The new generation should thank its stars that it can at least think of a cricketing career (Bowling at the Death, Jun 15). Think of our past heroes who were paid a pittance for their efforts. Think of Polly Umrigar, who had to face a hard time at the beginning of his career. Or players like A.A. Baig, Balu Gupte, Jasu Patel, Subrata Guha and Nari Contractor. Their careers were short-lived too. Will any of your ‘examples’ measure up to these guys?
S.S. Almal, Calcutta
The bcci is out to make money for itself and its shady members. Look at how professionally football is managed in Europe. Every club has a training academy that attracts the best talent in its city/region, and you make your way up if you have the talent. That’s how great players—whatever the sport—are produced. And why should the ipl be played only for a month? Why not a schedule that balances both international and club level commitments of players? You need professional sports managers at the top, not political cronies out there to milk the game for all it’s worth.
Vijay Shankar, Bangalore
Outlook is definitely different from the rest of the breed. While most other mags are concentrating on the glitz and glamour of cricket, you have dived into the deep end and produced an issue on the dark side of the nation’s most loved sport. The amount of talent that goes waste in India due to the whims and fancies of a few selectors, whom Jimmy Amarnath once rightly described as "a bunch of jokers", is truly alarming.
Smita Shenoy, Chennai
Your cover was a story waiting to be told in this cricket-crazy country. At least now people will start following the sport with their heads as much as with their hearts. NB: Please do a similar story on Bollywood; it too has a dark underbelly.
Ranvijay Yadav, Pune
Indians eat, drink and sleep cricket. Perhaps now they’ll think cricket too—of how many lives it has ruined.
Vineet Bhalla, on e-mail
The pulls and pressures associated with "the Game" are not really different from the challenges one faces living in India. No field is a cakewalk for people with weak hearts. Additionally, the support system in our country is abysmal. Too much rides on the game now. Win or lose, everyone’s performance is analysed threadbare. There’s really no place to hide.
Rohit C.J., Kochi
Cricket is no longer a sport in India. It’s business, it’s politics. Losers fall by the wayside; they just have to learn to live with it.
S.R. Prabhu, Alappuzha
Cricket has become so competitive that even popular cricketers have to plan their career carefully. Vinod Kambli and others come to mind. They messed up because they didn’t plan their careers.
Ravi Kumar Y.V.K., Hyderabad
What we need is a complete sports programme that helps players understand that there is a life beyond sports, and manage their success and failure by pointing out alternative careers.
Escoss, Delhi
Vilasrao Deshmukh is only deluding himself if he thinks he can do a UP in Maharashtra in the belief that Sharad Pawar’s influence in the state has waned (Is it Singular...?, Jun 15). There is nothing to suggest a decline in the Maratha strongman’s popularity. The central leadership of the Congress had better nip the idea in the bud to save itself the embarrassment and a debacle in the assembly polls.
K.R. Srinivasan, Secunderabad
Too many allies do exactly what too many cooks do to the broth. Both national parties should contest elections on their own.
B. Ramdeo, Springfield, US
The Congress must capitalise on the fast-changing scenario in Maharashtra. The NCP (read Nephews and Cohorts of Pawar) has been rocked by scandals and is losing its hold in western Maharashtra. With the BJP’s popularity nosediving, the Shiv Sena won’t be able to put up a good show either. The Congress should stop living in awe of Pawar’s hold on Maharashtra and reclaim the state on its own.
Sanjay Ranade, Pune
Reading Melbourne Ultimatum (Jun 15), I wondered how we would react if the number of foreign students in India were to go up suddenly to match the proportion of Indian students. What kind of ‘anti-colonialist theory’ would we put out to expalin how we would then react? Not to forget our own internal caste and regional divides. We have to stop overreacting, pause to think over the issue before pontificating to the West about racist reactions among their youth whose job opportunities are being taken away.
Sharad Rajimwale, Jodhpur
It surprises me that 20 young Indians could not beat the crap out of two Aussies.
Joe Brodway, New York
As someone who travels abroad quite a bit, I can vouch for the fact that the behaviour of some so-called NRI students is disgusting, to say the least. Why any Australian, even I would thrash them, given a chance. The Indian media has been shamefully one-sided on these attacks, painting the westerners as racist and blaming them for everything while portraying all Indians as innocent, humble and law-abiding. There is rot on both sides, and the media should be more mature in its coverage.
G. Natrajan, Hyderabad
Please stop referring to this as racism, and call it by the name it really deserves, misanthropy.
Parthasarathy, Chennai
The Government of India should take strong action, maybe even recall our high commissioner from there.
M.M. Kumar, Bahrain
Indians are being attacked in Australia and Canada (A Rose, By Any Other Name!, Jun 15). In Britain, the racist British Nationalist Party (BNP), which never won a parliamentary seat before, has now cornered two seats in the European Parliament. It is an anti-immigration party, like many other anti-immigration parties in west European countries. While we need not get paranoid, we can’t be too complacent either. Some degree of racism exists quite near the surface in both white and non-white populations. It is likely to come to the fore in an economic downturn, when jobs become scarce. It is also true, however, that a large percentage of Europeans, Canadians and Australians are opposed to and embarrassed by such overt expressions of racism.
Anwar, Dallas, US
Apropos of the article No Sweet Nostrum (Jun 15), the fact remains that the BJP is the political arm of the RSS and is subservient to it.
Nasar, on e-mail
I think what the BJP needs to do first is not to play copycat to the corrupt Congress. It should also be wary of the media, which tends to equate being nationalist as being anti-minority. And if there is a brazen instance of minority appeasement, as in the Shah Bano case, the BJP should take it up and oppose it. National interest should be supreme; not power at any cost.
K.C. Sharma, on e-mail
Even if the BJP never wins a majority on its own, it should retain its unique identity, its nationalistic character, and more important, it should espouse the Hindu cause without accusing the minorities. It has a pretty good record on matters such as the uniform civil code, illegal immigrants, terrorism and so on. The nda’s record in power too was good. But it should also remember that Verdict 2009 wasn’t an acceptance of the Congress; it was a rejection of the BJP. Getting rid of the old guard, some repackaging, and genuine help from the RSS could help it return to power.
Shapra, on e-mail
A split is the only option for the BJP to survive as a political entity. If the party manages to cleanse itself of toxins, it will probably become a viable, national party, but one that had better call itself, say, the Janata Party.
Reddy, on e-mail
Find as much fault as you can with the BJP, but remember, if it had followed your advice, it would never have come to power anywhere—ever.
Ankush Poddar, Calcutta
Yes, the BJP needs some self-analysis to understand what went wrong in the elections. But Advani can’t be faulted for calling Manmohan Singh a weak prime minister; it is after all the job of an opposition leader to hold up the prime minister to scrutiny. Other factors, such as the RSS being a thorn in the flesh of the BJP, the cropping up of Modi’s name for future prime ministership, and the unseemly row between Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley also contributed to the party’s poor showing.
K.R. Narasimhan, Chennai
When Giriraj Kishore spoke of circumcision and how it enabled Muslim men to give more pleasure to women, why didn’t your correspondent ask him to recommend the procedure to all Hindu men (The Old Order Fadeth, Its Absurdity Paleth)? I don’t really believe Kishore could be so stupid as to have actually said this, but since your correspondent says so, I must take her word for it. My only concern is, who can save a political group with leaders who think like this!
G.L. Karkal, Pune
Apropos of Where the Family Heirs Loom (Jun 8), if doctors and lawyers can encourage their sons and daughters to take to their profession, if civil services officers can encourage their children to join the services, what’s so wrong with politicians making politicians of their children?
Anand, on e-mail
It’s surprising that in a country with a law against polygamy, there are politicians like Karunanidhi who have more than one wife. Is it that the law is applied differently to the common man and the politician? Or is it that we are a country that doesn’t care to apply its laws?
Hema Harsha, Bangalore
It’s a tough life for politicians’ children: if they join politics because their parents trust them and bring them into the profession, they are criticised; and if they don’t, their every action and advancement is held up to criticism.
T. Santhanam, on e-mail
In your ‘Election Extra’ supplement in the week the results were out (May 25), T.J.S. George wrote of how large amounts of money were spent in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to bring in votes. In some places, voters were paid Rs 500 each. I hope your magazine will fight for electoral reforms, for otherwise, it will be the likes of A. Raja (of the spectrum scam fame) and T.R. Baalu who will win elections, thanks to their money power.
R.G. Seshachalam, Bangalore
"We want affirmative action in the private sector," says M. Veerappa Moily (Interview, Jun 15). If the Indian government wants to follow the American example, it should eliminate all reservations in universities. The American courts have rejected "quota" on grounds that it is "reverse discrimination".
Ajaya Dutt, Anaheim, US
Why are the Yadavs opposing the women’s reservation bill? After all, they will be getting more gopikas in Parliament!
N. Paul Jeyatilak, Chennai
I laughed my head off reading Vinod Mehta’s sentimental take on the aam aadmi in his Delhi Diary (Jun 15). Really, writing more loaded with credulity hasn’t appeared in recent times. But Mr Mehta should know who all run government policies, reformist or otherwise: the Ambanis, Birlas and the Tatas.
Ramesh Raghuvanshi, Pune
The point is, one cannot redistribute wealth unless one creates some in the first place. Of course, zero can be equally divided amongst India’s millions. Mr Mehta must take the Economics 101 course at the Delhi School of Economics. He could also take Mr Karat along!
Anurag Banerjee, Newcastle
Your prognosis is correct. If India wants to avoid ending up as a banana republic, we have to script our own economic reforms, unhindered by pressure from the US or Europe.
Ram, Singapore
The retail sector should remain closed so that big conglomerates and others can continue to underpay the farmer and overcharge the customer. Pension funds must be made to sit idle so that inflation can slowly mothball them. Profit-making psus should never be asked to improve. If Mr Mehta makes liberalisation seem so unreasonable, the opposite claim can also be made. Let him know that the government’s Rs 65,000-crore loan waiver was possible only because of the 1991 reforms.
R. Vijay, Chennai
Tesco must never be allowed to open shop in India. It killed all the corner shops in the UK; it’ll do the same in India.
G.S. Rahman, London
Thanks for the piece on the aam aadmi. It must be the Lakhnawi in you!
Jaipat S. Jain, New York
A Rs 65,000-crore loan waiver? What loan waiver? Had farmers taken loans from a scheduled bank, they wouldn’t have had to commit suicide in such numbers. Private money-lenders drove them to that. The government merely bailed out scheduled banks by wiping out their non-performing assets.
A.S. Raghunath, Delhi
Vinod Mehta is delusional about his own importance! Why else should he think that a restaurant owner would be alarmed if he flashed his visiting card (Blanco Cheque)?
Srinivas, Lucknow
If Mr Mehta really wanted to pay his bill, he should not have flaunted his visiting card. And if he had ended up eating his food gratis, it certainly wouldn’t have been his first consumed thus!
Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai
To hand the manager your visiting card is a silly thing to do. Upwardly mobile socialists handing their cards at the drop of a hat are very nauseating.
Mohan Awara, Delhi
What a hypocrite you are, Mr Mehta! How much did you spend on the meal? Stop scolding our middle classes then.
Gopi Maliwal, Hong Kong
Well, the manager needed that assurance, didn’t he?
Manish Banerjee, Calcutta
Loan waivers and cash transfers could be excellent as one-time measures in a crisis (One Li’l Piggy in the Bank, Jun 15). As regular welfare measures, they’re likely to convert poor but honest citizens into habitual, wilful defaulters and able-bodied, employable citizens into beggars. But sure, they help preserve (and perhaps enlarge) BPL votebanks, so handy at election time.
M.H. Rao, Hyderabad
As an employee of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), I was pained to read that some day we will be left in the lurch if our company too is put on the disinvestment list (Family Silver Lining, Jun 15). nlc and Neyveli being dmk strongholds, its abetting any kind of disinvestment would be akin to biting the hand that feeds and will damage its political fortunes irreparably.
S. Aruna Jothi, Neyveli
I was shocked to see Outlook using Maharaja and Maharani before the names of common citizens of the democratic Republic of India (Glitterati, Jun 8). The country has long abolished princely states and privy purses. Why persist with such anachronisms?
P.S. Chohan, Thane
It was extraordinary to see the Indian government going so far as to cut scenes of Catholic priests smoking in the film Angels and Demons. It is ironic that Indian Catholics should get smoked up about cigarettes when the Catholic church is being rocked by worse scandals. Only last month yet another catalogue of systematic child abuse by priests and nuns was published in Ireland.
Aroup Chatterjee, London
