Imran Khan’s ouster
In Pakistan, the Opposition, with its dubious political record, got through the ‘No Trust’ motion with a wafer thin margin, i.e., 174 votes. Therefore, it cannot be said based on this narrow majority that former Pakistan leader Imran Khan was wanting to cling to power or was trying to frustrate the parliamentary process. Looking at Mr. Khan’s political record, he stood firmly against corruption and refused to join with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan National Party whose track record against corruption does not need citing.
If Mr. Khan wanted to delay the ‘No Trust’ move, it is because he had the interests of the Pakistani people at heart. America wants to have a Pakistan which will toe the NATO line whereas Mr. Khan was against it. He did not declare a state of emergency, but wanted an early election. Majoritarianism in Parliament is one test of democracy but not the only one.
N.G.R. Prasad,
Chennai
Greetings, response
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. But, alas, the response was a horror. I could not imagine that the Prime Minister of a neighbouring country would stoop low. His references to Kashmir in his inaugural speech were bad. Is this the manner of reciprocation from a newly sworn-in Prime Minister to the usual greetings from his counterpart, who had in all earnestness desired peace and stability? Is this not spewing venom? How can India expect that its relations with Pakistan will be smooth?
Mani Natarajan,
Chennai
Insensitive
It is extremely distressing to read the West Bengal Chief Minister’s remarks in connection with the rape and death of a Class 9 student in West Bengal (Inside pages, April 12). Such a comment, especially from a woman Chief Minister, and when the investigation is still in its nascent stage, is not only most uncalled for but also betrays her complete lack of sensitivity and empathy. It is akin to expressing doubt over whether the police would be able to carry out a proper investigation.
One hopes that there is justice and fair play after the High Court’s order of a probe.
S.K. Choudhury,
Bengaluru
Language barrier
Language is something which we either acquire or inherit and every single person has his or her own unique way of utilising the linguistic corpus. All of us would have been exposed to a minimum of two languages in our lifetime. Apart from this, we all naturally pick various words for better communication. Imposing a single language will not work.
Recently, we had to utilise a helpline facility after a problem. But the issue in India is that most of the helplines under central agencies respond only in Hindi. We had an issue at a toll plaza while travelling on a highway and calling the helplines was of no help. The personnel manning the help desk were responding only in Hindi, which we could not understand as we speak little Hindi. We could not put our point across and had to pay double charges. Nearly a month has passed and we are still trying to find out why the system failed us.
Nirmala Narayanan,
Bengaluru
Travails of MSMEs
The resilient measures proposed in the article, “In pandemic shock, critical lessons for MSMEs” (Editorial page, April 12), seem far from effective. First, funds like ‘Uncertainty Corpus Fund’ cater well to the organised sections but MSMEs, as acknowledged in the article, are largely unorganised which was why they could not avail any other financial benefits. Second, there are already numerous lucrative insurance schemes in operation in India offered by the private players. One cannot find any reason for MSMEs to opt for government-backed insurance schemes over private schemes. Third, the crisis being faced by MSMEs is not directly due to a lack of funds at hand but as a consequence of several structural issues such as supply chain bottlenecks, lack of availability of raw materials, shortage of demand, and not having adequate skilled workers. Sadly, neither corpus funds nor insurance schemes can address these issues.
Bitra Raghuveer,
Mangalagiri, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh
