THE articles on the moon mission were excellent (Cover Story, “Destination Moon”, November 21).

Sitapati Mukherjee
Kolkata

THE launch of Chandrayaan-1 may be a great achievement for India’s scientific community, but will it help the common man fight hunger and poverty? India’s meagre resources would be better spent in eradicating hunger.

Dr. Vitull K. Gupta Bhatinda,
Punjab

IS it prudent to spend taxpayers’ money on a mission that other countries have already undertaken? Many developed countries use their money to improve the standard of living of their people.

S.R. Devaprakash Tumkur,
Karnataka

PRAFUL BIDWAI has hit the nail on the head in his column (“Saffron terror”, November 21). All these years, Indian Muslims have been accused of living in a world of “denial” and not willing to accept the “fact” that the young among them are involved in unleashing terror on the Indian state. As a young Muslim, I know the suffering and frustration that has become the order of the day for India’s largest minority. Repeated demands for comprehensive probes into terror attacks covering the Hindutva angle fell on deaf ears. I suppose the alleged involvement of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur is only the tip of the iceberg and more such revelations will follow. I hope the Malegaon blast investigation is taken to its logical conclusion.

Muthi-ur-Rahman Siddiqui
Bangalore

Raj Thackeray

THE arrest of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray was seen by many people as a bold step. But his release the next day showed that the Indian Penal Code had no teeth and the State government was soft-pedalling on the issue in view of the vote bank at stake (“Hate campaign”, November 21). Violence in the name of a popular cause should always be nipped in the bud. The burning of railway coaches in Bihar was also uncalled for.

S. Balakrishnan
Jamshedpur

IT is sad that regionalism is coming to the fore in Indian politics. Politicians play vote-bank politics for their own selfish interests.

Mahesh Kapasi
New Delhi

IT is tragic that violence has become a part of life in the country. It is sad that no political leader is able to stand up to parochialism and the likes of Raj Thackeray.

Akhil Kumar
New Delhi

RABBLE-ROUSING will not help anyone in the long run. It will only tarnish the image of Maharashtra.

K.P. Rajan
Mumbai

THE killing of the young man from Bihar in police action in Mumbai has given political leaders from Bihar a chance to shed crocodile tears.

This was not the first instance of attacks on Biharis outside their home State. Why have Bihar’s leaders failed to address the issue so far?

Rajnish Kumar Jha
New Delhi

Salwa Judum

THE conclusions drawn by the team appointed by the National Human Rights Commission to inquire into the activities of Salwa Judum seem to have been pre-determined (“Far from fair”, November 21).

It would be a sad day for our democracy if these half-truths, based primarily on one-sided information, were actually accepted by the Supreme Court.

Dr. Nutan Thakur
Lucknow

SUSHIL KUMAR DASH’S book Climate Change: An Indian Perspective is timely (“The earth is sick”, November 21).

One hopes the book will generate greater awareness about climate change among the public and policymakers.

Bhanu Pratap Singh
Varanasi

Greed factor

MONEY, originally conceived as a convenient tool for human progress, has emerged as the objective of human quest (Cover Story, “Bubble Burst”, November 7). The natural curiosity of human beings had laid the foundations of science, engineering and technology.

But now every human effort is measured in terms of money.

Alwar Naidu Sadanala Nellore,
Tamil Nadu

CORRECTION

In the article on Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle technology ("Maximum power, November 7), the last row of the table should read "APGENCO, 2009, India; 125 (planned); High ash coal; 210 (estimate); 7.6 (estimate); 31.7%" and not as published.

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