The media’s doing a good job of promoting Brand India (India > 0, Dec 8). So what if we’re becoming the world’s backoffice? So what if we haven’t produced a Nobelist in post-Independence India? As a self-governing, free, large, united nation, we’re just 56 years old and catching up fairly well with top-ranked nations. We’re poised to become one of the world’s largest economies; our brains have conquered the world. A nation like America still struggles with problems like racism. It is also so prejudiced in favour of men that no woman in its 220-plus years of existence has become even its vice-president. Yet, almost every single nation wants to emulate it. Let’s be proud of what we’ve done, but at the same time let’s not rest in peace.
Vijay S., Cincinnati, US
Gone are the days when people used to complain about the papers being full of depressing news. Now, we have a new candy-floss media which tom-toms minuscule achievements and pushes our very real problems under the carpet. Truth is, three of our metros—Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai—are already an urban nightmare. Bangalore’s heading there. Forget tourism, Azim Premji claims we don’t have enough facilities to capitalise even on our IT achievements. Mere media blitz about Brand India will never translate into more fdi.
Arpan Srivastava, Bangalore
Your cover story was interesting. But the claim that "India has never invaded any country" is a myth. South Indian kings like the Pallavas and Cholas conquered Malay, Java, Sumatra, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History has a whole chapter titled ‘South India Colonises’ under which he outlines how south Indian kings established Indian colonies all over the islands in the east and reached Borneo, the Philippines and even Formosa. He writes how Indian colonists misbehaved wherever they went, giving Indian names to towns and exploiting locals, as colonists always do. Doesn’t the Angkor Vat still stand as an example of our connection with Cambodia? The author’s either ignorant or perhaps does not consider achievements of southern kings ‘Indian’.
A. Venkatesan, Thiruvannamalai
So, a country still grappling with the basic problems of water, power and poverty is wondering how to sell itself to the world! Those getting excited about this adspeak would do well to remember one fundamental tenet: the greatest advertising in the world can’t hide a bad product.
Sumant Bhattacharya, Ghaziabad
How many genuine value additions have we made? Have we yet produced a Linux or Windows? Have we come out with any research drug? And even if you consider that one-fifth of Microsoft engineers are Indians, they work for America, not India.
Milind Kher, on e-mail
In branding India, doesn’t the real India get hidden? Instead of hyping it, let’s make an effort to improve the state of affairs, thus making India an icon by itself.
Megha Bhagat, Mohali
So after Newsweek’s cover on The Rise of India, it’s Outlook’s turn to take off from where it left. It’ll be years before we can catch up with the US. Journalists should not be mesmerised by their own jargon but try and look deeper—300 million Indians are illiterate, even more than that subsist on less than $1 a day, millions are unemployed. ... A 25-year-old kid sitting with a laptop at the Bandra-Kurla complex in Bombay taking on the work of 10 American workers is not the face of a new India. The real face of India I’d like to see is the one envisaged in the ‘India 2020’ plan the bjp put forward last year, which included a huge network of roads, a massive, complex interlinked waterways system, infrastructure investment in power, telecom and education.
Jignesh J. Shah, Wilmington, US
Crisp, succinct, objective writing.
Tarun B., New York, US
India can’t be sold as a brand when you have people like Vinod Mehta criticising every government move.
Abhishek Verma, New Delhi
Educational policies take effect 10 or 20 years after implementation when it’s too late to change them (Chicken Coop Raid, Dec 8). As such the mhrd owes it to us—the people of India—to spell out its educational priorities and assess the long-term impact of its policies. For instance, the current attempt by the GoI to take control of iit-iim funding while admirable efforts such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan are foundering due to the lack of funding is tough to fathom. Alumni are a great source of funding for universities everywhere and given how the iit-iim alumni are doing, they can be an enormous resource. But the Bharatiya Shiksha Kosh has dried that up as well.
Sandeep Juneja, on e-mail
While the ministry’s moves are only too clear, there is scope for improvement in security. This means not just locking up outsiders but also the staff setting the paper. To get such a system in place, the alumni are only too willing. As far as the government’s proposal to cap institute funds, it’ll be far more practical for the institutes to transfer the funds to a common pool, managed directly by institute trustees.
Vickram Crishna, Mumbai
Kudos for baring M.M. joshi’s hidden agenda in appointing ex-cag V.K. Shunglu to head the cat leak inquiry. In fact, the cag is barred from taking any appointment after retirement according to Article 148(4) of our Constitution.
Krantikumar Sharma, on e-mail
When it comes to branding India, all I see of the Northeast are images of drug abuse, increasing trafficking of women and a confusion of insurgent groups. I don’t ever remember seeing videos of glittering malls here, or of mncs signing deals or of bright young turbo-charged execs powering their corporate houses. Wake up, Delhi. Don’t you think it’s paradoxical that it takes 30 deaths for the honourable minister of the Northeast to visit the area when he should be permanently based in the Northeast and visit Delhi occasionally? You media moghuls do uncover scams but remember 30 times Rs 30,000 crore won’t weld a fractured India once we’ve crossed the point of no return.
Prafulla Rao, Kalimpong
Most of Prem Shankar Jha’s columns are divorced from reality but with The Hand That Calms (Dec 8), he’s in another universe. While stating that no Indo-Pak initiative is sincere, he forgets the Lahore bus ride, equating Vajpayee’s sincere desire with Musharraf’s double talk. He should remember the standing ovation the (victorious) Pakistan team got in Chennai. On the Afghan issue, Jha should remember it’s Pakistan which is re-arming the Taliban. Only those living in a fool’s paradise would even think of a joint India-Pakistan peacekeeping force for Afghanistan. Dawood teaming up with K.P.S. Gill would yield more!
Gopal Srinivasa, Florida, US
This is just a tactical retreat by Pakistan, their strategic objective still being to dismember India and play havoc with our security. I don’t care two hoots for a ceasefire from compulsive liars like Musharraf.
Rahul Malviya, Bangalore
Your article Little Tin Soldiers (Dec 8) was extremely informative but at the same time had very alarming statistics. As adults we have a major responsibility in bringing up children who’re healthy future citizens. The helplines you’ve listed are extremely useful. I’d also like to bring to your notice the Art Excel course devised by Sri Sri Ravishankar of the Art of Living. A useful course, it’s meant for children between 8 and 14 years.
Upasana Saijpal, Mumbai
Shocking scenario. It’s time to wake up and take notice of traumas our most vulnerable members, children and adolescents, go through. The parents’ cry of ‘no time’ is destroying the life of the youngsters.
Sujata Morab, Mumbai
Apropos The Truth, Not Out (Dec 8), who says Indian cricket is poor? Pick a player for a tour and he’s bound to hit a streak—fees, endorsements and bonuses! The box The Income Inside says it all. Apparently this Indian Selectors’ Cricket is a different game from what the Aussies know and play as cricket.
Rajesh, Nagpur
Cricket is a game tailor-made for corruption. That’s precisely why it’s popular in India.
Biswapriya Purkayastha, Shillong
Way to go, Sandipan Deb (Sikandar...Nay, Porus, Dec 8). Finally someone in the Indian media says what I’ve been seeing most of my life. You missed out Africa, where Indian films are much loved. And Latin America: Peru and Venezuela produce Shahrukh fans that’ll put ours to shame. Indian films reach one billion people more than Hollywood every year. It’s time we took pride in them, instead of running them down. A good start would be looking at them from lenses other than those of western film theory and not worrying about what their media or academics say about it. When it comes to our movies, the rest of the world agrees.
Suneeti Singh, Barcelona, Spain
Yes, indeed, Bombay, stop calling yourself Bollywood.
Aali Rehman, Rajshahi, Bangladesh
It’s one of the truisms of our times that anytime something is going right, the government has to step in and wreck it (Chicken Coop Raid, Dec 8). It’s quite obvious that the cat leak was not because of any lapse on the part of the iims but on the part of the printing press involved (a semi-government enterprise, mind you). The problem with bureaucrats and politicians is they need to feel in control; it stems from their inherent insecurity that stems from their realisation that they are incompetent and incapable of any progressive ideas. Hence moves such as these. And Dr Murli Manohar Joshi is probably the worst thing that could have happened to the Indian education system. Someone so obsessed with regressive subjects like astrology should be the last person to decide the fate of the iits and iims. It’s obvious Dr Joshi’s PhD in physics failed to instil a scientific and rational temper in him. Mr Joshi, let go. You do not change a winning combination. If you’re incapable of doing good, at least do not harm.
Sharad Joshi, New Delhi
Apropos S.S. Gill’s Beijing Diary (Dec 1), we Indians are supposed to treat our guests as gods (atithi daivo bhava). Instead we treat our tourists as bakras—to be fleeced.
Aniket Singh Saharan, Ambala Cantt
Comparing Mother Teresa and Sister Nivedita as Balbir Punj does in The Mother Principle (Dec 1) is like comparing apples and oranges.
Purushothama S., Mysore