About death penalty

Imposing Hindi
September 14 was celebrated as Hindi Divas throughout the country. We all are aware that unity in diversity is the underlying principle of our country. But we are also aware that there is a linguistic diversity in our country. The Constitution officially recognises 22 languages. Hindi is just one of the languages recognised by the Constitution which is used officially by the central government. The states, with the powers bestowed upon them, have the right to choose their regional language as the language of their state. Yet, Hindi is being ‘implemented’ in the Central government institutes throughout the country like post offices, banks, railways, in spite of the states having their own languages. Knowing Hindi is also one of the preconditions for getting jobs in Central government institutes. This is clearly against the spirit of India.
—Vivek Shankar, Bengaluru

II
Hindi is mentioned as the official language in our Constitution. This indirectly means that other languages are unofficial and unwelcome in the Indian constitution. This has lead to a misconception in people’s mind that Hindi is our national language and learning it will make you more Indian. Starting from school, students have been taught Hindi as our national language. Navodaya schools were setup to provide high quality education to rural students for free. CBSE and ICSE boards were setup to help students migrating from different states. But the government, which is supposed to act neutral on its part, made Hindi mandatory. The government is always coming up with new initiatives and programmes to promote Hindi. India is a diverse country with many languages, communities and cultures. Making people learn a alien language (Hindi) in non-Hindi speaking states is a suicidal attempt on the government’s part.
—Babu Ajay, Bangalore

Ignoring other sports
Apropos ‘Asian Champions Trophy: Sad our fans couldn’t watch Ind beat Pak, says Sreejesh’, (September 14), it was indeed a crying shame that most of the English media practically ignored the great accomplishment of the Indian hockey team in winning the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy. The press probably had more ‘interesting’ news  to cover, like a thoroughly overrated Sania Mirza improving her ‘doubles ranking’ by a whisker, or a glum Dhoni trotting out the same inane excuses, for the umpteenth time. To add insult to injury, Hockey India announced the ‘(un)princely’ prize money of Rs25,000 for each player. The lousy excuse given is that they do not have more money. No wonder our former Olympians, each one a legend, has vociferously protested against this insult to Indian Hockey and our victorious heroes. All Indian hockey lovers will be eager to find out if our media wake up from their slumber and fight for Indian hockey and the players.
—V Chandramohan, Mumbai    

II
After defeating Pakistan and getting crowned as the world champions, the Indian hockey players received a paltry sum of Rs25,000 each for their achievement (‘Asian Champions Trophy: Sad our fans couldn’t watch Ind beat Pak, says Sreejesh’, September 14). It is a miserable amount compared to the sum of Rs1 crore given to the cricket players after they were crowned world cricket champions. Clearly, hockey has lost popularity with the people; otherwise this kind of disparity would never have taken place. None of our TV channels even showed this spectacular victory over Pakistan. Instead of casting blame for the sinking fortunes of hockey, it would be a good idea to emulate the example of BCCI and build up the game’s popularity. Even though the new sports minister Ajay Maken is doing a good job, the government cannot be depended upon to promote hockey to the level of cricket.
—KV Satyamurty, Mumbai

About death penalty 
Recently, much controversy has arisen because of the inordinate delay in disposing off the mercy petitions of people sentenced to death by the Supreme Court.  This delay is now being used to save the guilty from gallows. The way things are, it will not be surprising that even Kasab will get away. Our home minister has stated that the sentence, if at all carried out, will be sequentially. When all legal help has been give to the accused, that too on the tax payer’s money, and due course of law has been followed after which the verdict has been given by the highest court of the land, where is the question of presidential pardon? Why is there so much delay in taking the decision? Should this not be the most important duty of the President? Logically, only the relatives of the victims, who suffer the most, should have the power of pardoning the accused.
—Shivram Ayyer, via email

Expensive gold
As the yellow metal becomes unaffordable to almost 95% of the population due to skyrocketing prices, the incidents of chain snatching are also on rise. Unfortunately, senior citizens have become easy targets for these chain snatchers. There have been incidents of chain snatching of people out for morning walks. It would be advisable for all senior citizens and those who wear gold ornaments not to go for morning walks wearing such expensive ornaments. These recent incidents of chains snatching must be taken as eye-opener. The police should take immediate steps to curb the menace
—MV Nahusharaj, via email

CAG report
I should think most people were waiting for the CAG’s report on the aviation ministry’s handling of the national carriers (‘Air India move to acquire 111 planes a recipe for disaster: CAG’, September 8). The agency has rightly pointed out the devil-may-care attitude adopted by Praful Patel has brought the current problems to the national carriers. What they must also look at is how his decisions may have benefited the private carriers, if any. The PM must act swiftly if he is to gain the confidence of the people.
—Llewellyn Ferreira, Mumbai