It is a sorry state of affairs-one for which pa-rents are squarely to be blamed-that nowadays children have to be sensitised and induced into reading ("Spinning a Tale", February 10). When we were growing up there was no clamour on the part of our parents to prove themselves at the cost of their children, as is happening these days. Besides, television was still in its infancy. While we looked up a dictionary for the meaning of a word, the present generation uses a search engine. More such efforts at storytelling need to be made.

Our chairperson Ashok Row Kavi has been quoted as saying that the "commodification of sex has reached a crescendo". It would be pertinent to add that this "commodification" leads to very high risk behaviour. The Humsafar Trust works with this segment of males precisely because the sexual behaviour involved may lead to increased transmission of both sexually transmitted infections and HIV.

The trade in sex indulged in by men is sordid, disempowering and prone to violence. Male sex work, unlike female sex work, has different dynamics and leads to very fast burnout as males seem to deteriorate faster in this profession. We would like to place it on record so that more people are not encouraged to get into such work.

Your story states that during the tenure of my father, Justice A.M. Ahmadi, as the chief justice of India (CJI), I had a roaring practice; that the committee on judicial accountability alleged that I was using my connection to get favourable rulings, that I got special treatment from certain judges and that my father got members to defeat the resolution to ban relatives of judges from staying in the same house ("Rot in the System", January 20). As far as I recall no committee made the allegation or moved the resolution for banning relatives from living with judges-it was moved by a member of the bar, an independent body, that discussed and rejected an obviously biased motion by an overwhelming majority, near unanimity.

Apart from being false, the allegation that I got favourable rulings from judges of the High Court is unfair to the judges-you have not mentioned a single ruling or the setting aside of any such ruling after my father's retirement. As regards my practice, "roaring" is a relative term. The income from my practice during my father's tenure did not exceed Rs 1.5 lakh p.a.-a fact that could be verified from my income-tax returns.

We stand by our story. Tasneem Ahmadi does not deny that she lived at the residence of her father, the then CJI, while carrying out her legal practice in Delhi High Court. She confirms that some members of the bar objected to it. She also does not deny that the committee on judicial accountability had demanded she not live in the same house as her father. There was undoubted misuse of judicial office to defeat a bar association motion prohibiting the children of judges with legal practice from staying at their father's residence. That the spirit of the move was correct is borne out by the fact that the Supreme Court judges adopted shortly thereafter, in 1997, a similar resolution in "Restatement of Values". Ms Ahmadi points to her tax returns to deny she had a roaring practice but whether it is roaring or not is not determined by income disclosed.