The tasks before the nation are increasing even as the time available to complete them is shrinking, with the national election fair 2014 round the corner. What better way than to go for a division of labour. The finance ministry is singularly engaged in bringing down the CAD and the RBI with inflation. But the GDP that lost its patron saints quite a while ago has an unlikely saviour in the high ground level inflation that props it up by at least 20%. The political parties are not behind. If one attends to majority concerns, the other nurses the minority affairs even as regional chieftains micromanage the interests of the many ?divisional? components thereof. To lighten the huge burden on foreign policy, issues now stand reduced to bare basics, visas; stapled ones of China and the US ones, for our IT men. Our neighbours have to fend for themselves without us for some time. The media is equally eager to share the nation’s ballooning judicial burden. Their studios have been refitted as fast track courts that can come with same-day judgements on crimes of every description. The common man is at his stoic best, crying over high vegetable prices even as he buys into gold, breaking a 10-year record in Q2-2013! Everyone is doing his best to unwind the tangled web of a nation beset with problems. The nation is getting set to visit the 2014 election fair. The central attraction will be the EVM with an array of buttons that one needs to choose and press for the set of dreams he alone fancies. The variety of choices before him is sure to be mind-boggling. The saving grace in all this is that the next fair is not due for another five years.
R Narayanan
Ghaziabad
A great human, laid to rest
Nelson Mandela, the icon of peace, was finally laid to rest in his home village. Here what comes to mind is that being a good human being is, sometimes, not an easy process. He who can understand and stick to the values and virtues of life is a good human being. And he who is able to forgive the opponents and yet make them understand the principles of life is a complete human being. Nelson Mandela?s tireless struggle for freedom, humility and compassion earned him the respect of the world. His connections with India were very strong and special. A great human being has been lost and the world has become that much more poor.
Srinivasan Umashankar
Nagpur
