While it’s good to know that Indian companies are all out to conquer the world (The Elephant’s Hungry, Nov 06), I can’t understand why we don’t allow foreign companies to buy Indian ones. After all, business isn’t a one-way street.
Vishwanath Rao, Bangalore
Actually more foreign companies are buying Indian ones. The entire Indian cement industry has been taken over by the French La Farge, Switzerland’s Kuoni has taken over India’s Sita World Travels and more recently Mylan Labs, US, has acquired Hyderabad’s Matrix Labs. Indian companies, unfortunately, are taking over only loss-making western companies. I hope it all doesn’t come back to haunt us in the future.
G. Natrajan, Hyderabad
M&AS are like a marriage between two known or unknown firms. It’s a boon for companies keen to expand their customer base as m&as allow them direct access to a vast pool of consumers plus a commercial network. The cost of acquisition, though, remains vital as economic viability is the fuel that helps these companies sustain themselves and expand in the long run.
Vineet Bhalla, Bhilai
Instead of sending Indian shareholders’ money abroad, the Tatas could have better invested in other areas of growth within India itself, particularly in manufacturing. This would have generated employment and other spin-offs. The profit Tata makes from the steel plant in Jharkhand is almost 1,000 per cent! When the government has given a private company the licence to make sky-high profits, is it too much to expect the company to feel responsible for the locals? India is no comparison to China, particularly in manufacturing, for all the hype it generates. Its education index and infrastructure are areas which could do with all that surplus money.
G. Parthasarathy, Chennai
Here in India we like ppp more than current prices as it gives a more realistic estimation about what an average man can buy with the money he earns. Who then is likely to have a better standard of living? An Indian or a Pakistani?
N. Sreejith, Bangalore
With the Indian economy relatively stagnant for nearly five decades, it could benefit from its (semi-skilled) labour surplus. Now, it will not be able to employ its growing labour force without expanding globally. Competition is the only guarantee for keeping these capitalists in check, and definitely not any governmental-bureaucratic quicksand. Governmental bureaucracy and the politician-criminal nexus are the No. 1 enemy of India today.
M. Prasad, Deerfield, US
Thank God we have industrialists like Azim Premji and the Tatas who’ve started acting globally. Socialists like Nehru had done India in. I still dread the Left’s support to the Congress government. They can only send India down the path of Cuba or Soviet Union.
Alhad Sathe, on e-mail
Clarification: The cover mentions M&M chairman Keshub Mahindra as M&M VC & MD Anand Mahindra’s father. He is his uncle. We regret the error.
Apropos the new controversy over the veil in Britain (Straw in an Islamic Wind, Nov 6), I see it as a veiled threat to the cultural freedom of the followers of Islam in England or the West. I quote Akbar Allahabadi, a contemporary of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, to prove my point: "Bepurdah kal jo aayeen nazar chand bibiyan, Akbar zameen mein gheerat-e-qaumi se gadh gaya. Poocha jo usne aapka purdah woh kya hua, boleen aql pe aajke mardon ki padh gaya" (Yesterday when I saw some ladies without a veil, I (Akbar) was buried with shame. When I asked where the veil had gone, they said nowadays it’s shrouding the wisdom of men).
A.T.M. Anwar, Hyderabad
Why all this fuss over the veil? It’s an aberrant insistence of one religion, imposed on its followers. What can the world do if they seek to be prisoners of darkness?
Pradeep Sharma, Mumbai
I support Jack Straw’s call for Muslim women to remove their veils. It is, in fact, an anachronism in this modern age, more so in a developed country like the UK.
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
Why is it such a ritual for the media to drag the rss into everything that is negative? I speak of Saba Naqvi’s column The Scar on the Moon (Nov 6). When Muslim clerics say their women should cover themselves from head to toe to avoid rape, Outlook justifies it shamelessly, even seeing in it a latent assertion of Muslim women’s right to choose. However, when the rss says Hindu women should dress decently, they are branded as fanatics.
Anand Vaidya, London
A wonderful piece that succinctly sums up the issue and articulates perhaps the views of the silent majority of the Muslims in India. Would that more and more join the chorus. Fighting the power-hungry mullahs is as important as opposing any Sanghi.
Ajit Tendulkar, Seattle, US
I agree with Ms Bhaumik cent per cent. But how many Muslims think like her or me? Even here in faraway Nashville, with a community of a few thousand Muslims, we celebrated two Ids. As long as we as a community do not throw the fanatical aalims (which is a misnomer as an aalim is a learned person while most of these idiots have never seen the inside of a school, and poison factories called madrassas do not qualify) and usher in an enlightened secular, educated leadership which teaches the community the worth of education, truth, respect for all religions, patriotism and other such values Islam stands for. Till then, we’ll be debating till kingdom come and not getting anywhere.
Azeem Taqi, Nashville, US
The sighting of the moon was a necessary reference point in following the lunar calendar in the seventh century. An adamant adherence to it is mere empty ritualism.
Kasim Sait, Chennai
Id and the sighting of the moon reminds me of an Urdu couplet: Aghyar mehar-o-mah se aage nikal gaye/ Uljhe hue hain subah ki pahli kiran se hum (Neighbours have marched ahead of the sun and moon/we’re still stuck with the first ray of dawn).
H.N. Sinha, New Delhi
Apropos Statute of Liberty (Nov 6), I think I’ve cracked the answer to the query that’s troubled great thinkers for centuries, "What do women want?" They want men to be robots and they want the remote control! At this rate, I see a "Non-domestic Violence Act" coming in by 2015.
Vijayender, Hyderabad
Besides the legal aid, give the victims, if possible, free education and jobs.
Arun, Northshore, US
What exactly did Prem Shankar Jha expect of Karan Thapar (The Courier of Bad Vibes, Nov 6)? Ask docile questions like he did during the breakfast meeting with Mush in 2001? Throw in some softball questions which he can hit out of the park? Is that what "constructive" journalism is? Karan Thapar at least does not betray any political leanings and has asked tough questions to all—the bjp or the Left parties. The nsa should have been more careful with his words.
V.R. Ganesan, New Jersey
Jha remains a patriotic Paki. As always...
S. Narayan, Zurich
Maheshwer Peri’s right on how vicious American media gets (Fox-eat-Fox, New York Diary, Nov 6), but the Indian media is as bad if not worse. At least the Americans do things blatantly, Indians couch it in a holier-than-thou attitude in sync with our hypocritical nature.
Navdeep Hans, Delhi
I agree with what Peri says, but problem is, millions of people in America heed Fox’s one-sided coverage and form their opinions about other countries, foreign policy, war on terror et al based on that. The same goes for radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Mike Rosen and authors like Michael Savage and Ann Coulter. Their influence in mass media has been increasing dramatically since 9/11.
Kedar Deshpande, Chicago
CNN’s claim to neutrality sounded credible during the first Gulf War (to liberate Kuwait). Right now, it is hard to believe any news channel. The Beeb may be your best bet. Of course, Conservative American talk show hosts consider it too left-leaning and liberal. Indian channels (other than those run by the Dravidian parties, Lefties and others) may not have any ideological slants. For them, cash is king.
S. Prasad, Santa Clara, US .
Yes, I agree, Papaji. One must write history like William Dalrymple (Books, Nov 6). The hate history churned out by ncert texts, made worse by the drab narration, must stop. What are our eminent historians doing? Vying for funds, trips abroad, chasing a chair or two in Ivy League universities, or pleasing political bosses? Well done, Willie boy. Khushwant Singh does you justice.
Gajanan, Sydney
Dalrymple’s book is certainly interesting—unlike the tedious tomes churned out by Left historians like Romila Thapar. But it falls into the trap of choosing a hero and overrating him grossly. All his Mughal sentimentality is laughable. By the time of the mutiny, the Mughals were a comic opera shoe-box dynasty, living on opium dreams of a "great" past when they vanquished the Hindus. Thank God the splendid Marathas and the Brits put an end to those "good old times". As for that windbag Ghalib, he was just a hypocrite. He called the hanging of Zafar’s sons a "light going out of India", but called the sepoys a bunch of criminal "blacks". Dalrymple can write freely about the greatness of Islam because he’s in Britain. But wait till the jehadi immigrants become 15 or 20 per cent of Britain, he’ll have nowhere to flee.
Anil Narlikar, Pune
For some years now, it’s become a practice to award honours and prizes to books that portray the negative aspects of their countries. The authors who hail from such countries win the Bookers and the Nobels. But what about their brethren whose lives they portray? Most of these honoured authors go on to become politicians or, like Arundhati Roy, activists. Jaideep Mazumdar (Worms in the Cottage Cheese, Nov 6) deserves praise for exposing chinks in the Kiran Desai Booker.
Dr Wishvas Rane, Pune
Some among us have a way of making everything look sinister. So it was with P.M. Bhargava’s piece on foreign education providers (Harvard @ Dhenkanal, Nov 6) in India. I don’t know if he has studied at Harvard, or at any other American school of higher education. Most American schools, he’d know then, are full of diverse viewpoints; and most of these are at variance or conflict with the prevailing American foreign policy.
Jaipat S. Jain, New York
I don’t know why Dr Bhargava presumes we don’t have feps in India. What are all international schools teaching International Baccalaureate or all those twinning programmes? As for ‘indoctrination’, most of the sought-after degrees in India have no coursework for critical thinking and writing at all. So, most Indian engineering degree holders graduate with zero worldly knowledge to critically dissect information. Most end up as idiot savants who memorise, say, the value of pi till the 100th digit, but can’t think for themselves when faced with new or conflicting information. Also, tertiary education is a big-dollar business anywhere in the world. It’s one industry that’s had very little productivity gains compared to, say, tech or, even cricket, so you’ll have to pay a huge amount relative to what you’d pay for, say, an iPod. To expect big brand-names such as mit or Harvard to set up shop in India for purely altruistic reasons is sheer naivete; consider the mit Media Lab India fiasco, and how even a big name like mit was asking a 100 million dollars for only attaching their brand to our research efforts. And then there’s this bit about research, or making us do dirty research: well, how much research do you do anyway in undergrad-only colleges? It’s hardly as if a Cornell or a Duke’s planning to move its research wing to India. Finally, Indian colleges have already gone abroad. bits-Pilani has a campus in Dubai, iim-b has a non-operational one in Singapore. The world’s already on the move; I know of at least one Asian university that tried to come to India but couldn’t due to huge policy roadblocks. In comparison, its joint programmes with Europe, China and the US have been smooth.
Akshay, Hyderabad
I’m not against opening up of feps in India, though with proper controls. But, I don’t think that if US degrees are available here, people will stop going to the US for education. True, 8 out of 10 Indian students who come to the US to study intend to stay back and work (it’s probably 10 out of 10 for Chinese students). So, for ‘most’ Indian students, US education is just a way to emigrate there. If the US changes its law and forces foreign students to return to their home countries after their studies, the demand for US education will drop drastically in India. More than university education, the bigger problem in India is lack of good primary education. The government should focus on this more than anything else.
Kunal Mangal, Denver, US
To think feps is a way for the US to control India is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard. Having studied in the US, it wasn’t just the coursework but the exposure to a diversity of ideas that formed the basis of my education. Let the Indian institutions compete with foreign ones; if they’re good, they’ve nothing to worry. Competition actually will improve our institutions and students will have better choices and opportunities. It will also bring foreign revenues and international students who will act as lifelong ambassadors. It’ll also mean better salaries for the faculty. Thomas Paine once wrote "Common sense is the most uncommon thing in the world." He was dead right.
Pravin, Seattle, US
Foreign ideological corruption isn’t new in India, it began with Islam, Christianity and Communism. They were all absorbed into Indian thought. What is the big deal about American schools coming to India? Like kfc, they too will start serving tandoori chicken.
A.N. Banerjee, Newcastle, UK
Dr Bhargava, either India should be capable of building hundreds of iits, iims and aiims in the next 3-5 years. If not, then stop fighting this case.
Abhimanyu Sharma, London
Arundhati’s is one of the most powerful pieces to have appeared in recent times (‘And His Life Should Become Extinct’, Oct 30). There are just too many loopholes, some so big an entire school of whales can swim through it. If Afzal’s life becomes extinct, so shall my faith in human values.
Mazhar Farooqui, Lucknow
With Ms Roy around, do we need an apex court at all?
Dinesh Kumar, Chandigarh
I’m a little over 60. The last time I remember a similar chill running through me was while I was reading The Exorcist.
N. Nagarajan, Anand
Whenever an example of warped logic and astigmatic exposition of a legal issue is to be given, the piece by The Lady of Lamentations will be cited.
Bipin Jhaveri, Jamnagar
The Very Strange Story of Afzal is how he missed appointing Arundhati as his lawyer.
J.P. Chakravarti, Calcutta
On Dec 13, 2000, had a car packed with explosives not been stopped, it would’ve blown to bits the Parliament House along with all the MPs, ministers, the Speaker and the PM—the entire Government of India. It’s despicable to defend a man who was part of this sinister plan. Terrorists work surreptitiously. No terrorist would assemble a bomb, carry it and explode it under the gaze of witnesses Arundhati would certify as ‘reliable.’ Spies or terrorists can be brought to book only on the basis of thin threads of evidence. Roy’s requirement of positive proof would ensure no terrorist is ever punished and Indians continue to be killed in trains, buses and marketplaces.
S.P. Garg, Ghaziabad
Errata: In our issue dated Nov 13, a letter by Kochi’s Sivaram Srikandath was wrongly attributed to D.K. Sardana. Our apologies to both gentlemen.
