All acquitted
The stark contradictions that plague the Babri Masjid demolition case verdict force one to question the judicial objectivity of courts in India.
The watershed judgment is in spite of the multitude of evidence in the form of visuals, news reports, speeches and even verbal testimonials about the involvement of those acquitted in the demolition. The verdict comes at an inopportune time as the halting of Amnesty International’s activities, which has focused global attention on the country. It is quite disconcerting as the secular credentials that India has upheld since Independence have been subjected to the opprobrium of the international media.
Jacob J. Puthenveettil,
Thiruvanathapuram
India’s virus ‘peak’
The writers of the article, “Imperatives after India’s September virus peak” (Editorial page, September 29), claim that the country has reached the peak of the epidemic curve, but this assertion is based on a flawed assumption. Observing the currently decreasing trend of average daily reported cases of 85,156 (September 19-25) from the figure of 91,801 (during the fortnight of September 5-18) is good news, but suffers some faults in modelling. The faults lie in the: assumption of the COVID-19 positive or silently infected population to be around 480-600 million based on the ICMR Survey Round-1 (May 11-June 4); the sero-positivity rate of 0.73%, whereby it is inferred that for every RT-PCR positive case there were 82-130 undocumented infections. When we apply this correction factor — as the writers rightly did — we have already reached a figure of above 35% of India’s total population. But the ICMR, just a day after the article, published a revised sero-positivity rate of 6.6% in Round-2 (August 17-September 22) of the result released recently. Thereby, the community-level of infection is only 26-32 infections per reported cases, say 30 times that which is lab confirmed. This will reduce the presumed hidden community infection to 192 million (30% of 1,380 million, which is the total population of India) — way behind the 414 million minimum level of the population which needs to be infected for herd immunity.
This must be an eye-opener. But let us not have unrealistic consolation. We still have densely populated mosaics all over the country where the virus has not reached. When will it reach and explode after the ‘Unlocking’ steps we cannot predict if we apply maturity of wisdom rather than relying on partially-known epidemiology.
Dr. Antony K.R.,
Kochi
S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
S.P. Balasubrahmanyam is certainly a great and popular film playback singer. If Lata Mangeshkar can be conferred with the Bharat Ratna, so can even K.J. Yesudas and SPB. There are other greats such as M.S. Viswanathan, T.M. Soundararajan and even Illaiyaraja to name a few who too can be considered. Dr. Balamuralikrishna shone like a beacon in classical Carnatic music and the celluloid world. He was a great popular singer, innovator par excellence and composer par excellence. When alive, his fans wished the award to be conferred on him, but this does not seem to have reached the ears of those in the hierarchy who decide the awards. It is meaningful to show recognition when the person is alive and well.
V.P. Dhananjayan,
Chennai
