Indians are realising that it is the quality of food that matters and not quantity any more (Healthy Kya?, May 16). Traditional foods are rapidly outdoing trendy foods, thanks to the increase in health hazards we are all prone to because of our gluttonous and clumsy eating habits.
K. Chidanand Kumar, Bangalore
Agreed that eating the right food can keep a person healthy. But other than a nutritional package, one also needs a dash of tolerance, a sprinkling of laughter, a woman who loves you. Purification and cleansing of the mind is as essential as the ‘diets’ to remain young and healthy.
Praveen Thimmiah, Mysore
So, you’re out to make foodies out of us all! It’s tough competing with desensitised food sensers (sic!). Maybe you could have got Maneka Gandhi too to add her bit. However, as you’re out to (re)educate us about health food—the pics are tempting, the descriptions alluring—all that is needed is a set of on- and offline links to order them. Enough motivation for them to laugh all the way to the bank. Sometimes I wonder if Outlook serves some standard dishes (after heating them in the microwave of the New Economy and reimported habits) that are partially cooked and kept ready to use as standby. I’d rate your cover story as fluffy and fat-free (like many items described in it).
Harsh Rai Puri, Bhopal
Eating right not only helps improve your health, it also makes you more optimistic about life.
Roma Kapadia, on e-mail
Man lives not by food alone. He also needs mental, physical and spiritual health.
A. Jacob Sahayam, Thiruvananthapuram
A healthy lifestyle doesn’t come packaged in attractive health food boxes and bottles as the majority believes. People are willing to try all kinds of diet regimens but are reluctant to do anything about their sedentary lifestyles. They wouldn’t mind queuing outside a trendy juice bar but won’t feel like having fresh fruits ever. These days everything low-carb is in fashion, with some stores even stocking low-carb juices! And yes, to a majority, the potato chips’ "big grab" does appear healthier than peanuts and almonds. It’s a big trade in the name of healthy living. Some do benefit and begin leading healthier lives but the point is they could have done so in a much more simpler manner. So maybe it’s just another kind of fashion statement to say you are on Atkins!
Sangeeta Dhawan, Boston, US
Your cover story would have been so much more useful had you stopped yourself from acting a PR executive for all the brand names mentioned. Case studies are helpful but fleeting overviews don’t help. Where do we, people living in B-level cities find our alternatives? There’s just too much of Mumbai and Delhi.
Shayan Sabharwal, Indore
When pizzas, potato chips and burgers were a fad in the US, we happily aped the West, sparing nary a thought for ‘health’ as we know it today. Now that the West is counting calories and going organic, lo and behold, we are following suit.
E. Younis, New York, US
What’s better? Enjoying 90 years of life on juices/salads or surviving till 60 on rotten rice and waste water?
Rajneesh Batra, New Delhi
As an Indian, it makes me seethe when I read comments like these from our politicos—"A hi-tech madness gripped the state between 1999 and 2004 and the ground beneath the poor was swept away by the tech tsunami" (Bang, Bang Bangalore, May 16) An industry which is finally getting India the attention it deserves globally is hi-tech madness for these vote-grabbers! Why can’t they leave the country alone rather than eating its carcass like buzzards?
Vikas Chowdhry, Madison, US
The 2004 election has taken the state back by 25 years.
N. Sriram, Chennai
Your story on Bangalore does not factor in the other problems it faces, viz, the power and water shortages, and clogged infrastructure. Power shortage is a recent phenomenon as there was no load-shedding in S.M. Krishna’s time. Now power cuts are a norm. Water shortage, of course, will remain an issue as long as the Cauvery dispute is unresolved. Vehicular traffic is a menace, and the metro rail will only be a waste of money and time better utilised for giving Bangalore proper infrastructure.
Manu Nair, Bangalore
K.S. Sudarshan’s advice to the bjp (Once We Were Titans, May 16) is quite right but two years too late. Vajpayee should have been asked not to seek a second term as PM, giving Advani a go instead. In a democracy of one billion, it’s a sin for any political leader to seek a second term in a top position, be it in the party or in government. It is an even greater sin for political parties to become family business corporates dominated by single family dynasties, either at the Centre or in the states. Variety is the prime spice of democratic dynamics and growth.
V. Seshadri, Chennai
It is painful to see the work of retired or serving judges of courts of record (the apex court and the high courts) who during their judicial work are taken in the highest esteem by the people of India, being denigrated or rejected by the Central and state governments constituting various commissions of inquiry in independent India. The fate of the Phukan commission report is one such example (The Rs 18 Lakh/Hr Trip, May 16). Such judges ought to realise that in the course of their judicial work, the personal motive and drive of the complainant is an inherent advantage in focused judicial proceeding. That ceases to be in a commission of inquiry. Such judges should head only those commissions of inquiries which do not deal with matters that can be dealt by courts of criminal/civil/ constitutional jurisdiction.
Hem Raj Jain, Bangalore
The man (Phukan) has no judicial sense. His report should simply be set aside.
R. Navaratnam, Auckland, New Zealand
Great umbrage is being displayed by various sections of the society over Phukan and his phookat junket, but how different is it from the daily free rides by hordes of government employees, elected representatives, their kin and hangers-on? Be it a plane ride to Pune, a chopper sortie to Ahmednagar or a car trip to school, the issue is the same.
Veeresh Malik, New Delhi
Justice Phukan had his pound of flesh in the feast of vultures.
Rakeshwar Singh, Pathankot
It’s a pathetic sight to see Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh knocking on the doors of almost every chief minister across the country with a begging bowl for power and he and energy minister Dilip Valse-Patil frantically shuttling between Mumbai and Delhi pleading for a little power (Crisis in Opportunity, May 16). According to reports, 42 more flyovers are to be constructed in Mumbai shortly. It’s unfortunate that while on the one hand the CM is trying to transform the city into a veritable Shanghai, on the other he’s making the state a Dark Continent!
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
Coca-Cola India spokesperson Vikas Kochchar is quoted in your article Don’t Poison My Well (May 16) as saying that groundwater availability in the area "has improved due to our initiative to set up rainwater harvesting projects since June 2002". Were they harvesting rainwater or waste water? Your report itself stated that the apex court monitoring committee’s report of Aug 14, 2004, found the water unfit for drinking and wanted Coca-Cola to treat the waste water (using reverse osmosis) before putting it out. Coca-Cola officials the world over should be treated to a glass of the nectar from the company’s claimed "rainwater harvesting" efforts in India.
Karen Garrett, Mumbai
Apropos the article The Law’s a Beast (May 9), Shiv Sena stalwarts can solve the entire problem of a dress code for women and consequent rapes by merely prescribing all women of India to wear the burqa. Such an action will no doubt please the Muslims of the world and get them the Muslim vote in India too!
A concerned citizen, Pune
Culture cop Pramod Navalkar has time and again objected to the dress sense of urban Indian women and their opting for "skimpy clothes", implying an invitation to rape rage. I’m not reacting to his views. I don’t care. I want to look at an issue orthogonal to it—gender discrimination against men. Women have an overwhelming variety to choose from to wear—from sarees to skirts, maxis to minis, jeans to G-strings and everything a man can wear while men have to wear clothes that cover them all over on any occasion except on a beach. No woman would be dressed down for wearing gents’ clothes but a man wouldn’t be allowed to appear in a skirt!
Suhag Dave, Nadiad (West), Gujarat
It might sound unfair, but women themselves have to be responsible for their safety. They should identify and accept certain limitations on their freedom of movement in and around notorious cities.
Nabarun Goswami, Shillong, Meghalaya
Your story India on the Drip (May 9) exemplifies the inefficient working of public utilities in general. The root cause of the problem of dependable and quality water supply is the public mindset that water should be available free of cost or at subsidised rates. This attitude always promotes wastage. Like a lot of other public issues, this one too requires public education along with the efforts to better manage the supply and distribution of a very important commodity. An equally important goal of the water utilities, public or private, should be to make water available to the poorer sections of the community at their ‘doorstep’ by designing imaginative methods of distribution and non-wasteful use.
Giri Girishankar, New Jersey, US
Your article on water shortage (India on the Drip, May 9) deserves praise, but it does not fathom the extent of the problem. Bijapur town in Karnataka has been suffering from an acute water shortage for the past 15 years with any kind of water being supplied only once a week! Yet, nothing seems to be done about it whereas Bangalore, being the IT capital of the country, has been sanctioned a World Bank project. Confirms what I have always thought—that there are two Indias—one for thE rich and another for the rest.
Mohammad Shakeel, on e-mail