Sane counsel needed

Sir, - The photos on the front page of the people who were in search of water around Thar desert on either side in India and Pakistan and the report inside about the areas of Pakistan and Afganistan reeling under a drought like situation shows that natural fury and catastrophic situations know no boundary.

Geographical curse is heaped on all the people cutting across boundary lines and other distinctions like what happened in the past when we were fighting our grim battle with Pakistan in Kargil; the nature's fury struck the coastal Gujarat and its contiguous areas and even fishermen were tossed into each other's territories by the heavy currents.

It is deplorable that our vital resources are devoured and our attention diverted in the creation of Kargils, Pokhrans and Chagais and we do not give any thought to its wider implications. Our vital resources are wasted in the realisation of wrong myopic selection of the issues where no one will be the true victor.

A deplorable suggestion came from a person like Mr. P. K. Iyengar, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, for the development of the neutron bomb which would be a self- attrition course.

Conversely we laugh at the suggestion of the most celebrated economist, Dr. Amartya Sen, about the curtailment of about 5 per cent in the defence budget for both India and Pakistan which would provide twenty times enough money for imparting primary education to our children. Who cares for such genuine concern?

We are in the midst of global change where the harsh realities of life are being felt and the possible solutions for them being searched out.

The integration of east and west Germany, the end of apartheid in South Africa and the situation holding out a possible solution to the intractable Palestine imbroglio are the heartening episodes in the post cold war era.

But we do not like to see the immense benefit of the rapprochement and are being pushed into an insalubrious situation where aspirations of the common people are left unaddressed. We are in a volatile man-made situation where managing things perfectly would be difficult. And we have to reckon with depredatory policies of Pakistan - sorry to say we also make their work easier by giving enough fillip to the disgruntled forces to work against us.

Asad Bin Saif,

Mumbai

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