Your cover story BJP 35 Short of Majority (January 26) was thought-provoking and informative. It is really disappointing to note that the result might again be a hung parliament, which is unsuitable for the healthy functioning of democracy in India. The National Front under V.P. Singh and the United Front proved to be failures. The single-party rule under P.V. Narasimha Rao ended in a full term. But the Congress may not get there this time. It is high time that the BJP is given a chance to rule. It is necessary for people to bring a single party to power. If the result is a hung parliament again, no useful purpose will be served by an election incurring heavy expenditure.
R. Sivakumaran, Chennai
The choices before the electorate: Ram Raj, Rome Raj, Kam Raj, Nam-ke-Vaaste Raj, Farm Raj, Traffic Jam Raj, Uncle Sam Raj, Sham Raj, Yam Raj.
Som Benegal, New Delhi
Your continued obsession with Sonia Gandhi (Selling Sonia, January 26) baffles me. I switched over to Outlook hoping for something better. But it is sad to see that your esteemed magazine is as obsessed with Sonia as the rest of print and TV media. Do try and find something better to write about.
Col N. Viswanathan (retd), Chennai
Sycophants in the Congress once coaxed a political greenhorn, Rajiv Gandhi, to crash-land on the pathway of dirty politics and steer them to vistas of power and pelf. Now Sonia Gandhi is being used by them for the same purpose. It won’t be long before the octopus of political troubles will grasp her in its merciless tentacles. And there’ll be no escape.
R.C. Khanna, Amritsar
The greatest qualification Sonia Gandhi has is that she’s the wife of late Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi. That’s how she came to be inducted into the Nehru dynasty. Though she declares herself to be the daughter of India, the truth is she’s Italian first and then Indian. And that’s why Italians are keenly watching how important she becomes in Indian affairs on the strength of having married an Indian. Perhaps they too are surprised at the Congressmen’s attitude of prostrating before a foreigner to come and save their country. It won’t be surprising if she becomes prime minister (though she strongly denies any such intention, as of now) in the event of the Congress (God forbid) winning a majority. Indians will then live under Italian rule 50 years after getting rid of the British. I wonder if any Indian marrying an Italian and settling in Italy will have the same opportunity and will Italians also prostrate before the Indian-Italian as Indians are now doing before Sonia?
C.S. Rama Chandramurty, Hyderabad
It’s indeed a shame that in a country of one billion, so many are Dying for Blood (January 26). Even if one per cent of these gave blood once a year, the coffers of blood banks would be overflowing.
I appreciate Ms Renuka Chowdhary’s idea of making armies donate. But I have a better one. I know a class of people who’re healthier, wealthier and growing fatter doing nothing—the Politicians. Why don’t they donate blood? It would also help their election campaign even though it would happen only once in five years! I also have a question for Ms Chowdhary. Would she have donated even a single unit for the army if they were at war? Or would she have said that the EC has banned such action?
Dr Jaideep Chandra, Lucknow
It’s quite unpardonable that you have carried on the front cover a picture of Sonia Gandhi in an ugly and witch-like image (All Roads Lead to Rajiv,February 2). Except being the wife of a former Indian prime minister, she has done nothing wrong to the Indian people. To tell you frankly,Outlook itself became ugly due to this ugly cover.
S. Raghunatha Prabhu, Alappuzha
The name of Ottavio Quattrocchi and his wife receiving kickbacks in the Bofors deal is now a known fact to all, including Sonia Gandhi. And so are her close relations with the Quattrocchi family. Now that the Opposition is targeting Sonia Gandhi as a ‘foreigner’, why not her patriotic instincts be put to test through a nationwide appeal to use her good offices with Quattrocchi and recover the loot pocketed by the Quattrocchi family? If she agrees, then she really belongs to India and has its national interests at heart.
R.N. Vaswani, Mumbai
What’s common between Sonia Gandhi and the Bofors gun?—shoot and scoot!
Vimal Kapoor, Dehradun
Isn’t it ironic that the once-mighty party which freed India from foreign rule is itself coming under a foreign hand—that too in the golden jubilee year of Independence.
P. Chandra, New Delhi
I wonder how you could stoop so low—like yellow journalists—to put the future prime minister, Sonia Gandhi, in such an ugly posture. I have been a regular reader and subscriber of your magazine since its inception. You have maintained a decent journalistic approach so far. The Sonia cover was in bad taste and I didn’t expect it from you.
A. Rajendran, Tiruchirapalli
Sachin’s bat in all three innings of the Independence Cup has given a fitting reply to the five wise men of the BCCI who had the cheek to ‘advise’ him to play lower down in the batting order (Back to the Future, January 26).
S.M. Shirodkar, Pune
Sandipan Deb is quite mistaken in claiming that Abraham Lincoln hid the truth about his income as a lawyer (Flighted to Deceive, January 19). He didn’t. There was nothing secretive about Honest Abe. Nor was his income large. Lincoln practiced law in Springfield, Illinois. It was just a small town, with no scope for a highly-paid legal career. In fact, Lincoln was only a middle-level attorney, with a moderate income. The charge that Honest Abe was a railway company lobbyist is also without foundation. Sandipan Deb ought to re-read Carl Sandburg’s exhaustive biography.
G.S. Hiranyappa, Bangalore
It was distressing to read about Badavat Mangia’s suicide and the fact that his dependents have not received the promised Rs 1 lakh compensation from the state government (The Grim Reaper Strikes, January 26). But compensation for suicide, a crime under the Indian Penal Code, amounts to abetment of the offence, and is punishable.
It’s unpardonable that the state government, instead of providing succour to the affected cotton farmers, is encouraging them to commit suicide as an easy way out of their predicament. This, so far, has led to the loss of 44 precious lives. Is the Supreme Court listening?
Prakash Raghavan, Navi Mumbai
In Pictures With Resolution (February 9) the photographs of directors Jayaraaj, Leslie Carvalho and Rajan Khosa were inadvertently mixed up. In the cover story graphic In Old Hands, P. Chidambaram was listed under the Congress. The errors are regretted.
Apropos the article Back to the Future (January 26), it was a part of the typical hate-Azharuddin campaign being carried out by you and the lobbyists of Sachin for the past two to three years. These idiotic lobbyists have done immense harm to Indian cricket in general and Sachin Tendulkar in particular. Azhar’s success as a captain is attributed to sheer luck by these sick minds. Calling Azhar’s batting under Tendulkar’s captaincy "lackadaisical", when he’d scored close to 2,000 runs in both Test and one-day cricket in ’97, is sinister, to say the least! This simply is not cricket.
Ashok R. Mundhada, Amravati
