Getting rid of nuke threat

Apropos of ‘Nuclear peace hangs by a thread’; if there is no marriage, there will be no divorce. Taking a cue from this phrase — if there are no nuclear arsenals, there will be no nuclear war, which is like Damocles’ sword hanging over humanity. Annie Jacobsen’s book Nuclear War outlines a scenario where a nuclear conflict escalates rapidly, resulting in 5 billion deaths within 72 minutes. Nobody could apprehend the 1945 Hiroshima-Nagasaki holocaust; who will be able to stop it in these times when even non-state actors may be indirectly employed to press the nuclear button? “I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, Mother, what was war?” wrote Eve Merriam in her book Seeds of Peace; to make this a reality, we need to make efforts now.

BM Singh, Amritsar

Obstructing natural flow of water

Apropos of ‘Himalayas sending warnings, but we keep looking away’; the writer has rightly pointed out the lack of political will in dealing with natural disasters. Lack of planning while implementing infra development projects is a pointer towards the indifferent attitude of governments. Cloudbursts are not a new phenomenon. They used to happen in the past as well. But they took the natural course of rivers. In today’s times, we often see roads, hotels and even houses along riverbeds. Water will find its way out, come what may. It would be prudent for the authorities to keep the environment aspect in mind before initiating any tourism-related projects and to ensure no-construction zones near rivers.

Deepak Taak, Panchkula

Electoral reforms must

With reference to ‘RIP Van Winkle politics: Cong late to poll reform’; in a democracy, the Opposition’s role is undoubtedly paramount in keeping the government on its toes through constructive criticism. Comprehensive electoral reforms are definitely the need of the hour. ‘One nation, one election’ is one of the biggest electoral reforms broadly aimed at ensuring uninterrupted pace of the country’s progress that often gets halted owing to round-the-year election processes and the imposition of the model code of conduct. Besides, the government and the ECI need to discuss threadbare the issue of state funding of elections.

Ravi Sharma, Dhariwal

Face-saving move

Apropos of ‘Land pooling’; by withdrawing the land pooling policy, CM Bhagwant Mann has salvaged the situation. Moving ahead with the policy would have further hardened the stance of the farmers, who would have held the state to ransom. But one wonders why the AAP government did not learn a lesson from the farmers’ protests against the Central farm laws. What prompted the AAP to come out with an anti-farmer land acquisition policy? Political repercussions of the policy, though now rolled back, are likely to impact AAP’s poll prospects.

HMS Nagra, Faridabad

Relocation not enough

Refer to ‘Stray dog menace’; the failure of municipal bodies to implement sterilisation and anti-rabies drives lies at the heart of the stray dog problem in many cities across India. Relocation will not bring any perceptible change. Local authorities are not able to meet their sterilisation targets. There are still gaps in waste management. The Supreme Court order seems to punish the strays rather than hold the state accountable.

Bal Govind, Noida

Sheltering all strays unrealistic

The Supreme Court’s order to shelter all Delhi-NCR stray dogs within eight weeks highlights policy failure. Sterilisation and vaccination are the best methods to keep their population under control and save people from rabid dogs, but poor enforcement of these measures has made their numbers surge to unmanageable levels after Covid-19. With nearly a million stray dogs in Delhi-NCR alone, sheltering all of them is unrealistic. The existing facilities are few and far between.

Vijaykumar HK, Raichur