It’s sad that when the whole nation mourns the inhumane killing of our bsf jawans, our government is talking about harmonious relations and restraint (A Tale of Two Blunders, April 30). Sheikh Hasina is not our problem. It’s because of our government’s weakness that even our smaller neighbours can take advantage of us.
Cherag M. Kelawala, Ahmedabad
Unlike Israel, India’s problem is that it can’t react to a situation swiftly, spontaneously. Compounding it is the incompetence of our intelligence agencies, which unlike the isi has no clear chain of command. Fancy Bangladesh trying something similar against China!
Dilip Mahanty, Sydney
Truly, pseudo-secularists like you represent all that is wrong with our nation. Instead of condemning the gruesome torture of our soldiers, you concentrate on how the entire sordid episode was all our fault. One had hoped that your loyalty to the nation would help you overcome your bias. But sadly, it is not to be.
Amolakh Nath Sehgal, Agra
Home secretary Kamal Pande’s absolution of the Bangladeshi government on the intrusions needs to be condemned. His statement comes at a time when no formal enquiries have begun and will come as a dampener to bsf personnel. Be it a natural calamity or armed aggression, India needs more disaster-forecasting squads rather than disaster-management ones.
Ritesh Ramesh, Chicago
We’ve done it again. Taken diplomacy to be the answer to all. It was disgusting to see the refined dining-table-finesse with which our government hit back at Bangladesh, while newspapers splashed horrific pictures across their pages.
Pankaj Srivastava, New Delhi
The agony expressed in your cover story, Why Do You Knead Our Dough? (April 30), was long ago predicted by Winston Churchill, even as he was harsh on the leaders of the day. Replying to Attlee’s proposal for India’s independence, he remarked—"Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread will escape taxation. Only air will be free and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Attlee. These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years. They will fight among themselves and India will be lost in political squabbles." Isn’t this what we’re witnessing in Parliament today?
Prem Prakash, on e-mail
I‘m one of the 2 per cent of India’s population who pay tax regularly. What I find most unfair is the time taken—up to two years—by the tax department to issue refund orders and cheques. Don’t we deserve better?
S. Lall, on e-mail
Has Outlook lost its zeal and become like the rest of the lazy publications where journalists write their stories without stepping out of office, or is Outlook running short of resources? Why else would you put the pictures of your own staff on your cover?
Manu Seth, on e-mail
As long as we have this wonderful policy of the "fence eating the crop" tradition of letting the bureaucracy formulate the rules themselves on all matters, including those which affect them and their cronies well, we shall continue to pay taxes to prop up the bloated babus.
V. Venkataraman, Bangalore
As an income tax assessee for the past 13 years, I sincerely regret that my tax amount is not sufficient even to meet the tea/snacks expenses of a single Uttar Pradesh minister.
Moahana Sampath, on e-mail
In M/s Dowell & Co Ltd vs cto 154 itr 148, the Supreme Court had observed that taxes are the price of civilisation and one would like to pay that price to buy civilisation. But the question here is: does the ordinary taxpayer manage to buy that civilisation or does he pay for the ostentation and wastefulness of a few?
Akhilesh Kumar Saha, Faizabad
Somewhere in your cover story you write "...government servants exist to serve our people". It made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. They should be called government or public ‘masters’ and not ‘servants’. They are there to rule the masses, not to serve them.
Lt Navdeep Singh, Panchkula, Haryana
Given the very low percentage that income tax contributes in the total revenue, why not abolish it altogether? That will leave no reason for anyone to generate black money. Which means corruption too will come down as all transactions will be above board.
Arjun Chhabria, on e-mail
Your cover story was one of the best pieces in Indian journalism I’ve seen so far—well-researched, documented and substantiated. A million thanks for conveying so forcefully this important question to our finance minister, although one can’t be sure if it’ll cause any ripples in our decadent officialdom.
Dolly Bhattacharya, New Delhi
If the PMO sincerely wants to downsize the paraphernalia of government bodies, streamline public facilities, etc, why doesn’t it invite professionals from other nations to set up systems that work?
Chitra Amarnath, New Delhi
When I studied history in college, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech went something like this: ". ..the government of the people, for the people and by the people." Now I’m compelled to recast that speech as "...the government off the people, far (from) the people and buy the people!"
Syed Abdul Rawoof, on e-mail
After the H.N. Bahuguna government, no government in UP has been concerned about the development of the state (A Taste for Profligacy, April 30). The present chief minister is known for hard steps but the grim picture reflects his inefficiency in checking the misuse of revenue collected from poor taxpayers and farmers.
K.N. Pandey, Noida, UP
Kudos to Outlook for having the courage to highlight the mind-boggling levels of profligacy of our political establishment at a time when lip-service is mouthed to the cause of economic prudence.
Sayantani Jafa, on e-mail
Companies like Enron can only bring an age of darkness to India (The Real Story of Dabhol, April 30). The poor Indian consumer can’t afford his food, leave alone the high rates of power Enron will supply, despite bribe-fed bureaucrats and the mseb.
Ashok T. Jaisinghani, on e-mail
What’s happening in dpc is nothing new. After all, Enron’s Rebecca Mark did say that a lot of money was being spent on "educating the Indians". I’m sure Pawar, Thackeray and Co have emerged wiser after their dealings with Enron.
Rajesh Harsh, on e-mail
Against the peak cellular rate of Rs 16 per minute vs Rs 1.20 for 3 minutes by WiLL, only fools (and Outlook) can sympathise with the cellular phone lobby (License to wll, April 23). Earlier, they bid high licence fee, which they didn’t honour, followed by high usage rates. Now when the common man is to get cheap WiLL facility, no tears need be shed for these exploiters.
Ashok Gupta, New Delhi
Have the lives of our jawans become so cheap that a rag-tag army from a puny country like Bangladesh can intrude into our country, kill our men and then decide to treat the entire thing as an aberration (Home-Made Fiasco, May 7)? Had such a thing happened in Israel or the US, they’d have bombed the living daylights out of the invaders. Given that manning a porous border is a Herculean task which our security forces perform admirably, the least our exalted leaders can do is extend them moral support rather than concentrate on petty votebank politics.
Saikat Chatterjee, on e-mail
Large parts of Boria Majumdar’s article (Hulla Baloo in the Poona Gym, April 23) are based, without acknowledgement, on an essay I published in the British historical journal Past and Present in 1998. I had there told the epic story of Palwankar Baloo’s rise from obscurity. Mr Majumdar follows me idea for idea and sometimes source for source. His account of Baloo’s early days in cricket, his influence on Ambedkar, his funeral, his brother Vithal’s successful leadership of the Hindu cricketers, and the family’s move to Bombay, all so closely mimic my essay that it is hard to think it might be coincidence. Indeed, Mr Majumdar is diligent enough to reproduce even my mistakes. What I, and following me, he, calls the Poona Gymkhana is actually the Poona Club. (Our apologies to its members.) Mr Majumdar’s article reminds me of a Bombay film producer’s claim that the Indian definition of ‘copyright’ is ‘the right to copy’.
Ramachandra Guha, Bangalore
Boria Majumdar replies: As a young and aspiring scholar, I’m hurt and distressed by Mr Guha’s baseless allegations. The Indian Social Reformer, that forms the foundation of Mr Guha’s allegation, was used by me well in advance of his article that came out in November 1998. At a seminar presented at the Department of History in the University of Calcutta in March 1998, I had cited references from it. But I was just 22 then and did not publish the paper. Even in my Outlook article, I’ve cited the Indian Social Reformer in much greater detail than Mr Guha has done. The second part of my article dealing with Bengal too was entirely original. The material’s never been mentioned in any work on Indian cricket. Baloo’s coaching of the Maharaja of Natore’s side has elaborate descriptions, ones I’ve used for my article. If I’ve borrowed these from Mr Guha, will he please identify them for general readers?
Bangaru Laxman, Jaya Jaitly and others of their ilk have amply proved that foolish friends are more dangerous than intelligent enemies. But Atalji and Georgeji should thank God that intelligence is one thing Sonia G and her party lack completely.
K.V. Kamath, Pune
I blushed with pride when Padma Rao-Sundarji described Goa as India’s smallest but brightest gem of a state (Goa Diary, April 23). Thanks Padma, and always welcome.
H. Barreto, Abu Dhabi
One can understand Narmada oustees going on a morcha to the Supreme Court (Defence of Dissent, April 30). One can also understand the nba and Arundhati Roy expressing their dissent and anguish over the apex court’s majority judgement. One can even understand the court’s judges trying to hang on to their cloaks of dignity by labelling Roy’s writing as "contumacious violation, vicious stultification and vulgar debunking". But I can’t understand why the Supreme Court should take up a lawyer’s petition about alleged hair-pulling and verbal threat of murder by two women, based on an fir local police did not even see fit to enquire into?
G. Ramakrishna, Mumbai
Arundhati files her latest affidavit "as a citizen of India". But if I remember correctly she was ready to renounce her Indian citizenship in an earlier essay. Did she forget what she had said in an essay that had launched her as a polemicist? Or was that renunciation just a rhetorical flourish?
S. Venkatesan, Mumbai
Can Arundhati make up her mind? Is she the "free citizen of India" she claims to be in the latest affidavit or a "citizen of the world" she’d become post the Pokhran blasts?
Cdr (rtd) A. Visvanathan, Chennai
To accuse Medha Patkar of threatening to kill somebody can be the handiwork of only such advocates who have no good cases coming their way. What is shocking is that the Supreme Court admits such frivolous petitions as these. Such acts trivialise the larger issue of rehabilitation of the people of the valley.
B.V. Sahana, Bangalore
Arundhati’s affidavit is not only about the Narmada cause or her ‘potential’ arrest but a pointer to how the educated classes shrug their shoulders in the face of problems.
Dr Ramesh Ganapathy, on e-mail
Hats off to the Supreme Court for flexing its muscle and showing off its might against the hapless Arundhati Roy whose only crime is that she chooses to raise her voice on behalf of the voiceless and faceless victims of a ruthless state machinery of which the courts are also a part.
Raajaysh, on e-mail
We don’t buy Outlook to see it become a platform for others to fight their personal legal battles and publicity stunts.
K.S. Ramesh, Mumbai
I so liked the draft of Arundhati’s affidavit that I read it out to my mba class. Rarely does one come across such boldness or clarity as in her affidavit.
Kanu Doshi, on e-mail
Thank you for making me sit up, boil with rage and decide to act than be a mere spectator.
Nishant Phadnavis, Mumbai
None but Arundhati could have ridiculed the Supreme Court’s pompous pursuit of the trivial with such humour, subtlety and nonchalant skill. I wonder why a beautiful, talented and successful woman working for a humane cause attracts so much venom. Is it because she’s someone who’s broken all the rules and is living life true to her beliefs?
Reshma Trenchil, on e-mail
I’m no fan of Arundhati’s because she won the Booker. But I think she’s a phenomenal writer and respect her for the way she stands so fully, honestly and generously behind what she writes. And thanks also to you, for it’s through publications like yours that the voice of dissent gets a hearing.
Nupur Sharma, New Delhi
Arundhati’s article should remind the apex court that it’s not there to boss over citizens in the name of law like Hitler did, but to monitor law enforcement meant for public good.
I’m sick of the inordinate publicity Outlook gives to the rhetorical nonsense Arundhati writes. Instead you could perhaps ask the foreign funds-flushed nba to independently publish her biased views.
Vipul Bondal, on e-mail
It was a beautiful piece.
Sonal Manchanda, on e-mail
