The Samajwadi Party ’s decision to prop up the UPA may have enabled the government to proceed with the Indo-US nuclear deal (Off on a Bicycle, Jul 14). But experience must now have taught the ruling Congress the foolishness of getting support from a bloc that won’t join the cabinet. PM Manmohan Singh has already suffered a lot by letting the Left enjoy power without responsibility. The Communists may claim the N-deal isn’t in the interest of the nation, but then what sort of patriotism is it to cripple a government of allies who have always been speaking to you?
Ramachandran Nair, Ruwi, Oman
Prakash Karat’s stand is just obstinate, lopsided (‘We’ll vote against the UPA government’). If he’s so pro-China, why can’t his party follow Beijing’s pro-capitalist measures too?
Venkat Mahalingam, Secunderabad
Given the benefits the deal gives India, it’s sad the Muslims are opposing it (Fill in the Blanks). I’m sure if the community were educated about the merits of 123, they wouldn’t be opposing it. If only they got freed from our crooked netas.
Hasee Ahmad Khan, Nagpur
Good, the PM finally decided to go for the gamble. He can retain his chair—at least for a few more months, by which time, experts say, the economy could make a comeback and light up the UPA’s chances of returning to power. More importantly, he can ensure the passage of the N-deal, and find his ‘place in history’. But all this rests on a big risk: relying on a party like the SP for support. Soon the UPA would learn the Left was a lesser evil when it came to threats and blackmail.
R.K. Sudan, on e-mail
The N-deal has made the country’s political jigsaw look all the more puzzling. A totally new set of alliances is challenging our power to grasp the plots in the ongoing political tamasha, there’s little attention being paid to ideologies or principles. This isn’t new. And we could still have made sense of a Left-BJP combination attempting to nix the treaty if the non-Communist, non-communalist parties remain united on the issue. But they are as divided as ever.
Anwar Patel, Dallas
We have seen our political parties famously making wild shifts in stance. Even so, the bjp’s flip-flop on the nuclear deal is shameful. The saffron party was in power when a major part of the deal was negotiated and almost concluded. But now, as the deal gets finalised, the BJP is objecting. And this is just because its prime rival party would be bagging the credit for it.
K. Venkataraman, Mumbai
It isn’t politically prudent for the Communists to have taken their opposition for the deal to the extent of trying to fell the government. For, it’s an easy guess that the next Lok Sabha would have far less Left MPs than it has at present. The common man certainly doesn’t benefit from the Left’s grand-sounding anti-imperialist slogans. What the average Indian—both rural and urban—wants today is uninterrupted power supply. For that, with the fast depletion of natural resources and the ever-increasing cost of crude oil, he knows there is no other alternative except going for nuclear energy.
P. Venkateswara Rao, Hyderabad
The deal may have its set of problems, but that shouldn’t deter us from signing it. We’ll have to equip ourselves well to face the flip side. For now, it’s make hay while the sun shines.
Aruna Choudhary, Jaipur
In advancing the deal to this extent, the PM has exhibited unflinching patriotism in the face of odds. Had Manmohan shirked from it, history would have called him a traitor.
Bidhu Jayal, London
If the PM is right in all that he did to make the N-deal seem the ultimate and only solution to an energy-scarce India, why did he have to be so sly in the way he went about it?
Raghu Nath Singh, on e-mail
For all his integrity and the lately proven go-getter ability, the PM shouldn’t have dragged the N-deal so long. At one stage, it seemed to be a non-starter.
Dr Anil K. Joshi, Ranikhet
When it seemed this government would fall soon, I was saying, "good riddance". Alas, now it seems it won’t happen. But there’s still a possibility.
Parthasarathy, Chennai
On a recent TV show, your editor Vinod Mehta was seen accusing the UPA of ignoring the grave issue of inflation, even using the N-deal as a means to deflect people’s attention from it. I disagree with VM. The N-deal is poised to become a reality after so many years of untiring efforts by leaders of both nations. It would be ridiculous for India to abandon it now just because it’s facing rising prices.
Kanwal Nain Singh Chadha, on e-mail
Now that you have acknowledged the gravity of inflation, why doesn’t Outlook give us a detailed account of the issue? The rational point would be to compare India’s situation with the rest of the world—to make us know where we stand, what we lack and how better or worse we are vis-a-vis others.
B. Mathew, Dubai
Two back-to-back covers on the same topic! And the same man’s picture on the cover, the same author writing the lead story. What a waste of time!
Sunil Gupta, Mumbai
The Left had all the while been harassing the government in the name of supporting it—even that’s fine (‘We’ll vote against the UPA govt’). But why should it now lend a communal colour to the SP’s decision to back the Congress-led alliance?
M.B. Baben, Salalah, Oman
Last week, the bbc quoted Jyoti Basu that his party won’t pull the UPA government down though it had withdrawn support to it. But no Left leader sought to explain the CPI(M) veteran’s statement. A typical Communist hush-up?
N. Maganti, Hyderabad
It is a pity that the Muslim on the street seeks to view something as important as the N-deal through the prism of religion, and ends up echoing the community’s known hatred for the US (Fill in the Blanks). Agreed, there’s truth in his common refrain that ‘America is killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan’, but let him not forget that some of the closest US allies are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, uae, Egypt and Pakistan. Also, that it’s a turf war between factions within Islam that’s leading to the death of Muslims in many countries.
R.V. Iyengar, Hyderabad
It would be wrong to assume that the Muslims in Old Delhi are angry at the PM because of the deal; their resentment only mirrors the community’s general hostility towards the US and its president George Bush. Ideally, you ought to have interacted with educated Muslims as well to have got you a more balanced opinion of the community on the deal. There are several of them who believe the N-deal is key to India’s becoming a superpower.
Bobby Naqvi, Dubai
Your story carries not one articulate argument that takes account of India’s energy deficiency or defence requirements. It’s all about US-bashing. This is ridiculously simplistic.
Prit Banerjee, Washington
The N-deal has only confused the Muslims f urther. On the one hand, ex-president Abdul Kalam says 123 would benefit India, on the other the community’s self-proclaimed saviour Mulayam Singh is a known opponent of it. Sorry, that was till the other day.
Wg Cdr A.K. Sahai, Lucknow
Why is the deal being made a Muslim issue? Even the Hindu nationalist BJP opposes it. The right approach would be for all political parties to sit and discuss the pros and cons of such a strategic tie-up.
Azeem Taqi, Nashville, US
Thank you for focusing on the Gorkhaland issue (Siege Train, June 30). The issue is a long-standing one; regrettably the government has let it fester till the situation got out of control. Why do the Indian Gorkhas want Gorkhaland? It is because they feel their Indian identity is in grave crisis. Due to their language, culture and resemblance to the Nepalese, the Indian Gorkhas are considered foreigners who’ve migrated to India in search of a living. The community strongly feels that unless it has a separate administrative unit, they’d never be able to rid themselves of the immigrant tag. They feel that their socio-cultural, educational, economic and political needs will remain on the backburner unless a separate homeland is created as per the provisions of Article 3 of the Constitution.
S.N. Pradhan, on e-mail
The Amarnath land controversy has once again handed separatists an issue to sow hatred among the people of Kashmir (A Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Reason, Jul 14). Instead of participating in the political process and looking for ways to introduce lasting peace, now they are encouraging people to take to the streets. Just when hope had returned to the valley, just as its people were realising the advantages of globalisation, just when tourism was beginning to look up again, our shortsighted politicians frittered the gains away. I have only one appeal to separatist leaders. Please don’t let Kashmir go the Afghanistan way. The latter has been destroyed by conflicting ethnic and tribe loyalties. We can all live together under the same Constitution—maybe with some modifications—but religion should not become a tool for political blackmail.
Zayed Ahmed Khan, Vellore
It is more than apparent that the Samajwadi Party’s demands of levying 20 per cent windfall tax and cancelling the export-oriented unit (EOU) status of private refineries are not prompted by any spirit of service to the ‘common man’ (Got Top Dollar, Jul 7). These moves, to the detriment of Mukesh Ambani’s business interests, stem from its interest in serving party supporter Anil Ambani. Amar Singh, on behalf of Anil, is attacking Mukesh by openly accusing petroleum minister Murli Deora of protecting ril interests. Thus, sibling rivalry creeps into national politics. The SP and the Congress should not forego the nation’s interests in pursuing their selfish motives.
Meenakshi Gupta, on e-mail
Serves the media right that they fell for a blog trick (Dr Seuss Lives, Jul 14)! Accountability is an alien concept in mediaspeak! I didn’t see the stuff on television though. It’s enough that I cringe each time I think what a Star News ‘reconstruction of the scene’ would have been like!
A.P. Vaidya, Hyderabad
I think the move to relocate tigers to Sariska is a wise one (The Wild Circus, Jul 14). Dr Sankar (featured in the article) is one of the unsung heroes of wildlife research in India. He knows much more than the celebrities who pose as tiger experts, hoping to hog the limelight. It’s high time we contemplate moving zoo-bred tigers to the wild, in enclosed pockets of wilderness. This will probably go to play a small but important role if tigers are to survive in India in significant numbers. Not every tiger sanctuary can hold 100 tigers, and those that have 20 tigers or less are equally important. It’s just that they have to be managed well. Costly? Yes. Low priority? Definitely not!
Avin Deen, Bangalore
I have been visiting wildlife sanctuaries ever since childhood—usually Corbett and Ranthambore, but also recently Binsar. The Outlook article was thrilling. Hoping to read many more such.
Harpreet Singh, Noida
Sam Manekshaw was a naik (a hero and leader) par excellence (Appraisal, Jul 14). Here is what they used to say about him at his alma mater, Sherwood College:
Now Manekshaw S., we are to add,
Who, no doubt, is a jolly lad,
He’s keen on mathematics too,
Our trig sums for us he does do.
He did do a trigonometry sum for the nation, creating a new triangle (Bangladesh).
Amitabh Thakur, Lucknow
Parsis as a community are affable and have a tremendous sense of humour. Manekshaw was no exception. I had several occasions to interact with him in the course of my duty. He was always immaculately dressed, always smiling, with no airs about himself. It is unfortunate that he was not given his due by the government in general and the armed forces in particular on his last journey.
M.A. Raipet, Secunderabad
J.S. Bandukwala’s letter Liberation? Or Lost Cause? (Jul 14) pointed out how the Bangladesh government should have paid more of a homage to the one man most responsible for Pakistan’s defeat in the east, and consequently, the formation of Bangladesh. But he was silent on how the president, the prime minister, the defence minister and the three service chiefs were conspicuous by their absence for the funeral of the man who gave India its only bona fide military victory. The government now must consider giving this inspiring and iconic soldier a posthumous Bharat Ratna. As an ex-Kumaoni officer, I would like relate an anecdote that shows the humane nature of the late field marshal. During a visit to forward posts in nefa (now in Arunachal Pradesh) sometime in 1965, Manekshaw asked, in military parlance, a soldier manning a post to indicate his area of responsibility: "Jawan, tumhara bayaan aur dayaan had bayaan karo." The nervous, sweaty jawan promptly raised his right hand, then his left. Manekshaw gave a hearty laugh and complimented the now-terrified man: "Shabash jawan!" That also relieved the tension in the circle of senior officers who were with the army chief.
Col (retd) R.S. Gurung, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
The article on school textbooks was an eye-opener (Not Under This Tree, Jul 7). It’s depressing to read about such an underdeveloped education system in the world’s largest democracy! The kind of education we provide determines our country’s future. We are the ones that label Muslims as ‘terrorists’ and corrupt young minds. Why do we need to read history coloured by someone else’s political convictions? Why should someone’s personal beliefs masquerade as content in school curricula? Don’t children deserve objectivity so that they can form their own views?
Neha Gupta, on e-mail
Call it the fruit of development (A Zest For Zeytoons, Jul 14), and it can only be expected from a BJP government. These saplings, however, won’t get water if Congress forms the next government. How would it allow the continuance of a BJP project!
Devendra Patel, Ahmedabad
A very welcome development. Earlier experiments with eucalyptus failed, as it absorbed much of the soil’s moisture. Jujuba seed plantations (for oil) too were not very successful. Drip irrigation is a godsend for Rajasthan’s arid areas. Since Israelis are masters of the technology, their assistance could in fact prove a timely boon for us.
P.K. Kumar, Pune
What an inspiring profile of Upinder Singh, the not-so-famous daughter of our prime minister Manmohan Singh (The Privileged Self, Jul 7). If she has made a mark in a subject like history, much of the credit for her success goes to her parents—they never imposed their views on her. Therein also lies the secret of her independent mind.
Charu Singh, Surendranagar
