The Menace
President of India being head of the nation as well as of Parliament rightly expressed regret on disrupted Parliamentary proceedings in his Independence Day eve speech, a practice usually followed by every party/alliance while being in opposition. But the same party/alliance changing to ruling side, criticises the aspect which was adopted by it while it being in opposition. It would have been better if President of India would have instead come out with some concrete solution to end the menace.

Prime Minister's 87-minute long speech should be complimented for highlighting positive aspects and plans of his regime. But he should have also commented on Vyapam, sidelining honest officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi, Parliamentary disruptions and several other such aspects for which media-conference rather than Man-ki-Baat is a better forum.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi

Killing Rationalists
The brutal killings of four rationalists by Muslim communalists in Bangladesh in succession have justifiably been condemned in India. These killings are heinous acts, seeking to take mankind back to the era of superstition and obscurantism. But people are witnessing the same in India. This time, however, not the Muslims but the Hindu communalists are in action. The latest example is the killing of M M Kalburgi, a former vice-chancellor and Kannada scholar, for his stated aversion to idol worship. In August 2013, Narendra Dabholkar, a well-known rationalist of Pune, was killed by bike-borne assassins.

Those who are vociferous in their condemnation of the killing of rationalists in Bangladesh must also come out in protest against such killings in India. Otherwise their expression of solidarity with the victims in Bangladesh will have no real meaning.
N K Chatterjee
Bolpur, Birbhum

1866 Politcial Parties
It refers to a news-item that as many as 239 more new outfits have got themselves registered with Election Commission between March 2014 and July 2015. Significantly only 56 out of these ever-mushrooming 1866 registered political parties are recognized as national or state parties while rest 1810 are unrecognized but registered political parties. What is more only 464 political parties contested 2014-elections to Lok Sabha.

Provision of having such liberal provision of registered political parties must be ended by having auto-deregistration of political parties not having contested any election in last say five years. New outfits requiring registration for being political party should be given temporary registration for one year. If such temporary-registered political party does not contest any election in the given interim period of one year, it should automatically lose temporary registration. Also there should be some minimum percentage of total seats in Lok Sabha or state assembly for continuing to be registered political party.

Election Commission and central government should take appropriate action apart from making public advantages of being registered political party which are presently being grossly misused by ever-mushrooming non-serious registered political parties.
Madhu Agrawal, Delhi

Frontier
Vol. 48, No. 11, Sep 20 - 26, 2015