Violence, in itself, is a vicious cycle that will not cease to exist (The Shy Peace Hunter, May 15). It can, at best, provide brief, misleading spells of peace. Thus, Salwa Judum may be a fresh idea but it should be used only as a last resort of self-defence. The government should ensure a stronger police force with an upgraded armoury and more sophisticated weaponry. Also, such strife-torn areas should see development work like building of schools and clinics. Small-scale or cottage industries can also help to generate jobs in these parts. Another necessity is free movement of its people to the neighbouring unaffected zones. It would ensure easy access to markets for the goods of the villagers, plus a better transportation system. All this might require 5-7 years but will prove to be a long-term solution to Naxalism.
Ulaganathan M., on e-mail
an excellent piece of ‘Naxal tourism’. It has everything for the armchair intellectuals and activists our metros are teeming with—idyllic state, innocent tribals, state terrorism and draconian law besides usages like jungles being erased for big firms and shops and government forcing peace-loving tribals to compact housing settlements (read urban slums)". Big firms in Bastar! And urban slums in Konta and Bijapur! For God’s sake, this can only come from somebody who knows neither the history nor the geography of the people of Bastar. And, while making a big story of how the government is forcing the tribals out of their villages, you conveniently forget to analyse why innocent tribals are killed by the Maoists. Or why 40 innocent villagers are abducted from camps (not for SJ) they have taken refuge in and 13 of them murdered in cold blood. Is this revenge against the state? The report not only fails to provide a perspective of things but does injustice to a problem that is now recognised as bigger threat to national security than the insurgency to the Northeast.
S.K. Misra, Raipur
I am fed up with this moronic response to the Naxal menace: "We should find a political solution to the problem" (Terra Crimson). This, when the Naxals want nothing short of total surrender of the elected authority of armed criminals.
Anusha Singh, New Delhi
The first thing to be done to solve the Naxal menace is to control population—else India will perish due to non-availability of food, a scenario that would entail a civil war. The state should provide employment to the youth; an idle mind is indeed a devil’s workshop. Also, there should be no landless people left. All villages should have basic necessities like water, road, school, electricity and hospital. Scientific temperament should replace religious beliefs. (Should one remind the government that parts of West Bengal and the Northeast would ask for secession from India due to a surge in Muslim and Christian population?) Yoga should be taught systematically so as to have more level-headed people. Such measures can be taken only if the country has prudent and efficient politicians. Finally, if our government cannot control the Naxal menace, then India should be given a chance for military rule.
Shiv Kumar, Mumbai
The Naxalite movement is 3,000 years overdue, I swear.
G.S. Raj, Chicago
We need to resolve Siachen with Pakistan first if we are to resolve Kashmir at all (Siachen: A Warning, May 15). There’s a lobby of military thinkers which feels that the Siachen glacier—or rather the Saltoro Ridge—is of strategic importance as Pakistan can develop operations across the passes if they hold them. But a group of equally eminent thinkers, including a few ex-dgmos, feels that no purpose is being served in holding on to Saltoro. If we’re serious about improving ties with Pakistan, Siachen is the best place to start as no population is involved and troops on both sides can be brought down to more comfortable altitudes without compromising the stand of either country. Similarly, whether the marked agpl is part of the agreement or annexures is a matter of detail. There are other things to attend to first—environment, for one. The Siachen glacier is the largest reserve of fresh water in Asia. But its fragile ecosystem has been held hostage in the past 20 years to tonnes of military junk, garbage and human waste. Till 2003, thousands of shells have been fired and poisoned the waters of the Nubra which joins the Shyok river and the Indus finally.
Pavan Nair, Pune
Have we forgotten the betrayals of Kargil to be repeating its blunders in Siachen?
Air Cmde R. Singh (retd), Pune
The way the Indian government handled Suryanarayana’s case only proved that while Indian labour is cheap, Indian lives are cheaper (Kaput in Kabul, May 15). While their colleagues from other countries get the backing of their respective governments, Indians are left to their karma. Our government has no influence whatsoever over the Taliban or Al Qaeda. So any scope of negotiating the safe release of a hostage from their clutches is out of the question, unless India is ready to accept their ridiculous demands. If we want, however, there is one solution: increase the presence of Indian forces in Afghanistan. This way we will safeguard our citizens in that country, also retain the lucrative development projects there in our hands.
Gautam Goswami, Bangalore
How many more Suryanarayanas have to be killed before the Indian government comes to its senses? Doesn’t it realise that the Taliban aren’t a people who can be dealt with rationally or through discussion. The only language they speak is of barbarism, as they show through their inhuman killings. After Kandahar and the killing of Raman Kutty, our government should have immediately banned all Indians from working there. The development of Afghanistan is purely that country’s problem, not India’s. At best, we should extend financial help.
H.N. Ramakrishhna, Bangalore
Dal-roti or dal chawal was the only staple the common man in India could afford. Even that will now be denied to him, thanks to the rising prices of pulses (Oh Dear Lentil, May 15).
Dr R.N. Kohli, New Delhi
Mani Shankar Aiyar is lying through his teeth to project Nehru as a man who respected all faiths (Books, May 15). As author Sita Ram Goel pointed out, secularism appears nowhere in Nehru’s speeches and writings before 1947. It was only after becoming PM that he used the stick of secularism to beat Hinduism with. The double standards in matters of religion started with him. He was opposed to the Somnath temple and Rajendra Prasad attending the ceremony but said conversions are fundamental rights and asked the CMs not to interfere in missionary activity. Secularism became anti-Hinduism right from Nehru’s time.
Ganesan, New Jersey
Aiyar quotes Nehru as saying "If any person raises his hand to strike down another in the name of religion, I shall fight him to the last breath of my life...." What about the millions who died in the violence during Partition and after? Did Nehru fight till his last breath? Nah, he continued to rule India 17 years after that as PM.
S. Srinivasa Rao, Delhi
Rao died unloved (by the Congress) only because Madam considered him an outsider. Never mind if he was the visionary of India’s economic reforms.
S. Prasad, Santa Clara
Was this a book review or a forum to prove the secular credentials of the Congress in general and the Gandhi-Nehrus in particular? Next time review your reviews before printing them.
D.B. Sholapurkar, Athani
A pro-Congress Outlook can’t help but publish articles like On the Divider (May 15) and talk of ‘Modidom’ burning only to vitiate the communal amity in the country. Now that the Bombay High Court too has ordered the demolition of some 4,800 illegal shrines, you will probably give us an account of how the Shiv Sena-controlled bmc will marginalise the minority community and destroy peace in the city. What do you have to say about the SC indicting the mcd for not doing its job in sealing shops or demolishing illegal structures supposedly as old as our grandmas? Want to play politics, blame it on the bjp.
Raj Bharadwaj, on e-mail
I lived in Kuwait for a long time near the airport. There was an old mosque near the main approach road. When the road needed widening, the mosque was demolished overnight. But a new mosque was built at state expense some distance away. That’s the kind of solution we too should look at.
Rajiv Sethi, Phoenix, US
So Outlook turns an even-handed demolition drive into a communally inspired act! Job well done, but no one is impressed. One look at the photograph of that shrine and it’s clear nobody goes there. And the state government did give the option to shift the shrine.
Rahul, Delhi
Outlook, how coloured can your politics get!
Prasad, Germany
For once, I was able to read what Rushdie’s written (His Own Mt Sinai, May 8) in one go. It’s lucid, unlike his Satanic Verses which was boring and completely unreadable. Were it not for the fatwa the book would have sunk unknown.
Prasad Dole, Cape Town, SA
Dabhol will rise again (A Ghost Town Comes to Life, May 22), courtesy the solid support from Shinde and Deora. It’s just that the position of power in Maharashtra is precarious that no one’s talking about the cost of power, but it’s embarrassing the Congress government and the opposition parties who jointly approved it.
M.M. Gurbaxani, Bangalore
The sudden demise of Pramod Mahajan is a definite loss for the bjp (Appraisal, May 15). In his death, it lost an efficient organiser, a potential fundraiser and firebrand speaker.
Imtiyazul R. Bhat, Kashmir
It’s Mahajan’s mother I feel most sorry for. It was a double blow for her: losing one son to destiny, the other to prison.
Gayatri Gahlaut, on e-mail
Aha, so now we know the reason behind the media’s carpet-bombing coverage of the Mahajan tragedy! It’s journalists who’ll feel his loss more than his party. Thanks Saba for that bit of insider info!
Ila Bhat, on e-mail
I hope your article Ctrl C, Ctrl V will refresh the malady in our academia. Else, an army of lethargic and fraudulent researchers will continue in the act of intellectual dishonesty until the peer-review mechanism is strengthened. Leave aside the volume of scientific publishing in the country, the quality of ‘research’ and publishing in non-scientific subjects too is a heap of garbage. In the last 10 years, at least five PhD students approached me for guidance on research work on various aspects of the cultural heritage of Haryana. I assigned them hard tasks, mostly involving field work, and asked them not to rely on available information or others’ work. They never appeared again. A few others offered me money for writing their theses for them. It shocked me even more when I learnt that they went on to obtain lucrative teaching posts in colleges and universities on the basis of those paid-for PhDs.
R.B. Singh, Rohtak
At a time when there is intense research and debate in professional circles on redefining intellectual property rights, overturning of conventional business beliefs and postulation of new economic fundamentals, does it matter that Kaavya lifted a few lines? Copying—or imitation—is a necessity. Jean-Pierre Babylon calls it one of the grounding instruments of our civilisation. It has enabled transmission of values that would otherwise have been lost. The cultural heritage of former generations serve as sources of inspiration for the cultural workers of subsequent generations who appear to be making a fresh start, as with Kaavya. Plagiarism enthusiasts claim Kaavya was inspired by McCafferty and failed to acknowledge this. Is it not possible that McCafferty herself was inspired by and, as it were, plagiarised from someone else situated earlier chronologically? Various economists have emphasised that research indicates the expansion of copyright in general favouring investors over creators and performers. Kaavya’s book was doing well in the market: why should publishers be allowed to decide its fate by pulling it out? Let us applaud creative work wherever and to whomsoever it is due; I’m not so sure whether imitating someone else’s style in a few paras in an otherwise possibly good piece of storytelling should be reason enough to rob a young, promising 19-year-old of the credit due to her.
Manu Rajan, Bangalore
Nothing excuses Kaavya’s plagiarism even if it is seen as a lesser sin in India. Kaavya goes to Harvard. One of the first lessons we learn in universities/colleges here is that plagiarism is a crime and, if caught, the consequences are severe. Kaavya should have known better!
S. Vani, Toronto
Plagiarism, like hypocrisy and sycophancy, is just a small part of the wide spectrum of Indian ‘talent’ which would be contemptible or even illegal in most other civilised societies. Here, it is an art. Personal integrity and self-respect are concepts alien to the average Indian citizen. Everything is fine as long as you stand to gain and you don’t get caught. Perjury (as in Jessica Lall’s case), bribery and corruption, adulteration of food, fuel and medicines, jumping the queue, breaking traffic rules, throwing garbage all over, encroaching on public land, stealing electricity—these are things the ordinary Indian citizen indulges in daily, and not just politicians or bureaucrats alone.
Dr Mathew Joseph, Kollam
Agreed, plagiarism is a habit with Indians. But then, Kaavya isn’t really Indian, is she?
B.N. Sudeep, Bangalore
S. Gopal, in his biography of his father, Sarvepally Radhakrishnan, has chronicled how the second President of India was accused of plagiarism in the then greatly respected intellectual journal, The Modern Review. The accused, holder of professorship in Oxford at the time, sued the journal for libel in the Calcutta High Court. After several years of litigation, Rabindranath Tagore advised Radhakrishnan to withdraw the suit as it would be difficult to prove libel since there was in fact quite a bit of Ctrl C, Ctrl V.
M.C. Swaminathan, Hyderabad
What’s the fuss about? If you like Kaavya’s book, read it, else do not. Who doesn’t cheat? Billionaires? iitians? You? Me? We all do. All the great people have too. Take it easy.
Giriraj Sharma, Indianapolis
Clarification
The article Control C, Control V referred to charges of plagiarism against film reviewers of the Times of India and The Hindu. This is to clarify that the reference was to the film reviewer for the Delhi edition of the toi, and The Hindu’s Chennai edition.
