God for sale

YOU have struck the right note in your editorial entitled Godless Country. It is really a shame that god, religion and faith, have been made "products for marketing and profit by merchants of religion". Can they fool the people of India for all times to come? It is not just a godless country that we are living in, it is a godless world. Anyone with muscle and money power can take the law and humanity for a ride within nations and in global politics. Real gods are dead. It is money, oil, weapons, land and buildings of places of worship which have assumed the mask of gods. The people of faith must come together to expose these new crusaders. God is not the private property of merchants, retired bureaucrats and gangster-politicians. We must tell them, "Please leave God alone" because people who have real faith know that god lives in their hearts and minds and not in buildings, gatherings of men of muscle. No, let us say no. We will not let them put god for sale.

Manohar Lal
Faizabad

Victims of judiciary

IT refers to ‘The growing rot in the judiciary’ (October II issue). British judges in India were given immunity to save them from ire of Indian freedom fighters. But same immunity is unfortunately continuing in ‘free’ India even after 50 years of Independence with the then Chief justice of India Justice S.P. Bharucha honestly confessing about high-level of unchecked corruption in Supreme Court and High Courts in our unaccountable judicial system. Despite judiciary’s effort to keep media shut against misconduct, some bold publications have been able to highlight some cases involving judges of higher courts. But what about numerous individual judicial victims who face hardships in courts due to open bias of judges to favour the selected ones! Irony of the situation is that even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) expresses its inability to rescue such judicial victims.

A well-publicised mechanism must be there to probe and punish judges of higher courts. The National Judicial Commission (NJC) with Chief Justice as head, can serve the purpose with retired judges of Supreme Court acting as nominees of President, Prime Minister and Opposition leader. The Central Vigilance Commissioner may be ex-officio member of NJC.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Delhi

Mushing up peace?

B Raman’s penetrating report on the strange honeymoon between the Bush and Musharraf regimes in America and Pakistan is an eye-opener. Musharraf has emerged as the world’s greatest liar, misgoverning a country.

Bush seems to have deliberately chosen to love all the political and military liars of the highest order in the world. Together they are mushing up peace of South Asia. Bin Laden is there and not there. Mallah Omar is alive, he is dead; he is not in Pakistan, and he is in Pakistan. How long will the greatest liars in human history try to take the world
for a ride?

Prabhakar Kumar
Gopalganj, Bihar

City of sorrow

This is an ardent wish and appeal that news magazines like yours, always in the forefront to take up issues of public concern and interest, must take up the shocking malady of rape, which is rocking the country's Capital. The rape of the Swiss woman diplomat at the parking lot of the venue of India's International Film Festival should make all authorities at all levels, deeply concerned.

We, the women of Delhi, are pained and ashamed of the blame-passing game which the authorities of the Union and the State Government, the Ministries of Home, Information and Broadcasting, the Delhi Administration, the Delhi Development Authority and the Delhi Police. If the intention is to water down the gravity of the crime, then shame on all of them. The Swiss woman diplomat and the Indian woman film-maker who were attacked by the rapists, should remind the impotent political leaders and civil service top brass that they are increasingly failing to provide security to women in the country's Capital.

There is a need to enact a law of accountability under which politicians and bureaucrats will be held responsible for cases of growing crimes against women. At least the authorities should think of the formation of a strong Women's Police Force to tackle the situation with a policewoman like Kiran Bedi as its head. The politicians who consistently indulge in double standards in the issue of empowerment of women seem to be incompetent of looking after the women's security . Let them admit their incompetence and failure and let women tackle the issues where they fail.

An angry woman
Delhi

Roads to nowhere

IF the neglect of the maintenance and repair of roads in Delhi and an unchecked increase in the vehicular population of the Capital was allowed to continue at the present rate, Delhi will soon become a city with roads to nowhere. There is constant wrangle as to who is to be responsible for the maintenance and repair of which road among various authorities of the Delhi and the Union Governments. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the State and the Union PWD Departments and sometimes even NDMC are proud to own their very own roads but shamelessly neglect their maintenance and repair. Behind this is the rampant corruption in the agencies responsible for road maintenance and repair. There is a road mafia in operation in DDA, the MCD and other agencies in which clerks, engineers and contractors all seem to be involved. Will someone tell us who will take proper action, how and when?