Stealing cars is fun

Sir — An advertisement inserted by a leading car manufacturer of India in The Telegraph on May 19 should serve as an eye-opener to car-owners and the government. It boggles the mind to think that a car is stolen in India every six minutes and the recovery rate is abysmally low at 25 per cent. This only proves that our police and detective agencies are ill-equipped to either trace stolen cars or nab the thieves. The home ministry must revamp and modernize the police force so that the rate of recovery of stolen cars rises to at least 75 per cent.

Yours faithfully,
A.S. Mehta, Calcutta

Labours lost

Sir — Congratulations to Priyadarshini Banerjee, the all-India ISC examination topper, and to all the others who have excelled (“Target Joint, hit on ISC bulls eye”, May 19). It is their hard work, determination and application, which have brought them success. The report, however, gives the impression that these students owed much of their success to their exclusive private tutors. While the contribution of private tutors cannot be denied, what about those students who are intelligent, but cannot afford tutors or coaching classes? Will they not feel discouraged reading about this “formula for success”? There are several students who have not taken any special tuition but have still scored very high marks. St Joseph High School, Matigara, in Siliguri has at least two students (if not more) who have secured 96.25 per cent. One wishes that The Telegraph keeps all the districts of West Bengal in mind (and not just in the regional editions). That would encourage students from small towns and villages to excel even if they may not have the best opportunities.

Yours faithfully,
R. Raghu and Robert Sekhar, Siliguri

Sir — I have just got my ISC results and I have scored 95.4 per cent (best of five) in the Arts stream. I am a regular reader of The Telegraph, but I was disappointed to find that there was no mention of the ISC topper from the Arts stream. Most other newspapers have also mentioned the names of the toppers (in West Bengal and Calcutta) from the science and commerce streams only. I have not yet managed to find the name and marks of the ISC-topper from the Arts stream.

Yours faithfully,
Ritabrata Das, Calcutta

Men beware

Sir — The editorial, “Lads’ day out” (May 19), is one-sided. It is not correct in saying that the “outrage” of men’s rights activists “springs from their innocence of the correct use of any law relating to gender justice”. In reality, many ‘gender’ laws in India are drafted and implemented in ways that are heavily biased again men. For example, the Supreme Court criticized the misuse of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (which protects women against matrimonial cruelty) in the Sushil Kumar Sharma vs Union of India (2005) case. The apex court, in the Batra vs Batra (2007) case, termed a provision of the Domestic Violence Act “clumsily drafted, which if implemented would lead to chaos”. Indian domestic violence and sexual harassment laws deny protection to male victims. But it is true that men too face domestic abuse. For example, in the last five years, 519 cases of torture against husbands have been registered with the Orissa state women’s commission. A recent government survey on child abuse found that the rate of physical and sexual abuse of boys is higher than that of girls. The rate of male suicide in India is also higher.

Yours faithfully,
M. Patwardhan, Pune