Apropos your November 14 cover story, Her Majesty’s Knights In Sullied Armour, the UK allows these fugitives to lead a good life in London for one simple reason—none of them have broken any law in that country. It is not the UK’s problem if these crooks have broken laws in India or anywhere else. The Indian government must ask itself what it was doing when these fugitives were fleeing the country. Vijay Mallya, for example, travelled first class in a commercial flight after passing through Indian emigration in full view of everyone, even when the Enforcement Directorate had issued a lookout notice against him. It is pointless to whine about lack of cooperation from other governments after the horses have fled the stables.
G. Natrajan, Isere
It was quite shocking to discover that arms dealers, defaulters and scamsters from India are living ‘honourably’ in London. Why does the UK harbour a soft corner for these wrongdoers? It is surely due to some vested interest. It is the failure of the government that it has not been able to touch them, book them and punish them. Hope that the present government, under the leadership of our able and ideal Prime Minister Narendra Modi, can ensure justice.
Jayanta Topadar, Assam
Your cover story reveals how quickly the corrupt business community transforms its image to enter into the good books of the international diplomatic community with the help of known and unknown hands. Whoever it is—whether Vijay Mallya or Lalit Modi—they manage to escape the law of the land they are citizens of.
Ramachandran Nair, Muscat
By presenting a compendium of rich and powerful fugitives, Outlook has done a good job for PM Modi to pursue their extradition with UK PM Theresa May. Shouldn’t bilateral talks, alongside trade, include such an important issue? This could even improve UK-Indo relations.
Sanjiv Gupta, Perth
We took the UK’s system of governance as the most virtuous system, which was thought of as being ideal for Indian democracy. We borrowed so much from them—a major part of the Constitution and the Westminster parliamentary system. It is rather shocking to know that the UK has a history of giving refuge to foreigners wanted by their respective countries for unlawful activities. And for such wanted crooks, a safe destination with a permanent UK residency is available at five million pounds. Alternatively, they also have the option of applying for a UK passport and for a tier-1 investor’s visa, that enables them to stay in the country, by investing two million pounds in Britain. The 23-year-old extradition treaty between the two countries has proved to be useless. Out of more than a hundred requests for extradition made by the Indian government to the UK government, only one has been successful, that too because the concerned individual himself did not contest the extradition. Hence, there is no sense in continuing with such a toothless treaty.
M.C. Joshi, Lucknow
While one appreciates Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and others for being present at Ram Kishen Grewal’s funeral (The Belchi Moment Nov 14), one wonders why they did not attend the funerals of the soldiers killed on the border. Did Rahul find time for the families of farmers when they committed suicide in Maharashtra due to bad crops or poverty? People are smart enough to see through the crocodile tears of leaders. The sooner politicians understand this, the better for Indian polity. By the way, was this Leader comment written to tell us that Grewal was a Dalit? And if he had not been a Dalit, would you have not commented at all? How come only Outlook was able to gather the caste information of this person when none of the newspapers or TV channels mentioned it?
Padmini Raghvendra, Secunderabad
Though Rahul Gandhi is yet to display his shooting skills in a sports arena (he has two gold medals at the state level and ranked 4th at the national level), he has repeatedly failed to hit the bullseye in politics. Today, the Congress is so dependent on the Nehru-Gandhi family, that there is fear of its annihilation without patronage due to its weak organisational structure. In February 2015, Gandhi had gone to an ‘undisclosed location’ to reflect on the defeat of his party. He returned by taking up farmer’s issues and mocked the Modi government as a “suit-boot sarkar”. His sporadic outbursts appear amateurish, whether it’s tearing up the Bill shielding convicted lawmakers, or trying to push anti-corruption legislation with an ordinance. He is a man in haste. Pushed to the back foot on the nationalism issue post ‘surgical strikes’, Rahul has found a script in the One Rank, One Pension issue. But as his aides say, politics is like making a film. You never know what will click. Let’s hope for his sake, it’s not a flop show.
K.S. Jayatheertha, Bengaluru
This looks like another ‘relaunching of Rahul’ moment for the Indian media. It seems that the media will never stop the evolution of RaGa.
R.S.M., Delhi
Actually, the BJP is giving the Congress another opportunity to come back to the Centre. It is similar to how Indira Gandhi gave a chance to Jayaprakash Narayan. The JNU issue, OROP, the Bhopal encounter, the ban on NDTV and now demonitisation; all are similar to Indira’s measures in the 1970s.
V.N.K. Murti Pattambi, Pattambi
In the past, the UK enforced its law on India. Now, it's time we enforce our law there.
Praveen Thimmaiah, Bangalore
This is with reference to your Leader comment, The Belchi Moment (November 14). I know that your magazine, especially your late editor Vinod Mehta, was a die-hard fan of the Nehru dynasty. I am specifically saying ‘Nehru’ because this family, starting from Indira to Rahul, has derived great advantage from the gullible public of India by using the ‘Gandhi’ title. The people, especially the rural population of the country, still believe that this dynasty was related to Mahatma Gandhi.
Now, coming to the Belchi moment, I never thought that Outlook would be so naive as to compare Indira with Rahul. Though Indira did have some negative traits, by and large, she was different from even Nehru in taking bold decisions. She enjoyed a free run to rule this great nation because the opposition was hopelessly divided between the radical Left and the extreme Right. Though Atal Bihari Vajpayee managed to put up a good fight, the BJP, which was then the Jan Sangh, was not accepted as a national party. Indira, to give due credit to her, was perceptive and knew the pulse of the nation. She did try to change the life of the ‘aam aadmi’ by bringing in various welfare measures, but the benefits did not reach the lowest stratum of society. Indira was also considered to be a world leader and had good relations with many developed countries. The Belchi moment was indeed a turning point in her life and she grabbed the opportunity there with both hands. Comparing her to Rahul Gandhi is like comparing an eagle to a crow. I can only laugh at your fanciful imagination and, mind you, if you keep writing like this, your magazine will go out of circulation. There is something called baby steps. As for Rahul in politics, he hasn’t even started crawling.
Rangarajan T.S., Bengaluru
I write apropos Outlook’s story on the encounter killings of the alleged SIMI activists in the outskirts of Bhopal (The Dharma of Instant Karma, Nov 14). Madhya Pradesh earned notoreity with the Vyapam scam deaths. On the face of it, the killing of the SIMI men appears fishy. It raises many pertinent questions: How come only SIMI activists escaped? Were they helped in their jailbreak by insiders? How come most appeared to be wearing new clothes? While it is too early to make a categorical assertion, a free and fair probe overseen by the courts would help greatly in clearing the air over the encounter.
J. Akshay, Bangalore
Men in uniform, especially those in the field, are by training expected to obey orders and hardly allowed to apply their own mind. I can think of many examples of confession by police officers, post-retirement, in connection with ‘encounter death’ cases. Various questions are being raised about the veracity of the police’s claims. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government must come clean on the episode.
J.S. Acharya, Hyderabad
Fake encounters are the extreme expression of police excess in an inglorious continuum. Beating up suspects in the street or in the station, being allied with communal forces (or anyone in power), and arresting and prosecuting without any credible evidence are some of its salient features.
Anwaar, Dallas
Just look at how overground workers/apologists of jehadis rush to claim that the encounter was fake! They don’t even wait for evidence to emerge, because in their kangaroo courts they have already passed the judgment which is always in favour of terrorists and against our security forces.
R.M., On E-Mail
The incident of eight SIMI activists escaping from a high security jail in a pre-dawn break, and their subsequent gunning down, raises a number of questions that need to be answered by the security forces. What’s surprising is how the Congress, the Left and the rest of the opposition are demanding a probe while ignoring what prompted the notorious criminals to escape, that too after killing a jail guard. They are shamelessly politicising the killing for electoral gains. More shocking is the support extended to the SIMI activists by them, knowing fully well their dangerous antecedents.
K.R. Srinivasan, Secunderabad
K.T.S. Tulsi’s column on the Bhopal killings raises many vital questions (Kangaroo Court in MP, Nov 14). If the videos, sourced from ‘locals’, that appeared immediately after the encounter are true, the policemen ought to be punished. But what should be done if the said videos are proved to be fake? Should anyone be held responsible for spreading unrest and tension?
Parshuram Gautampurkar, Sawai Madhopur
If I remember correctly, K.T.S. Tulsi was a prosecutor in the Jayendra Saraswati case in the beginning. We know what the police did to the witnesses, to the monks and how the case was cooked up with little evidence. It’s very comical to see the same man talking about the supremacy of the rule of law—when he himself bent it to get a conviction in the case.
Akash Verma, Chennai
I read the interview with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis with interest ("Some Maratha leaders...politics, Nov 14). Modern India is above caste politics. Caste has no relevance in the India of the 21st century. This stratification of people is a political gimmick. Politicians taking advantage of caste are enemies of the nation. They are always on the lookout for raising an unreasonable demand for quotas. Caste is a mark of an orthodox society; it serves no positive purpose and is an impediment to economic development. In fact, we should consider removing the word ‘caste’ from our Constitution.
M. Kumar, Delhi
The communal Bhasmasura that the BJP has created has also—quite naturally—morphed into the caste Bhasmasura. Nobody can evade the ‘law of unintended consequences’. Welcome to the new India—the country of caste wars!
T. Nayak, Washington
The story of Arnab Goswami’s leaving Times Now is itself a spicy one (Anchor, Old Man and The Sea, Nov 14) and has created quite a stir. His popular show, The Newshour, was responsible for bringing the channel into the spotlight. It is now reported that Arnab is into a new venture with Rupert Murdoch and politician/entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar. As a regular viewer of the aforementioned show, I felt it was overtly jingoistic and lacked substance. Goswami tried to project himself as a patriot. If his panellists did not subscribe to his views, he branded them ‘anti-national’. Unless the speakers on his show toed his line, he didn’t allow them to finish what they were saying. Arnab’s distasteful arm-twisting actually gave the channel a bad name.
J. Akshobhya, Mysore
Thanks for an in-depth, informative story on the horrible spat in the Tata Sons (Loose Screws In The Tata Wheels, Nov 14). After the unceremonious and unprecedented sacking of its chairman, Cyrus Mistry, the media spats between warring factions within the Tatas’ various companies have tarnished this great business house—India’s most cherished and trusted global brand. Along with the assault on mediapersons by guards at Tata House, the Tata tradition is firmly besmirched. Can’t believe the empire Jamshedji Tata built would be in such a sorry state!
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
Gyanesh Kudaisya’s column was a good read (Remembering The Map-Makers, Nov 14). Nehru’s acceptance of linguistic states undid the oneness of the nation that could have been fostered in the new ebullience of freedom. Partition had already blurred the traditional geographical concept of India. The craze for promoting Hindi as the national language faced a backlash from southern states. Kudaisya rightly states that languages can be double-edged. Interstate borders degenerated into barriers hindering national oneness. Habitual animosity towards residents of other states is now perceptibly common. Stoking parochialism and regionalism helps politicos garner votes and wealth. And large states, like UP, compared with minuscule ones like Goa and some Northeastern states, make for an ill-conceived territorial division. The standard of living in India should also be similar to check fissiparous tendencies.
J.N. Bhartiya, Hyderabad
We Indians have a major problem with our own Indian names—pronouncing, writing and transcribing them, because we say or write what we are familiar with. When one goes out of the one’s home region, the name usually gets distorted. Foreigners, on the other hand, take care to read names carefully. I was surprised that a magazine like yours misspelt the name of the gentleman who was instrumental in the country’s reorganization on linguistic basis. Potti Sreeramalu was wrongly spelt as Sitaramalu.
D.V.R. Rao, On E-Mail
The column Remembering the Map makers (Nov 14), misspelt Potti Sreeramalu as Potti Sitaramalu. The error is deeply regretted.
