Ignoring the Ghats
While an impassioned pitch for environmental protection by a politician is rare, one cannot miss the inauthenticity in Sonia Gandhi’s article (“Stop the dismantling of environmental rules”, August 13). She did not mention the Gadgil Committee’s report on the Western Ghats. The yearly floods and landslides in Kerala are largely thanks to the previous Congress-led UDF government’s decision to ignore Madhav Gadgil’s recommendation to classify 64% of the Western Ghats as Ecologically Sensitive Area zones and instead accept the watered down recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee.
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V.N. Mukundarajan,
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Thiruvananthapuram
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Running mate
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The choice of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate has electrified the hitherto lacklustre democratic campaign for the 2020 presidential race (“Kamala Harris to be Biden’s running mate”, August 13). Given that she is a biracial child of immigrants, Ms.
Harris truly represents the diversity of the U.S. Generally, running mates don’t matter much in the campaign, but in this case, it looks like Ms. Harris has the potential to change the game for the party.
Kosaraju Chandramouli,
Hyderabad
Kamala Harris is a worthy choice as running mate. However, she may not be the fillip that will help Joe Biden cross the finish line. Despite the Trump administration’s gross mismanagement of the pandemic, the American electora is by nature quite traditional in its voting habits. The moderate voters of the suburbs and the working class white voters are likely to vote for Donald Trump. It remains to be seen whether swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Mr. Trump won in 2016, will support Mr. Biden this time.
G. Parameswaran,
Coimbatore
Hindi matters
Kanimozhi is right in flagging the issue to the higher-ups in the CISF, but it is high time the Dravidian parties rethink their stand on the language policy(“CISF to deploy personnel with ‘working knowledge of local language’ at airports”, August 12). For those relocating from Tamil Nadu to northern States, not knowing Hindi puts them at a disadvantage. The powers that be need to stop looking at the language issue only through the ideological lens; Hindi is among the most useful languages to know if one is travelling to north India.
V.V. Koushik,
Chennai
Sexual assault
It is dismaying that delay in hospital admission is a possible reason for the girl succumbing to her injuries (“Sexual assault victim dies in Hyderabad”, August 13) . Such cases need immediate medical intervention. Hospitals should not insist on paperwork when life is at stake. It is also sickening that orphanages are not safe.
Deepika Jain,
Delhi