Lack of accountability Soulless creation

With reference to Subhomoy Bhattacharjee’s report, “Party manifestos silent on key issues” (February 21), almost all political parties make scores of promises and give voters high hopes. The report rightly addresses the fact that all major party manifestos in Uttar Pradesh have remained silent on key issues such as transportation and job opportunities; these ought to be among the priorities.

What should be noted is that according to the Supreme Court ruling, promises made in poll manifestos cannot be held as legally enforceable. Naturally, parties make such promises and forget about them when they come to power. There is no surety that poll promises would be fulfilled. Voters have now realised that not all poll promises can be realised; of course, they have no choice but to be deluded by these far-fetched dreams.

The poll manifesto is considered an important document on which voters rely and base their voting decision. If it contains promises only to woo them, it is no less than a malpractice. There are three kinds of false promises a political party may make in its poll manifesto. First, a lie, a blend of truth and false promises, which is partly fulfilled; second, a white lie, meaning totally false with no chance of fulfilment; third, statistical lies, which political parties come up with by stating fake figures.

Another report in this newspaper, "Election manifesto should be legally binding on parties: BKU" (September 16, 2016) had raised the issue of poll promises previously. Till now, no step has been taken. The key point is therefore not silence but lack of accountability.

Ankita Kalia Chandigarh archer in Mahabharata, for himself.

This self-proclaimed Arjuna in today’s world of politics seems to be off target in terms of telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would fail miserably in the Assembly polls, which would pave the way for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance to come to power in Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi also intends to remove Modi from office in the 2019 general elections by utilising the need-based alliance. This is hard to believe.

Gandhi is perhaps the only politician in India not focused on any issue of national interest. He wastes his time and energy blaming Modi. Perhaps, Gandhi, who still refers to his “notebook” while speaking on any topic on a public platform, may be conferred with the “Student of the Decade” award in national politics.

S Kumar New Delhi While private universities may not be centres of excellence, several of them are not as bad as implied in Anjuli Bhargava’s column, “Falling short of expectations” (February 21). However, frequent intrusion by family members of owners in managing the universities is a major reason for their inability to raise the standards of education.

Running an educational institute is significantly different from running a family business; it calls for high-calibre human and intellectual capital rather than financial acumen. Interference serves as a deterrent for academics to join such universities; they value autonomy more than a high salary. As the success of educational institutions depends on the experience and fulfilment of aspirations of their students and parents, a steady fall in performance reduces enrolments and eventually brings about closure.

Those putting money in education should rise above their business interests and appoint qualified individuals as the head of their institutes and faculty, give them the freedom to operate and make use of the management by exception as policy. Without this, expensive infrastructure is just a soulless creation.

Y G Chouksey Pune