Dear Dr. Falcao, 1. Most humbly I beg to differ from the views expressed by you on the captioned subject on Goanet. I am aware of your skills and others of your persuasion, at writing purple prose in English, and my woefully inadequate instrumentation in this department. Yes, but surely that does not mean that I cannot marshall / deploy or echo another international Indian who served at the highest echelons of the United Nations. So here goes. INDIAN DEMOCRACY. India is the largest Democracy in the Animal kingdom on Planet Earth. ”Whatever you might say about its sclerotic bureaucracy versus China’s efficient one, India’s tangle of red tape against China’s unfurled red carpet to foreign investors, India’s contentious and fractious political parties versus China’s smoothly functioning top down communist hierarchy ,there’s one thing you have to grant: India has become an outstanding example of the management of diversity through pluralistic democracy. Every Indian has been allowed to feel he or she has as much a stake in the country, and as much a chance to run it,as anyone else: after all,our last-but-one elections in 2004,were won by a woman political leader of Roman Catholic heritage who made way for a Sikh to be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim President, in a nation 81 percent Hindu. And our largest state was ruled till very recently by a Dalit woman, from a community once considered ”untouchable”, whose caste and gender would have made her power unthinkable for 3000 years before democracy made it possible. She wasn’t promoted by a Brahmin elite in New Delhi: she rode to the top on the ballots of her political base, building her own rainbow coalition on the way” 2. I am not aware that medical schools teach 'critical thinking' as part of the course curriculum but yes I am aware that the military academies of the Republic of India, that is Bharat do teach remedial English, military geography, military history, human resource management, tactics,as a part and parcel of the military curriculum,for aspiring Commissioned Officer candidates. 2. I look forward to your displaying a scientic temper and reviewing your opinions on Indian democracy and the English language skills of Indians, based on the small though representative size of facts canvassed by me. With every good wish, Gerry
