Let Chief of Army Staff retire with due dignity

The storm which is shaking the country these days over the COAS General V.K. Singh's public revelations about offer of bribe to him and then the leakage of letter addressed by him to the Prime Minister pointing deficiencies in the armed forces capabilities is very unfortunate and undesirable. That these incidents have happened at a time when has a few days to demit his office gives rise to suspicions about the intents and motives.However, it should not be blown out of proportion and shelved.

2. Indian Army is one of the most disciplined force in the world and has won laurels for its combative and non-combative performances both within the country as well as abroad. Gen. Singh has been part of the regime and rose to the present level by dint of his excellence in meeting the highest traditions of the force. So it will be unfair to blame him for dereliction or leakages. In fact he has lodged a complaint with the CBI for probe into the leakage of letter. It will be relevant to state that the leakages of classified materials of Govt. departments has become a routine affair which Media proudly displays as its exclusive report. What is,therefore, required is to sternly deal with those involved in this profession as it threatens the integrity and safety of the country.

3. The contents of the letter are routine as every Head of the Department presents its litany of woes citing absence of adequate budgetary support. The Government will do well to set its house in order rather than find faults with constitutional heads like CAG, COAS etc.

No more caste based politics-only development

The election results in U.P. and other four States in the country irrespective of the winning political combinations have given the politicians a few serious lessons which they need to learn and emulate. The first and the most important lesson is that the people don't succumb to caste and religious cards. Parties like BSP and Congress who wanted to exploit the Muslims and Backwards have to bite dust as the Indian electorate has matured enough to see through these game plans and are no more gullible. Secondly, the size of the crowed at public meetings does not materalise into votes. The rhetorics and theatrics of Rahul Gandhi yielded nothing to the party's coffers. Similarly, the aggressive and abusive diatribes of Digvijay Singh & Beni Prasad instead of helping them had negative effects. BJP also should also learn lessons about its organisational structure and the public perception of its policies. No doubt the political parties will undertake their introspections but the most important factor is that public is sick of divisive politics.

2. People want to live in harmony and aspire for development to be a major international economic power. Hope UPA will reflect these experiences in the remaining two years of their rule while framing national policies,