Mercy petitions

Mercy petitions
About two files of mercy petitions of around eight death-row convicts, which were recently under consideration of the President, have been commuted to life imprisonment. It will be a real test for the soft-hearted head of state when the mercy petition of Afzal Guru comes up before her for final disposal. That will also set a precedent for the most likely outcome of the Ajmal Kasab case presently making rounds in the corridors of the judiciary.
—Jorhat Singh, via email

Rising prices
The edit ‘Good sense — at last’, (DNA, June 26), made little sense to the common man bulldozed by the burden of ever-increasing prices of essential commodities. Decontrolling petrol prices will result in spiralling price rise of all essential commodities and the common man will be hard put to face it. Subsidy on petroleum products and cooking gas is more out of compulsion than choice for any government until the gains of open economy reaches far and wide and economic level of common man rises substantially. India needs to push economic reforms with wisdom and not haste and in the process prepare the common man for all eventualities step by step.
—Ashok Goswami, Mumbai

Revised taxes
The revised discussion paper on Direct Taxes Code on income and wealth taxes is not in the interest of most tax payers, especially those with income from shares — long term and short term capital gains. If such income is to be taxed as proposed as ordinary income, then provisions of setting off and / brought forward losses must be same as those applicable to rest of the income. In the history of income tax law, capital gains was introduced as a temporary measure but it has become a permanent feature of Indian Income Tax law. Therefore, it is best to abolish capital gains altogether.
—M Kumar, via email

For public good
It is commendable that our civic corporators, including the mayor, decided to fly off to Singapore to participate in a seminar about water desalination project which, they feel, can be implemented in the city and could be of use to the people (‘Corporators snub CM, fly off on their own’, DNA, June 27). Study tours to foreign countries at civic expense have been many, but ‘on their own steam’ is indeed the first instance of this kind. While the noble motivation cannot be denied, the use of international projects to the people remains to be seen — provided the group doesn’t file for reimbursement on
return to office.
—KK Wajge, Mumbai