

Commendable acceptance, PM
This is with reference to ‘I accept responsibility: PM’, (March 5). Prime minister Manmohan Singh’s straightforward acceptance of responsibility for appointment of PJ Thomas as central vigilance commissioner is commendable. After Supreme Court’s verdict holding the appointment illegal, Union law minister Veerappa Moily and Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhavi tried to absolve the PM of any responsibility by terming the appointment of Thomas as a “systematic failure in governance” and as an “error” of judgment respectively. It was a majority based decision taken by the prime minister and the home minister ignoring the dissent of the third member, the leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj. The appointment was aggressively defended by the government. Since the Supreme Court has liberated the Constitutional institution from the wrong man and restored its integrity, the matter should now be put to rest.
—MC Joshi, Lucknow