Restoring army’s health

Restoring army’s health
It is heartening that the new army chief, General Vijay Kumar Singh, has taken cognisance of the deteriorating internal health of the armed forces. It would have been quite redeeming if the new chief would had shown more concern for the following, too: a) the need to increase defence allocations, b) giving a fillip to modernisation, c) stressing indigenisation, d) resolving to meet growing external and internal terror head-on, e) improving service conditions and above all, f) making soldiering a respectable profession by restoring its lost glory. Perhaps an honest introspection on the Supreme Court’s latest observation that one should not treat army men like beggars may restore the internal health of the armed forces much faster than any other diagnosis.
—Raghubir Singh, Pune

Female foeticide control
Apropos ‘SC warns ‘insensitive’ IT ministry on foeticides’, (DNA, April 6), it  is shameful that despite the Supreme Court’s repeated directions to evolve a mechanism by which websites promoting this shameful practice can be monitored nothing has been done so far. It may be recalled that although the United Nations Population Fund had extended financial assistance in 2005 to chalk out a programme to check and control female foeticide, nothing has been done so far. Now that the government’s efforts to build a consensus on the Women’s Reservation Bill is on cards, women activists must get involved to ensure that proper steps are taken to implement the Bill.
—Ashok K Nihalani, via email

Lopsided priority
The state human rights commission was appalled at the pathetic condition of the JJ Hospital mortuary, but the government had no qualms in spending a fortune for preserving the bodies of the nine Pakistani terrorists for over a year in controlled temperature and also building special coffins worth Rs12 lakh each (‘Bodies of nine 26/11 terrorists buried in ‘top secret’ mission’, DNA, April 7). The Rs108 lakh mindlessly spent on the coffins would have been better utilised to improve the conditions of the mortuary.  
—KP Rajan, Mumbai