Shocked to read your cover story (The Octopus Gang in Muddy Shallows, Nov 20) about the selling of secret information pertaining to the army and navy. Arms dealer Abhishek Verma and his associates Ravi Shankaran and Kulbhushan Parashar are clearly guilty, and deserve strong punishment. What is surprising is that Union defence minister Pranab Mukherjee first refused to act against them, stating that it was commercial information. Wily people play with national security and the authorities let them go! Perhaps this is how terrorists enter the country and kill innocent people despite the so-called tight security. What’s the point in blaming others when our own people are willing to barter the blood of their compatriots?
Shailesh Kumar, Bangalore
How unhealthy are the practices in the defence sector, even in contracts crucial for the nation’s security! Is there nobody to stop these?
P.V. Ariel, Secunderabad
The Outlook story only shows that our system permits any outsider to break in without much effort. It’s worrying that even people in top positions are somehow part of such conspiracies. India is a rising economy, so loopholes in security can cost us heavily and affect the growth of our country in the long run.
Vineet Bhalla, Bhilai
It’s disturbing that we have a corrupt navy that is hand in glove with defence ministry officers (Tip of the Submarine). The sports foundation of the navy, situated in Delhi’s R.K. Puram area, was once accused of misappropriating crores annually by over-invoicing and other dubious means. Whenever complaints on these are brought up, the navy swiftly deters the whistle-blowers from going ahead. There is a need to have an independent complaints committee for the armed forces. That’s one way to ensure that more such scams are exposed.
Rohit Sharma, New Delhi
In India, where anything and everything is for sale, it is impossible to believe that spies would limit themselves to information on "minor" matters once defence security is breached. Why has minister Mukherjee not been booked for his ostensible attempt to let free the "beneficiaries" of classified information?
B. Purkayastha, Shillong
As an Indian citizen working as a lawyer in London, I am embarrassed about the all-pervasive presence of corruption in Indian public life. My family owns a few small landed properties in India, one of which was occupied by servicemen from the Indian army. After prolonged legal proceedings instituted by us in a bid to secure the possession of this small house, my mother and I had a meeting with a very senior army official. He told us, and I quote, "You will get vacant possession of your property, but what will I get?" That way, reading your piece doesn’t surprise me, though leaves me deeply sad.
Abesh Choudhury, London
Scorpene will, in all probability, be the world’s first submarine that will have to keep afloat rather than swim under water in order to "prove its genuineness".
Rajneesh Batra, New Delhi
Your story on the death row convicts in Tihar Jail (One Knot On A Long Rope, Nov 20) evoked sympathy initially, but their remorselessness about the crime changed my mind. None of the eight cases narrated are of those who committed murders on the spur of the moment. There’s no point obsessing over their jail life now. Why don’t you, instead, publish stories of the families of their victims?
V. Pandy, Tuticorin
There should be a provision to commute hanging into life term if the capital punishment is unduly delayed.
K.V. Raghuram, Wayanad
The Sachar committee has come out with some good suggestions, but Muslims in India can rise only if they help themselves (It All Comes Under One Cap, Nov 20). The leaders of the community have to encourage modern learning and throw themselves open to new ideas.
Kasim Sait, Chennai
Who’s Salman Khursheed to talk in a detached tone and say what’s possible or not? It’s shameless to make technicalities an alibi for non-implementation instead of looking for solutions and legislation.
Khalid Saeed, Colchester, UK
The students of IIM Lucknow deserve praise for the interest they show in the uplift of a tiny UP village (Chalo Chakarpurva, Nov 20). One hopes schools, colleges, iits and iims across India follow its lead.
S. Bakthavathsalan, Chennai
The capital punishment awarded to Saddam Hussein seems to have stemmed mainly from vengeance (No Tears, No Mercy, Nov 20). Iraq’s present judiciary is as barbaric as its one-time dictator. And, if premeditated killings are his crime, doesn’t George Bush too deserve the gallows?
Chidanand Kumar, Bangalore
The pro-Saddam protesters are all holding placards with wrong spellings. What more proof do you need to infer that the Left is shedding just crocodile tears on the issue?
Rohit C.J., Kochi
Irfan Habib has turned lame and apologetic (Indian Historians Aren’t Lazy, Nov 20). Habib and his ilk can’t get beyond considering everything in India as either Nehruvian legacy or emperor Akbar’s bequest to the country.
Lakshmi Srinivas, by e-mail
Habib might refute Dalrymple’s charges, but the fact remains that even today much of the landmark work in Indian history has been done by foreign scholars. They have even been considered authorities!
Amitabh Thakur, Lucknow
Dalrymple, after all, isn’t a professional historian. He discovered a trove of Indian documents and used them in his ‘historical fiction’. Habib, on the other hand, carps about the cursive nature of Urdu, its variants and the general difficulty in doing research in India.
S. Subramanium, Bangalore
Dalrymple, not being an academic, was passionate about the subject. That’s all!
Gajanan, Sydney
Looks like Habib is afraid that translating the available Persian and Urdu documents will bring out the truth about the ‘jehadi’ nature of 1857. The truth is that Sikhs, along with the Madras/Bombay regiments peopled by natives of other regions of India, helped put down this ‘jehadi’ mutiny and a few kings and ranis. It could spoil the party. It would be funny to see how Manmohan Singh spins it next year when they celebrate it.
Selvan, Boston
I agree with Irfan Habib (Indian Historians Aren’t Lazy, Nov 20). William Dalrymple is wrong in suggesting that we are so very ignorant of sources. I, for instance, had used what he calls "the hitherto unused Mutiny Papers" in my books on 1857. As for new facts on the subject, I admit, Dalrymple excels perhaps all. None of our historians has, for instance, gone so far as to tell us which Metcalfe got pregnant—when, where and so forth. But do facts alone make history? We consider ideas as equally important. A history without them would be like a telephone directory. Dalrymple has given us some interesting tales on 1857. History? Well that may be his next book.
Prof K.C. Yadav, Gurgaon
I fully agree with Prem Shankar Jha’s views (Law And The Mob, Nov 20). The ncr was created with the objective of making Delhi less crowded by taking away central government offices to places like Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad. Why doesn’t the Supreme Court ensure implementation of this first? Or order stern action against dda or those of its officers who permitted illegal constructions for decades? In any case, the shop-owners are protesting against the Union and Delhi governments, and not the apex court.
Vivek Narula, Delhi
If the role of the Supreme Court, as Jha says, is "implementing and upholding the the law", that’s precisely what the apex court is doing. Beyond merely "interpreting and upholding the law", it also has to fashion remedies where the executive and legislature have failed to perform. Also, the parallel between Indo-Pak borders and "adherence to legal principle" is far-fetched.
Jaipat S. Jain, New York
Is Jha suggesting that India’s legal system should, in the name of evolution, condone thousands of wrongdoers having amassed wealth? What kind of a convoluted logic!
Salil Saurabh, Paris
A factual error: Lord Mountbatten arrived in India on March 22, 1947, and not in 1946 as mentioned.
K.R. Phanda, New Delhi
Apropos HIV, The Family Inheritance (Nov 20), the reporter hasn’t followed the protocol of masking the face of an hiv positive person. Also, information we have shows B. Jagdish’s schoolmates do not know of his hiv status. Further, it’s the father—not the child—who is taking care of the family.
Joy Christiana, World Vision
Our correspondent replies: The use of photos and real names is as per the family’s sanction. I spoke to a number of families in the area; there’s no secrecy about the disease in his family. Udaya Kumari, Jagdish’s mother, revealed that her son goes to work in a mirchi yard very often.
Errata: In our cover story dated November 27 (Who Goes There?), India’s forex reserves should have read $167 billion. We regret the typographical error.
