This refers to your cover story (India’s Best Professional Colleges, June 17 ). While the routine effort is commendable, the honesty behind the effort is questionable. Some very deserving instituted are not visible in your list of top professional colleges. NIT Calicut does not figure anywhere in the top 100 engineering institutions. Surely, that cannot be the case.
Babu Verghese, On E-Mail
Refer to What Youth Think (June 17). Your survey reveals a great sexual repression among the youth: 22 per cent of them think that pornstars are more dangerous to society than terrorists and 66 per cent of them have reservations about pre-marital sex. Compare this with the stat that India is the third biggest porn-watching country in the world. Who knew that in this time of great political turmoil, the revolution we are actually waiting for is sexual!
Rahil Shankaran, Bangalore
Refer to Ladies First. Not Exactly (June 17). It was encouraging to read about courses on women’s studies as a career choice. It’s about time we had a makeover in terms of how we think and develop an ecosystem for such courses to go mainstream. Gender studies need to be read regardless of gender, and students should be as objective as possible. Shiva and Shakti are the perfect connection between men and women; equal, yet splendidly different. Some very small vignettes from even the animal world can go a long way in showcasing the peculiarities and strengths of women. One such example is that of the deep sea octopus mother who spends four-and-a-half-years atop her eggs after hatching them in order to protect them from predators. Most amazingly, during the watch, she doesn’t move, not even for a meal, dying herself in the effort to keep her babies alive. There is no dearth of examples that can go a long way in demolishing prevalent stereotypes of women as the weaker sex. The subject needs to be read from a humanist angle.
Sangeeta Kampani, New Delhi
I am quite interested in learning the names of these radical pornstars destroying our society.
Ram Avadheesh, On E-Mail
In your issue dated June 17, I could spot no meaningful article on the Congress. In a one-liner, the Congress should urge attention and sing Apna time aayega!
Abhimanyu K., New Delhi
Refer to Bugles Before Round Two (June 17). The general elections 2019 are done and dusted, but Mamata Banerjee seems to be nursing a hangover. The ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan has her all shaken up. It is true that communal slogans must be fought in the national interest. But there’s a way to do things. Being a politician with street-fighter instincts, is it foolhardy to expect decorum and finesse from Mamata?
George Jacob, Kochi
After the successful electoral ambush in the Lok Sabha polls, the Shah of divisive politics has made Bengal his new battleground. The symbolic mischief of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, the vitriolic slogan from the Babri days, has been launched in the streets of Calcutta. General Mamata, recognising the recent aggresive and communal history of Jai Shri Ram, wants to have none of it in her still secularly imagined state. But her fortification against the naara is pushing her in a frenzied corner in the era of neo-Hindutva, which is constantly pushing the masses to embrace hardline saffron symbology which actually gains its strength from standing stubbornly against historically contextual criticism. What will she do when the bhadralok get baited into chanting a soft but resonant Jai Shri Ram?
Anil S., Pune
There has been perfect cohesion in the relationship between PM Modi and Amit Shah for over two decades and the perfect chemistry between them has yielded perfect results in the Lok Sabha polls (Applied Chemistry, June 10). In 2014, Modi fought on his own, riding on people’s displeasure over a series of scams during UPA II. But in 2019, it was the Modi-Shah jugalbandi and the BJP’s hard work at all levels that fetched them an unbelievable second landslide. After this, Shah has moved to No. 2 in the cabinet; consequently the power centre will shift and be confined to these two, with all others—though holding important portfolios—relegated to the background. People have plumped for consistency and stability at the Centre that they think only the BJP can offer. They surely have forgotten the miseries piled upon them by such policies as demonetisation and a hastily foisted GST tax as well as the agrarian crisis, low employment growth, rise in inflation, suppression of free speech and the gagging of the media and the utterly nauseous moral policing and cow vigilantism. The hope is that the Modi-Shah duo will take the country forward by stressing on inclusive development and rule of law.
M.Y. Shariff, Chennai
I have been an ardent reader of Outlook for 15 years and appreciate the choice of articles offered every week. In the June 10 issue, I loved the piece on the Modi-Shah team provided by an insider, Anirban Ganguly (Success in Symphony), as well as the following article on the same theme (Applied Chemistry). But, as a 77-year-old who has seen much of Indian politics since Independence, I am really wounded at the turn politics has taken in recent years. First, politicians have disregarded the reasonable limitations placed on freedom of speech in the Constitution. They have every right to ask for votes, but not at the cost of demeaning and degrading opposition leaders. It was painful to see how the Opposition personally targeted Prime Minister Modi. They had no respect for the post of prime minister. I surmised that most of these anti-BJP parties who, once in power in different states, have looted the state coffers and misused power, don’t want Modiji to come to power again because he’s against corruption. They are least bothered about the welfare of the country—making money is their chief concern. Unlike most of these opposition leaders, he has not helped enrich a single person from his family. The massive mandate that Indians have given Modiji is proof that they want a corruption-free polity.
S.R. Radhakrishnan, Coimbatore
This refers to Lingua Fracas (June 17). Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world. Hence, DMK president M.K. Stalin believes that the ‘Aryans’ of Uttar Bharat should not impose Hindi on Tamils. This is behind his outrage over the New Education Policy draft’s proposal of the ‘three language formula’, which was accused of being laced with ‘Hindi imposition’. While Stalin rejects Hindi with the same vehemence his party displayed in the 1960s, he simply looks away when Sunshine School, run by his own family, imposes a fine on students for speaking Tamil in its premises. Ridiculing Stalin’s hypocrisy and double standards, AIADMK says that Stalin should first implement the two-language formula (Tamil and English) in schools run by his own family and party bigwigs. While DMK leaders exhort people to oppose Hindi, their family members have progressed by learning Hindi. When political satirist Cho Ramaswamy sought information from Dravidian leaders about the schools their wards attended, he drew a blank. Obviously, most were studying in convent schools. About 50 percent of people in Tamil Nadu today are familiar with Hindi in some way or the other and thousands of Tamil children learn the language in Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabhas and CBSE schools. Learning Hindi is no crime and Dravidian politicians must stop whipping up passions on the issue just for the heck of it.
Kangayam R. Narasimhan, Chennai
Apropos Ticket To Ride (June 17), the Delhi government is dangling freebies well before elections in the capital. It defies all logic. The proposal is confused and will be cumbersome to execute. What about women from other parts of NCR who travel to Delhi for work? How can it be optional? Ideally, if Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wanted to propose something like this, he should have taken other stakeholders into confidence and created the required infrastructure for smooth implementation. Otherwise, it could lead to total chaos and confusion. Exchequer money should not be thrown into the drain like this. The Delhi chief minister should have focused on other pressing issues which ail Delhi. Needless to say, this move of Kejriwal will further create a rift between his party and the central government. I won’t be surprised if this scheme doesn’t get implemented properly and Kejriwal, playing the victim card, puts the blame on Modi again.
Bal Govind, Noida
The unassuming gentleman behind the Delhi metro, E. Sreedharan has been credited with the feat of putting the state-of-the-art system in the capital by cutting through red tape. In public imagination, he cuts a figure of the technologist ‘doer’ who went against a haggard system to better it. It’s also the kind of figure that Modi’s PR office loves. He has now voiced concern over Delhi CM Kejriwal’s decision to make metro rides free for women, saying it would hit the revenue model of the service. Despite the positivity that the Delhi CM wanted to bring about—as well as capitalise on—through this decision, Sreedharan’s point deserves to be addressed. Is the AAP prepared with answers to such queries of governance? An intelligent comeback is desirable, but nowhere in sight. Kejriwal managed the ‘odd-even’ scheme in his first term, driving into the citizenry the seductive logic of its practicality. People actually abided with the order, a small but significant feat of civic governance in itself. Now is a time to expand on that model. This is the opportunity.
Lokesh Karthik, Hyderabad
