The cover story, Jampacked and Exploding (August 21), is timely and revealing. Kerala, India’s most literate state, has proved the link between literacy and population as is obvious from parameters such as reduced birth rate, low infant mortality and smaller growth rate. The crux of the solution is—to make our vast rural population, especially the womenfolk, literate. Family planning should be a mantra repeated by leaders. It must be given top priority, or else it will nullify all the progress we have achieved till date.
D.B.N. Murthy, Bangalore
Congratulations on bringing to the fore such a sensitive and critical issue which should trouble every right-thinking Indian. But to be true, does it really bother me, make me panic? Unfortunately, no. It is conveniently ignored as a problem of the person-next-door, statistics begin to pale as the daily routine catches up and trivia get precedence over the incipient danger unless it is a matter of life-and-death. We are surely on the road to hell.
Rahul Gaur, Gurgaon
On Independence Day, my imagination strayed to the year 2006, just 10 years hence. As usual the ‘neta’ unfurled the flag while the crowd, waited patiently for the speech to be over to rush to the dais where some eatables were kept. The mad stampede that followed left a few dead. What I saw was a cinemascope version of today’s Somalia!
Our Government is oblivious to the need for literacy to tackle the increasing birth rate, perhaps in the belief that more heads mean more votes! Can we change the thinking of millions of Laloo Prasads with families the size of cricket teams chanting bacchey to bhagwan ki den hain, bacchey paida karna hamara hakk hai. We can only pray silently for deliverance from starving to death!
V.S. Mani, Bombay
