Jewels of India

Jewels of India
AB Vajpayee has just celebrated his 87th birthday and the BJP is demanding that Bharat Ratna be conferred on the distinguished statesman. No one will differ that he deserves the honour.

At the same time the honour should be given to him out of love and affection, not on demand. Further, if he is conferred the honour, he will be joining a club where some of the recipients got the award not on their own merit but because of political compulsions and trade-offs. Better Vajpayee keeps himself away from a not-so-distinguished company. Another person for whom Bharat Ratna is being demanded is Sachin Tendulkar. True,
he is the greatest among current crop of sportsmen. But what has he really contributed to society and the general public?
— K Venkataraman, Mumbai

Pawar’s payback?
It appears to me that escalating the prices of agricultural produce is part of Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s way of hitting back at the UPA government for not protecting his interests. The opposition’s keenness to nail the government any which way also makes it Pawar’s opportunistic ally, as the common man, too, sees the present crisis more as the government’s responsibility than the agriculture minister’s machinations.
—Phiroze B Javeri, Mumbai

Unanswered questions
The way CBI closed the Aarushi murder case after two-and-a-half years for lack of evidence does not reflect well on the country’s famed investigating body (‘Did nobody kill Aarushi? CBI files closure report’, DNA, December 30). When the UP police floated theories on the Arushi-Hemraj murder case, even the then Noida SSP, A Satish Ganesh, declared it a case of honour killing. Closing cases like this will not only help the guilty but also encourage criminals as they will think that they can easily escape justice. There are many countries in the world where murder cases are never closed and in many cases the cultprit is arrested after many years. There are many unanswered questions that only the CBI could have cleared.By closing
the case, these questions are left unanswered.
— Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee, Faridabad