The winners of Rs 3,000 are...

Gimme oil!
While reading Arindam Chaudhuri’s piece on sanctions imposed upon Iran by the US (TSI, Jan 22), just one thing comes to mind: What’s wrong with America? First, they rocked Afghanistan on the pretext of fighting Taliban and the world saw the videos of US soldiers urinating on the corpses of dead Afghans. What’s the difference between Taliban and US? Then they disturbed the region’s peace by making Iraq go topsy-turvy. Now they’re imposing vague sanctions upon Iran to make it isolated and deprived. Everyone knows that the US govt wants a control over the oil producing regions. They are making a thousand excuses to make Iran look like the bad guy. They might as well admit that “we want all your oil. Give it to us or perish”.
Richa Vermani
Una, H.P

Best among equals
Your issue on the Doomsday (TSI, Jan 15) caught my attention and it tempted me to picked up the issue. Thankfully, the initial hype and expectations raised by the cover page did not let me down and I finished the entire issue at one go! Since the beginning of this year, almost every newspaper has published something or the other on the subject. And this is really creating panic among laymen because everyone wants to have something authentic on the subject but hardly finds anything. TSI's stories allay allt he fears about Doomsday through its well-researched pieces. At a price of Rs. 20, The Sunday Indian is surely best among equals'.
Shailesh Kakkad
Rajkot

Education is future
I thank Arindam Chaudhuri for his editorial “Eleven things that can transform education in India” (TSI, Jan 8). All the eleven points are very much relevant, however, I wish that the first point should be given priority that requires that schools under SSA should have basic infrastructure along with dedicated teachers. In this connection, I am sorry to state that many government schools do not have proper infrastructure. What is needed in regard is application of ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ cycle. Accordingly, at national level, it requires to make standards for basic infrastructure and number of teachers in schools. The standards should define requirements for area of class-room, cleanliness, light and air, sitting facilities, black-board for teacher, number of teachers criteria, evaluation criteria for teachers etc. The standard should also define the responsibility – who will provide or do what? Next point is implementation of standard requirements for which necessary support should be given by the government. It may require huge amount of investment towards basic infrastructure that may be fulfilled by raising investments in education to at least 5 per cent of GDP. I agree with the editor that future of India largely depends upon the future of education in our country and we really don’t have much time left. I request policy makers of our country to act fast in this regard.
Keshav Ram Singhal
Ajmer