No leeway here
With regard to the excerpt from Lee Kuan Yew's book (Global, February 2) I must say that he makes very interesting comments on India. But alas, whilst being a person of Chinese origin he is able to assess China well he miserably fails in his assessment of India. His linguistics-based analysis of Indian society in comparison to China (" 90 per cent Han" ) is faulty and while yes, there is enormous power vested with public servants here, which has made corruption endemic to our system, change will come. No human always wants to be corrupt and a thief. 20 years later when India is a $4 trillion economy, the Lee Kuan Yews of the world will swallow their words.
Deviprasad Rao, via email

Art attack menace
The gag effect is covered exhaustively and rather well by various writers in the package on liberalism in the issue of February 2. For the sake of votes, politicos go to any extent, forgetting their duties enshrined in the constitution. Fringe groups hold the nation to ransom and the authorities bend over backwards to accede to their unreasonable demands instead of browbeating them into necessary submission. In the midst of such prejudice towards cultural liberalism artistic values are taking a severe beating in India. If this tendency continues, freedom of speech and expression in art in various forms will have to suffer much more in the days to come.
H P Murali, via email

When jokes get lost
I was greatly delighted to see what a reader said in his letter published on December 27, 2012. Titled 'Hail big daddy' it also adjoined Ajit Ninan's perfect caricature: 'Narendra Bhai's Gujarat model - ideal for Delhi in 2014'. This is borne out now by recent statements by Modi, read by the whole nation on the front pages of newspapers, especially Modi using a college platform in the last few days to send New Delhi a message that the only the politics of development, not vote banks, will work now for a new India. Thanks Big Daddy. You are a democrat, not a dynast, for putting shabad braham (words) to positive use, for bahujan hitai (common good).
Bansal Mohan, via email