It’s one thing to make adulatory remarks about somebody and another to call a person hero (Who Are You, Who?, Jan 9). The reader should be well reminded about the difference between a role model and a hero. Amitabh Bachchan has done nothing but act in movies but that he’s done damn well. The rest of the examples of ‘heroes’ were wrong except for Satyendranath Dubey, the Indian jawans who work for little pay and put their lives on the line on a daily basis and ordinary men and women like the Delhi bus driver who saved the passengers and damaged his eyes in the process. A hero places the interests of others over his own and sometimes sacrifices his own life so that others may prosper.The picture associated with the article shows only ‘famous’ people like Indira Gandhi, Lata Mangeshkar and N.R. Narayana Murthy—they are not heroes by any stretch of imagination. Your concept of a hero seems to be elitist and unnecessarily confused.
Sikka Raman, Godthaab, Greenland
I agree with Rohit Brijnath that heroes are people who make a selfless but sure step for the welfare of the public (That Frenzied Plunge). They may not be celebrities, won’t perhaps be acknowledged by the media later but could set an example to people while serving the victims of natural or man-made disasters. Obviously, it is not just the government or even voluntary organisations that carried out relief after the end-2004 tsunami but the local men and women from all walks of life that one considers sundry.
Pramod Arjun Gaikwad, Aurangabad
Let me share the heroism of a young man who saved the lives of several people even as his wife and two children perished in the tsunami. An oarsman, 36-year-old Lal worked untiringly for the benefit of others in his Allapad village in Alappuzha district of Kerala. A national daily recently reported that all is not well with Lal a year after the tragedy but that he finds solace looking at the lives of several little ones he saved.
Naimul Hossain Mallick, Baramuria, West Bengal
Maladministration and insurgency, it seems, will make West Bengal another Kashmir sooner or later (Lenin in the Pink of Health). The Left’s 30-year rule in that state has paralysed it totally. Health, education and job prospects are dismal. The government spends more than its income to pay salary to its employees, leaving little funds for development. With one-third of its population below the poverty line, the state is now bankrupt. Add to this is a breakdown in law and order. Naxalites are burning its western and northern districts. Also, indigenous people are rebelling because of invasion from Bangladesh. The tea industry too is going through a bad patch.
Bhaswati Chatterjee, Calcutta
Revathi Radhakrishnan is making the transition possible for Aadiyans and Narikoravas (Nobody’s Child Goes To School). Why should the government discriminate against these innocents when the Constitution has guaranteed education for everybody. My best wishes for Vanavil. As for Brigadier J.M. Devadoss (From Rockies to the Sands), he thought on his feet all the time, and wondrous is his feat.
S. Soundararajan, Portsmouth, UK
One is amused to read M.J. Akbar write "Yes, this was a definite contributory factor. However, putting Savarkar in the company of Netaji Bose is not justifiable" (Yawn, It Was a Sleep Year). One of the firsts to contact Savarkar after he was released in 1937 was Netaji! He was keeping touch with him even before that. Secularism should not lead to blindness.
V.R. Ganesan, New Jersey
A hero is like a soft and humble parachute which opens up only when luxury turns adversary.
Rajneesh Batra, Delhi
One can’t deny Baba Ramdev’s contribution to popularising yoga among the masses. But one also wishes he had stopped playing doctor and selling yoga as a panacea for all diseases. Any claim that purports to save you from surgical and medical intervention has to be treated with a lot of caution and care. Falling to the lure of such unsubstantiated declarations could well deny an individual of proper treatment of his otherwise curable disease.
Dr Sandeep Awasthi, Lucknow
The charges levelled against Baba Ramdev—of ‘spurious’ medicine— could well be true much like other unholy babas and self-proclaimed swamis in this country were later exposed to be complicit with crimes ranging from financial/political scams to murders. But accusing an individual of a wrongdoing should not mean discrediting the vocation he is attached to. Baba Ramdev’s sins, if any, should not be visited upon the craft that he preaches—something that he is very good at. Overall, it is our own folly that we elevate individuals to the status of god and make him above the law.
Sugeeta Roy Choudhury, Pune
Despite all the high-voltage drama enacted by the Karnataka police after the iisc shootout, one wouldn’t be surprised if there are more terrorist attacks (Newsbag, Jan 16)! The Karnataka police is the most corrupt and incompetent in the nation. To compound the grave situation, the state’s chief minister Dharam Singh, who also holds the home portfolio, has a notorious track record of creating new highs in corruption and malfeasance in his departments. Ever since the coalition government of JD(S) and Congress came to power, atrocities on women, rape and murder, and thefts have increased manifold. Hardly 20 per cent of such ghastly crimes result in court cases. Only one per cent of these cases end up in convictions. All it takes to get away with murder is spending some money, or a phone call from a ruling politician. No wonder Karnataka today is the fourth most corrupt state, and putting Bihar to shame.
R.K. Mani, Mangalore
If terrorists really wanted to target the scientist and teacher community, then the apolitical iisc in Bangalore was a wrong choice. The Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi would have been a better option where professors frequently indulge in politics and pseudo-secular activities.
Anurag N. Paranjape, Bangalore
How come there was nothing from Bihar in news from the regional media (Yesterday’s News Today, Jan 9)? We are inundated with news of the wrong sort from the state, was there no ‘good’ news from this part of the country?
Syed M.H. Haq, Patna
How puerile can you get on the issue of phone tapping (Speak No Evil, Jan 16)? Surely, apart from cheap shots at what Amar Singh may be afraid of, there are serious issues at stake here? Had the bjp been in power and Sonia Gandhi had alleged phone tapping, would Outlook have alleged that she was afraid of something salacious being revealed? Despite the pathetic Mulayam-Amar record, what is at stake is the larger issue of the privacy of people being respected. And who else but the government in power could be behind something so expensive? And surely they are the ones who have much to fear from the SP.
Ajit Tendulkar, Seattle, US
Regardless of the government in power, the judiciary has to continue to be a watchdog to ensure that injustice is curbed and that the poor are not oppressed. Politicians do not like public interest litigations. But when those in power abuse authority or abdicate responsibility, it is a pil that can cure the ill. More and more conscious citizens should take the lead rather than depend on a few citizens or ngos to pursue them. It would also be nice to see our courts taking suo motu cognisance of public vows. Else a pil would end up as a Private Interest Litigation, Political Interest Litigation, Publicity Interest Litigation, or worse still, a Paisa Interest Litigation.
Aires Rodrigues, Mumbai
I have read the two stories in Outlook (Manipur CM Gave Rs 1.5 Crore to Separatists, Dec 12, ’05 and Nobody Replies, Jan 9, ’06) on the monetary donations made by Ibobi Singh to the proscribed rpf and kykl. As a reporter earlier working in the state, I can tell you that this does not surprise anybody in the state. Nor the fact that the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre bothers little about it. Ibobi’s not responding to charges, much less refuting them, is his favourite method of weathering storms! At the height of the ‘state integrity agitations’, and before they stuck up such a cosy relationship, the powerful United Committee Manipur (ucm) went on record to charge Ibobi of charging 10 per cent from all funds sanctioned under his charge. And till today, the CM has not refuted that charge. One can go on and on. What he can do is sign lots of MoUs with any entity having any grudge. That’s his idea of troubleshooting! One of the outfits he had donated to, the rpf, has now added another feather to its cap by killing the highest ranking tribal police officer in the state, T. Thangthuam IPS, IGP (Intel), on New Year’s eve. What’s more, the Meitei militants have planted lots of landmines in the tribal hill areas since last year and the explosions that occur regularly have already killed scores of innocent civilians and threatened rural existence in much of the district. Ibobi, I suspect, is party to this concerted Meitei effort to forcibly subjugate, or intimidate the minority tribal populations and all their aspirations.
Lalala Zomi, New Delhi
The government seems to be getting serious about reserving jobs for backward castes in private sector companies. In the latest development, Union social justice minister Meira Kumar is said to have met Indian industry leaders and hinted that it would be best for corporates to embrace job quotas voluntarily since the government could impose job reservation on the private sector by changing the law. But this has always been a controversial issue. What should quota be seen as, a real effort needed in the private sector to help the backward castes prosper or a mere political gimmick to be played at various times to target a votebank?
Md Ziyaullah Khan, Nagpur
The work of B.G.Verghese’s band is laudable (One For the Unknown Soldier, Jan 16). Hope the piece will help their cause of building a memorial.
Harsh Rai Puri, Bhopal
