Retain HAL airport for domestic flights

Sir,

According to reports, the Bangalore International Airport cannot take more than the present accepted level of  traffic. In the coming years, the air traffic is expected to increase in a big way also.

Also to reach the BIAL, one has to spend a lot of time because of traffic jams in the city.

To ease the tension of traffic snarls to reach the new airport as well as to accommodate the old one, I feel the present HAL Airport must be earmarked for domestic flights. This will also  ease the flow of domestic air traffic.

I believe, this will help people from places like Mysore, Hassan, Shimoga, Gulbarga and Bijapur to have a smooth traffic movement within the city without the trouble of visiting the new Airport. If media reports are to be believed, Centre is expected to give its nod to construct new airports at Hassan, Shimoga and Gulbarga, which will also help to connect rural areas with international destinations.

Shanthakumar
Mauritius


Sinking ship

Sir,

Congressmen admit in private that Sonia’s reading out of a written speech describing Narendra Modi as “merchant of death”, boomeranged on them and resulted in the Congress losing the elections in Gujarat. But they are not bold enough to point out to her this blunder. Now that they have lost, they are  blaming the  Gujarat Congress leaders. Let Congressmen understand that their party is a sinking ship, neither Sonia nor her son can bring it back to its original glory.

A Srikantaiah
Bangalore

Over confidence

Sir,

The Congress lost very badly in Gujarat not only due to the Modi wave, but also due to the fact that the party, after 2004 Lok Sabha win, became over-confident and over estimated the capacity and charisma of Sonia Gandhi.
They should have realised this after the UP elections, wherein Rahul Gandhi’s praise of “the family” and its achievements did not win votes. The BJP also should not become over confident with this victory, and adopt the4 Modi formula at the national level. What worked in Gujarat may not work at national level.

P S Prabhu
Bangalore

Holistic approach

Sir,

This is with reference to the article on mental illness (DH, Dec 24). In addition to medicines, a holistic approach is also needed in most of  cases as the root cause can be traced to poor upbringing. Besides peer pressure and parental expectations compound matters. Let  children be given unconditional love instead of trying to realise our dreams through them.

R Narendran
Bangalore

Caste politics

Sir,

The efforts of UP chief minister Mayawati, to spread her wings in Karnataka is pregnant with possibilities if her social engineering experiment in UP takes roots here. But the point to be noted is that Karnataka is not UP as the state is not casteised yet and the people are generally forward looking with no baggage of caste and religion and already there are entrenched politicians espousing the causes of one caste or the other or of one religion or the other!

V Padmanabhan
Bangalore

Amendments

Sir,

Regarding the Sakrama scheme, the Karnataka High Court has stayed the operation of legislation till February 6, 2008 and asked the government to revise the un-scientific elements after thoroughly understanding the needs and aspirations of the citizens. The amendment has to be implemented in a systematic and rational manner after ruling out all the abnormalities and  ambiguities.  The scheme in its present format, will only help the big offenders rather than the poor and middle class citizens.

R Jayakumar
Bangalore