Overall, a ridiculous cover story (The Hidden Emirate of Anarchistan, Mar 16) taking supposition as established fact and speculation as actionable intelligence. All this "India feels" and "officials think" stuff just won’t wash. A more pragmatic view is that the bdr mutiny was brewing for some time, with the Islamists taking advantage of the opportunity now. And what is India to do, invade Bangladesh? Such threats as Pranab Mukherjee’s (alleged) in-house and unconfirmed comment are worse than useless. Meanwhile, with Pakistan one has the feeling the army there is just waiting for the situation to get so bad that the people welcome a restoration of military rule. The way things are going in Pakistan, it just has to sit tight and wait.
Biswapriya Purkayastha, Shillong
Goodwill ambassadors turned target practice (Kraits in the Grass, Mar 16). The attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers destroyed whatever little was left of Pakistan’s reputation. This is no cricket-loving nation.
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
By zeroing in on the Lankan cricketers, the terrorists have sent this message: cricket is no more what Shaw called a game of 11 fools playing and 11,000 fools watching! It’s more commerce now and it will have to pay the price!
George Olivera, Mysore
The effete civilian government in Pakistan is at a loss on how to contain the Frankenstein’s monster they’ve created. The Swat valley is already under Taliban control and they’re closing in on Peshawar. A Taliban-controlled Pakistan with a nuclear arsenal—a possibility that can’t be ruled out now—will pose a hitherto unimagined threat to Southeast Asia’s, and India’s, security paradigm.
P.P. Sethumadhavan, on e-mail
Vinod Mehta in his Delhi Diary (Mar 16) has offered wonderful surmises on the worsening security situation in our Asian neighbourhood. In the foreseeable future, it’s impossible for any civilian government to survive in Pakistan.
Raj Bharadwaj, Panchkula
Sheikh Hasina needs to get a grip or Bangladesh could descend into the kind of chaos Pakistan is in. That she did not anticipate the mutiny in the bdr—whose reputation along the Indo-Bangla border is that they are willing to do anything and everything for a price—does her no credit. Hasina can’t claim ignorance, she has been PM in the past and, on more than one occasion during her last tenure in power, the BDR was a cause of tension.
J. Akshay, Secunderabad
If the different power centres in Pakistan stop squabbling and unite to fight extremist forces, the country may at least be able to regain its previous designation of ‘failed state’.
Anwar Patel, Dallas, Texas
Apropos Exploding Cherries (Mar 16), Imran Khan’s terming the recent imposition of medieval Shariat in Swat as "Allah’s will" is rich, coming from a ‘playboy’ who had affairs/children with non-Muslim girlfriends all over the world. That such two-faced people are viewed as liberals in the Indian media speaks volumes about their gullibility.
Bhupesh, Pune
Exemplary piece by Mohammed Hanif. Keep them coming.
Mort, Mumbai
India must learn the lessons from Lahore very quickly. Let’s declare that we’ll hold the 2011 World Cup without Pakistan (or else we may lose it altogether). The world is not as patient as we are.
Sanjay Ranade, Pune
I am already dead, what more can you do/Killed you have yourself, as I cry for you/In my words, in my land, of distant times/Now the playground, for devil to claim/The imaginary stakes and the real crimes/ Remember, it’s in you, the old music/Claim it, the nightingales of time!
A.K. Ghai, Mumbai
If one observes many of the Pakistani cricketers, one could not be faulted in believing that the cricketer and the fundamentalist are merely two sides of the same coin there. Imran Khan fools no one with his comments and I wonder if he believes them himself.
Azeem Taqi, Nashville, US
Colombo and the Sri Lankan cricket board couldn’t resist the temptation of crooking the middle finger at Big Brother. Unfortunately the bravado backfired. For the well-being of sports in general and cricket in particular, it is necessary to identify the culprits in this foolish game of one-upmanship and punish them severely.
Shyamal Mukherji, Mumbai
The clash in the Madras High Court campus between the lawyers and the police is a manifestation of the caste prejudice in existence for a long time (Bar Code Missing, Mar 16). It’s high time the bar council, like the medical council, should take strict action against erring lawyers.
K.R. Srinivasan, Secunderabad
The flare-up between the lawyers and the police in Tamil Nadu was unwarranted and condemnable. Especially since the lawyers boycotted the courts on an issue not related to their profession. Those who showed disrespect to the temple of justice and indulged in wanton destruction in and around Madras High Court should be rounded up and made to compensate for the damage caused by them so that such incidents don’t recur.
K.L. Venkatraman, on e-mail
If justice delayed is justice denied, then what does "misjudgement" count as (Verdict: To Hang, Mar 9)? With the number of cases pending in high courts being more than 39 lakh, measures to deliver speedier judgements are only welcome. But, by handing over the responsibility to senior advocates, gram nyayalayas etc, aren’t we compromising on the quality of judgement? Isn’t it worth waiting for a fair judgement than to have a litigant’s hopes shattered once and for all? The phrase ‘disposal of cases’ also pricks me, because it evidently shows the detachment and lack of sensitivity towards pending cases. For the judiciary, a case might just be a pile of papers to go through but for the accused it is his only hope.
Ankita Singh, Jamshedpur
The honourable law minister’s practical approach in the expansion of judiciary is praiseworthy. But it won’t solve the issue unless the government imparts administrative justice. Soli Sorabjee’s suggestion of ad hoc judges is worth considering. Can we also have brief judgements, brief arguments and less reference to cases before a full bench or a constitution bench when the points have already been covered in judgements?
R.K. Mahajan, Shimla
It is interesting how the local media in MP—be it the pro-Congress Naidunia or the pro-bjp Dainik Bhaskar—is silent on the apathy towards the setting up of a central tribal university (Poison Arrow, Mar 16). Looks like the bjp government has distributed more than watches to scribes in state.
Anshul Gupta, Bangalore
The article Shorn of Identity (Feb 16) is blatantly prejudiced and misguiding. At a time when the matter is subjudice, you have no business generating false opinion to influence the case. It has become all too easy for youth who do not want to follow the strong religious and revolutionary philosophy or the great heritage of the Sikh panth to opt for the Sehajdhari concept. In their hearts, they know they’ve stopped being Sikhs, but being declared so causes them unease. Kesh is a fundamental and basic requirement for a Sikh, and calling people or bodies who stand up for it "hardliners", "rigid" or "intolerant" is mischievous. I also can’t understand how the article quotes someone as saying that the Guru Granth Sahib says that "Bal mein na dharam hota hai na karam". There are no such lines in the Granth Sahib. The assertion that Guru Nanak never had long hair is also objectionable. What is the source for reaching such a conclusion?
N.P. Singh, president, Khalsa Mission Taksal, New Delhi
Democracy in India is nothing but a mockery (Bunty Weds Babli, Mar 16). Those who get to rule India are completely without integrity while those who have integrity cannot win elections. No wonder regional parties have grown up like cactuses everywhere. But they do not have any influence beyond their own dens. Their concerns are local and they have little sympathy for the problems of other regions. Which state cares for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils other than Tamil Nadu? All regional leaders are nothing but heads of mafia interested in the future of their own families. We talk of Pakistan disintegrating soon. It may or may not happen. At least their homogenising religion binds them together. We better beware. With no national parties, no charismatic all-India leader to steer the country away from multiple fissiparous tendencies, I wonder how long we’ll survive in one piece. A weak Centre at the mercy of regional capos would neither move forward nor backward!
T. Sathyamurthi, Folsom, US
"India" should be disbanded into its constituent nation-states instead of trying to stay together as a flimsy pan-Indian idea for political parties to contest elections.
Koman Vijay, Stillwater, US
An 80-plus Advani leading India! If he is really a patriot, he should take himself out of the running. The same is true for all 60-plus politicians.
Sohan Aggarwal, Rockville, US
Vivek Wadhwa’s basic premise in his column, A Deluge of What India Wants Most Now (Mar 16), is wrong. What India wants most now is definitely not sulking repats. India has never said, "Give us your laid-off, your repossessed, your benched H-1Bs" to the US, in fact, it has always been quite the opposite: "Take our most talented and enterprising". We are export-oriented, they are importers of the last resort. That won’t change because capitalism just fell off the cliff.
Soumen Chakrabarti, Calcutta
Don’t worry, the Left, Mayawati and Laloo will play kingmakers and screw up the country. India will go belly up, unless the middle class lifts its collective butt, goes out and votes for a change away from a mai-baap government.
A.N. Banerjee, Newcastle, UK
Neelabh Mishra’s observation that dialects not scheduled by the Constitution of India find mention in the Obama administration’s application form for political appointments left me overjoyed (An Awadhi Lilt for Obama, Mar 16). But I disagree with him on two things—that it’s easy to find, in the well-educated classes of the West, people who speak two, three or four languages sufficiently well; and that Indians’ acquisition of new languages comes necessarily at the cost of another. In all my years in the US, in academic settings, I have rarely "easily" happened on people who speak three or four languages "sufficiently well". And in India, where it’s common to find people with three or four languages, I haven’t really noticed that the acquisition of one comes at the total cost of another.
Usree Bhattacharya, Berkeley, US
Why do you get starry-eyed when some American, who by quirk of fate happens to have been born in India, makes it big in the West (What’s on the Buffett, Mar 16)? I surely don’t identify with an Ajith Jain, leave alone second- and third-generation Indians in America like Manoj Night Shyamalan, Bobby Jindal or Jhumpa Lahiri.
Rohit C.J., Kochi
The construction of an indigenous aircraft carrier (Horizon Crosser, Mar 9) will certainly have spin-offs. But the scenario has changed: external threats to nations from conventional warfare, involving large bodies of men, equipment and ships have given way to fast, surgical strikes by small well-trained squads, such as in 26/11. The Navy should move beyond harping on such empty terms like "power projection", "flag showing" and "areas of influence".
Ranjive Nair, Bangalore
The sparrow, the tiger, the leopard, the Great Indian Bustard, and now the owl, India’s biodiversity is going down the drain (Sad, Wise Eyes, Mar 16). Isn’t it time we stopped the breeding of the one animal that deserves to be endangered—man.
G. Natrajan, Hyderabad
Your article reminded me of my posting in Mhow, MP, in 1982, where my family had a live-in owl, who had made his abode in one of the crevices outside the living room wall. Fearless of us, he’d welcome us with a dour expression, his large, round eyes shining bright in the car’s headlights, as if reproaching us for returning home so late in the night.
Brig Lakshman Singh (Retd), on e-mail
Apropos Vinod Mehta’s Delhi Diary (Mar 16), if there’s a terrorist attack now, the BJP has a chance of doing well in the impending polls. If not, it’ll be another hung parliament, with smaller parties, depending on their bargaining power, playing a bigger role in deciding the ultimate winner. But whoever forms the government—the upa, the nda or the so-called Third Front—policywise, it will be a centrist one. The BJP can shout about Hindutva at the top of its voice, but will never have the mandate to act according to its ideology. In the US, the moderates ultimately decided the results of the election; India will do the same in a different way, using smaller political parties.
Raj G., Chicago
Mr Mehta should not repose so much trust on the good sense of Indian voters. They have been repeatedly cheated by politicians peddling hope for better times, and this time will be no different.
Ramesh Raghuvanshi, Pune
For various reasons, political parties will find campaigning for the general elections to be a gruelling task. The explosion of the electronic media and its reach has increased the awareness of the Indian electorate. Voters have never had before them, served on a platter, facts of deprivation, poverty and misrule. Most of these show up politicians in their true light. Even the people are tired of putting up with politicians and their venal, power-hungry deals with other politicians.
Bichu Muttathara, Pune
Vinod Mehta is just deluding himself when he says "Mr Modi has not forgiven me or Outlook..." I’m sure Modi doesn’t care a hoot about Mr Mehta or his magazine.
Ganesan, New Jersey
Modi will lose all credibility the moment he is not regarded with suspicion by practitioners of the infamy known as Indian secularism.
C.P. Narendran, Nagpur
To the many Modi-lovers, I would like to point out the curious case of Kalyan Singh, BJP’s posterboy in the ’90s, as Modi is now. To Modi, or Kalyan, or Karunanidhi, it is power that matters, not Hindutva or Dravidian philosophy. I am quite sure that, should the right conditions arise, Modi will have no qualms donning the raiments of an atheist to head a coalition government. He might even beat maulana Mulayam in projecting himself as pro-Muslim.
G. Poovannan, Chennai
I am of the view that the elections are as exciting as a damp squib. I only hope the media will spare us ‘election exclusives’ which, I suspect, no one reads. Or will I have to block all forms of media during polls to avoid the deluge?
Dinesh Kumar, Chandigarh
Gimme dogs over politicos anyday (Stray Thoughts, Anyone?). They are more credible.
Vijay, Vadodara
Mr Mehta, one party’s already announced its love for dogs, whether or not they are strays (or are they?)—the slumdogs who become millionaires!
Manish Banerjee, Calcutta
That A.R. Rahman has been celebrated worldwide is yesterday’s news (Rahmaniat, Mar 9). I will always identify with the music of his first film, Roja.
Joseph Kunnirickal, on e-mail
In the article Admit it, the Water’s Around You (Mar 2), Tapomoy Bandyopadhyay’s designation was wrongly given as GM, Ambuja Realty. He’s AGM, MEP, Ambuja Realty.
