Sir,
Kalmadi lost his credibility
You have rightly pointed out in your editorial ‘Indefensible act’ DH 20/10 that ‘it is not Hooper but those in charge of many bodies which are responsible for the preparations for the Games who need replacement’. Kalmadi besides being inefficient by not completing the work as required had audacity of confronting with CGF about their rights to monitor the work. He had crossed the limits by terming Mr. Mike Hooper as predicament to the progress of the work and demanded his removal. As suggested in your editorial the CGF work must be handed over to central authority as Kalmadi lost his credibility.

K R Anandagopalan

Bangalore 

 Dumka aerodrome drama
Though Rajnath Singh and other top brass of the BJP state unit took off from Dumka aerodrome on Sunday evening only after BJP workers arranged for five- odd jeeps switched on their headlights to help the eight-seater chartered aircraft pilot see the runway. It was not only shocking but prove that how a national party’s (BJP) president Rajnath Singh was asked his pilot to comply his order took off ‘Citation’ jets which equipped with night take- off facilities, but the airstrip wasn’t equipped for it. As usual BJP sources in New Delhi had denied any role of Rajnath Singh to pressurize the pilot because “It was entirely the pilot’s decision because our party president was not in a haste to leave,” but it has raised several question (1) If Rajnath Singh was not in a haste to leave for Ranchi then why he couldn’t refuse to ride at night, then why the ‘emergency lights’ were arranged in violation of the rules? (2) If the pilot Cathy Seestrand, a woman and foreigner had violated the rules and regulation of the air traffic rule and to fly in the dark with such high profile VVIP endangering all of them lives should be booked immediately. Whatsoever, people want to see either the BJP president or the pilot of the Citation’ jet who are guilty to be given exemplary punishment to stop the VIP’s order to pilot and the pilot follow the order, which have caused many accident in the past. If there was any accident who will be blamed, the private jet, the pilot or the Aviation ministry?

Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee

Faridabad

Eligibility criteria for IIT-JEE
The Union Human Resources Development Minister has told that the eligibility criteria for admission test in the IIT-JEE entrance examination should be raised to 80% from the present level of 60% is welcome.   It is signaled that the test is going to be tougher and the aspiring students have to concentrate more.   The standard of education in our country has come down considerably to a low level.   Furthermore our education system is yet to see any reforms since independence.   None of our universities could find a place in the list of top 100 universities list in the world.   We are not encouraging talented and the meritorious students.  We are at present making our students a mediocre class.   So reforms aimed to tap merit and talent and making our system more competitive in the elite schools like IIT and IIMs should be welcome.

Sravana Ramachandran, Ooty.

Expansionist policy of china

Yes, India is soft pedaling on the issue of china's expansionist policy of snatching some portion of India; Aksai chin (1962) continuing to tolerate the same attitude when china claimed Arunachal Pradesh and announced its intention of snatching the same in the Google satellite maps in its Mandarin language.

     When china expressed its regret for its folly of claiming AP, we simply kept quiet and closed the chapter, as if it will not once again rake up the issue of AP. But it did not keep quiet and took undue advantage of our weakness and took objection to the visit of our PM to AP in connection with election in AP, which is in furtherance of taking over AP.

     Instead of expressing our concern to the expansionist policy of china to claim AP we should have taken strong exception in condemning china; by calling china's diplomat to our external ministry's office and expressing our condemnation about the expansionist policy of china in claiming AP. So that china takes further steps to avoid any claim on our state of AP in future.

B S Raghavendra Rao,

Bengaloru