Bad hair day
Sir — There is a time and a place for everything, including a compliment. It is nice to be told that one has a good head of hair but that may be the last thing that Sunita Williams expected the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, to say when asked if he had a message for the astronauts trapped in space. While saying that he had asked for Elon Musk’s assistance in bringing Williams back from the International Space Station, he referred to Williams as the “woman with the wild hair”. The president could have complimented her courage but he thinks women only care about their looks.
Paniya Kanji,
Calcutta
Numbers game
Sir — The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s allegations of Hindi imposition in Tamil Nadu are fuelled by the upcoming assembly elections (“Tricky issue”, Mar 6). The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam started by the actor, Vijay, who also shares the Dravidian ideology, is likely to split the DMK’s vote share. The issue of delimitation has thus come in handy for the DMK. Tamil Nadu’s demand is that the southern states should not be penalised for having followed population control policies while the northern states benefit from greater parliamentary representation for failing. While this is a valid argument, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin, should refrain from exploiting this delicate issue.
Gopalaswamy J.,
Chennai
Sir — An all-party meeting in Tamil Nadu has passed a unanimous resolution urging the Centre to retain the existing number of Lok Sabha seats and the constitutional boundaries for the next 30 years beyond 2026. The 84th amendment froze the Lok Sabha seats till 2026 for good reason. The Narendra Modi government would do well to take a leaf out of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s book so that no state feels wronged. Representation on the basis of population will be heavily skewed towards states that have seen uncontrolled population growth. The next 30 years will be sufficient time for the northern states to implement population control measures. The Bharatiya Janata Party government must defer the delimitation exercise.
G. David Milton,
Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu
Sir — The imposition of Hindi will exacerbate tensions between Tamil Nadu and the Union government. The number of people speaking a language does not decide its importance. Sanskrit is spoken only by a tiny minority but is of great importance. English was not spoken by the majority in India when it was set as an official language. The discrimination against the southern states in terms of language, finance and representation in Parliament is unfortunate.
A.G. Rajmohan,
Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh
Sir — Since the Union home minister has assured that there will be no reduction in the number of members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin’s call to all political parties to fight against the proposed delimitation exercise seems to be an electoral tactic. His appeal to newly-wed women to have more babies is also likely to be ignored as the cost of raising children cannot be borne by common people in this day and age.
N. Mahadevan,
Chennai
Sir — By delaying the democratic process of conducting a delimitation exercise since 1976, the government has done great injustice to Central and North India. If a state has a high population, its democratic rights are taken away with less representation.
Nikhil Krishnan,
Thane
Sir — M.K. Stalin’s sarcastic tirade against the delimitation exercise was interesting. It was amusing to listen to him urge newly-weds to have children immediately so that the state can have more members of Parliament.
A.P. Thiruvadi,
Chennai
