Tale of two PMs
Through this letter of mine I want to highlight some glaring differences between the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They are as follows:
1) MODI is from the BJP and Manmohan Singh is from the Congress, a party which ruled the nation for 70 years.
2) Manmohan Singh is a noted economist whereas Modi is a grass-root worker of the BJP.
3) Modi is elected while Manmohan Singh was selected.
4) Even though Manmohan Singh was an Upper House member from Assam, he hardly visited Assam during his tenure as Prime Minister of the nation. Modi, a Lower House member from UP, has visited Assam several times as Prime Minister of the nation.
5) Manmohan Singh was an accidently-appointed Prime Minister of the nation, but Modi is a duly elected Prime Minister.
6) Manmohan Singh has never contested any election whereas Modi has contested and won every time
7) The only similarity between these two is that both are perfect gentlemen.
Dr Ashim Chowdhury,
Guwahati.
The cat is out of the bag
So once again the cat is out of the bag. The greatest fraudster Assam has ever produced, namely Akhil Gogoi, the self-styled messiah of the poor farmer, has been caught in the wrong foot by his comrade in arms, namely Kamal Medhi, another habitual deserter. Immediately after joining hands with Akhil Gogoi, Kamal Medhi along with the other vocal Raijor Dal leaders started holding press conferences cursing the ruling BJP alliance with all possible charges and promised the voters a corruption-free Assam. As expected, their bonhomie was very short-lived and they parted company as they had differences over sharing of the loot. A very simple message to both Akhil Gogoi and Kamal Medhi: "You cannot fool all the people all the time. Leave public life and start a new career as a power broker." Before parting, I would like to request the local TV channels not to invite these two obnoxious persons as panelists in their TV debates as they are eyesore for us.
Joel Gayari,
Tangla.
A child's education
With each passing year, school admission for a child is getting tougher in India. Indian parents start thinking about their child's early learning and education as soon as the child attains the age of 3 years. With plenty of options to explore online, parents start searching for the best pre-schools or nursery schools close to their living areas. Defining a chronological age for school entry is, therefore, imperative in educational planning. In fact, experts on child development have reservations on whether teaching at an early stage really gives the child any long-term advantage. On the contrary, they caution about the dangers that such an early introduction to formal learning may entail. Faced with a choice of putting a child in an earlier or later class, wise parents would always choose the latter. Weighing all options, therefore, the ideal age of a child's entry to LKG should be four years and Class-I should be six years. A mistaken impression amongst parents is that their children will "lose a year" if they are put in a class lower than what they are officially eligible for. But the truth is that these children are "gifted an extra year" – a year in which they can dramatically increase their chances of being successful in their lives.
Ranganathan Sivakumar,
Chennai – 600 091.