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ASSEMBLY POLL '98
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'Jayalalitha's antics is considered more newsworthy than the governance of the country'
E-mail from readers the world over
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 11:11:21 +0530 Read your as usual biased reporting on the English press's whipping board -- the BJP. This party can never do anything right just as those against it can never do any wrong. In fact, Laloo Yadav with all the scams and caste wars and periodic genocides is a better alternative than the "communal" BJP. There is only one mantra with the politics obsessed Indian media. As if there is nothing else to write about! Jayalalitha's antics is considered more newsworthy than reporting on the governance of the country. Those who are nationalists believe there is a a section amongst us with G-7 and other inimical forces to run India down subtly or otherwise at every forum. Look at the news reporting in any of India's newspapers, and one will see only disasters, murders, caste wars, calamities taking place in this country. According to them all the good things are happening in other parts of the world. Even the good things that are happening here are being done by those who are foreigners or NGOs funded from one of the above countries. The message to the next generation is always thus: "This country is going to the dogs. Get out of here as fast as you can." And those who are perpetuating this in this country have ensured that their children are all abroad. So why do Indians always report or write against their own country? The 1,000 years of slavery under non-Indian rulers and a convoluted education policy for the last 50 years -- does it make life more comfortable to run down the only nationalist party at every forum, in season and out of season? The Congress and their anti-BJP clones and offshoots have continued to adhere to the British legacy. Give the BJP a chance at a new type of governance. Doesn't matter if one has to forego a few of life's comforts by becoming a nationalist by abandoning the anti-national cartel operating since 1947. Many have realised their past blunders and have joined the nationalist mainstream and their tribe is increasing. Otherwise, the English language media will soon find itself with no readers. We will read only unbiased pro-India reports and not waste our time and money in reading trash churned out by hacks who are in any case making a grand living by trying to turn Indians into anti-Indians through their committed columns. Hindus believe in rebirth as a matter of routine. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a very plausible event for them. For those who believe in the Semitic faiths, it is a miracle that they believe in the resurrection of the same body that may have been buried and has turned "dust to dust and ashes to ashes." Advani's analogy of the Jan Sangh's rebirth as the BJP, Christ like, on the third day is simply beautiful. It merely underscores a Hindu's belief in rebirth and the innate respect that he has for Jesus Christ and the belief that Christ actually rose again from the dead. Unlike the anti-Hindu "rationalists" from the Left. It will help to recall that Advani did his schooling at the Jesuit run St Patrick's in Karachi, and therefore knows exactly what he is talking about. Anyone who has had a missionary school background, including India's best journalist of all times Arun Shourie, can never harbour any disrespect for Jesus Christ. But having observed the shenanigans of the church and their purveyors in habit from very close quarters, it is easy to separate Christ from the church as the latter is a crass commercial organisation today being funded by MNCs the world over for promoting an hybridised Western ersatz culture to be adopted by those converting to Christianity and soon given a "Christian" (read foreign) name, which automatically changes centuries old Indian mindset into a foreign one for the newly converted. Behind this imported culture is an imported lifestyle that brings in the acquisitive urge, fanned further by the media through advertisements, for RayBan glasses, Levi jeans, Rolex watches, Coke and Pepsi, Adidas shoes, etc. See the lifestyles of those in Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland. Most think they are already in the USA. Give India a chance by giving the BJP a chance. Like what the prime minister said recently: "The next Century will be an Indian Century." Yeah, why not an Indian millennium? Why not join us instead of being left behind? Diponkor Dutt
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 19:27:41 +0800 I appreciate your effort in making this constructive report. This report will not only motivate Ms Bhargavi but also other young Indians who will come out with more discoveries and technological innovations. It's a great job and wish her and all the young scientists for their success in their research. Lakshmana Pillai A
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 11:50:31 EDT That is a really precedent setting action. Kudos to Naidu and the group. Can any known Congress politician, in particular, and other politicians in general, stand up to that. We may be off to better times... Ram
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:30:06 +0000 IT in Andhra Pradesh means Hyderabad and in Karnataka it means only Bangalore, whereas in Kerala -- IT means entire Kerala, not only Trivandrum, Cochin or Calicut, but even remote locations like Kumarakom Panchayath or Vallikkunnu Panchayat. They are all helping IT companies as well as computerising themselves. They also have support from not only the government, but also people from all walks of life. So wait for 18 to 24 months to see results.
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 10:04:10 -0800 The title is offensive. Indians, especially in India, need to respect one another's culture. It may be the author's attempt to be 'cool' and 'westernised,' but it can be offensive to tens of millions of people. It just shows ignorance and lack of respect for one's own culture. It will be equally insulting to call other parts of India -- "dhokla-land, i land," etc. How about alternate titles like "surf's up in Tamil Nadu" or "surf's up in the Coromandel coast?" Sounds a lot better to me!
Arvind
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 22:05:57 +0530 This has reference to the article on TRAI. Manmohan Singh did raise his voice and ask the government to implement the TRAI order. In spite of all the noise that the government and others made, what has finally been implemented is the TRAI's order. After all, the tariffs were only caps, and all the tariffs announced by the government are equal to or lower than those announced by the TRAI. DoT wanted to scuttle the drop in long distance rates and that was the main reason for the noise that it made. Similarly also with the insane rates for leased lines -- 64 kbps at a minimum of Rs 1.87 lakh -- the normal bandwidth allotted for a single voice call by DoT is 64 kbps. Ever heard of Rs1.87 lakh for a leased voice circuit of 2 km length? It wanted to raise the bogey of "cross subsidisation" to justify the ripoff that DoT had been perpetrating. DoT can cross subsidise more effectively by cutting its excess flab and becoming more efficient. DoT has been such a pampered lot that on two occasions when they went on strike and even tried to upset the telecom set-up, they were given wages for the entire strike period. People talk of 'national security' -- is allowing, even condoning the almost total breakdown of all internal communication in the country the ideal way of maintaining national security? The other fallacy is the "cost of a local call." A local call costs DoT next to nothing once the rental covers the line maintenance and amortisation of line cost. One could go on and on about DoT to the point where one wonders whether "DoT" stands for "Destroyer of Telecom." J Balamurugan
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:20:33 +0100 I don't agree that Ram is fair-skinned and well built. Okay, well built, yes, but fair skinned, no. Both Ram and Krishna are dark skinned (remember the Amar Chitra Katha comics). So are Shiv and Vishnu. Only Brahma is fair skinned. In fact, so is Ravan, who may have been a Brahmin. Maybe there was an intermingling between the Indic and Aryan people. Like the theory that there was never an Aryan conquest, only a migration of sorts. So, fair skinned Brahmins, but dark skinned Kshatriyas. Who cares, though? I guess we all want our gods to be attractive -- and dark skinned men are so much more attractive than the fair ones. Eeks -- opinions which are colour biased are so offensive! But I won't recant. Ruchira Raghav
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:02:38 -0600 Pritish Nandy mentioned in the interview that Ravana is revered in the South and Rama is not heroic. Can I ask which country's south Mr Nandy was referring to? It is ridiculous of a person of his stature to comment with such irresponsibility. Ravi Pothukuchy
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:19:59 -0800 You are at mischief again! You could have chosen a more sober headline for Manoj Bajpai's interview. Why poke fun at Hindu gods? No one minds Manoj playing Rama's role. But, the way of telling the same can make the difference! One of the questions that Nandy has put to Manoj, shows Nandy in poor light. Shows how narrow-minded he is when he talks of Ravana being worshipped in the south and calls Rama a wimp! Which South is he talking about? Rama is still the widely worshipped god in Karnataka, Andhra and parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He is held in very high esteem all over India and is the paragon of virtue, what an ideal man should be. If Pritish Nandy is going by Karunanidhi's utterances about Ravana, then he is as stupid as him. Nandy should get out of his Bombay closet mentality to write anything worthwhile. He should learn the basics first, find out the facts, do some research before writing. Otherwise, he will be talking through his hat all the time.
Vadiraj MR
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 13:49:21 +1000 Rohan Chandran seems to have a special liking for Harvinder Singh. In my impression, at this stage, Harvinder doesn't deserve a mention, at least with respect to the World Cup. As I stressed in my last mail, he still doesn't look part of the Indian team. The same argument holds good with Kambli. He's out of form and unfit and yet we have Rohan Chandran plumping for his inclusion. Rohan, in my mind, suffers from the same problem plaguing our Indian selectors. That is, of selecting players on reputation. God knows that it's not the way one goes about selecting a team. Whatever happened to the 'Horses for courses,' theory? Khurasia should have been in the Indian side at least three years ago. Thanks to the whims of our five wise men and for the fact that Madhya Pradesh doesn't have a 'lobby' which would push his case, he was out in the cold. But hey, better late than never! Age wise, he's still in a better position than Robin Singh, who lost his seven best years of International cricket because of the selectors. At 36, the poor man is still on trial, every time, in spite of having shown a big heart, always. Here's how my team would look like: Ganguly, Sachin, Dravid, Azhar, Jadeja, Robin, Khurasia, Mongia, Agarkar, Kumble, Srinath, Prasad, Shukla, Chopra, Kanitkar. Chinmaya Pande
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 1999 11:21 PM With the amount of cricket being played at the international level especially by India, I think we should have a drastically different selection policy. The present system of having a core team of playing 10 or 11 and then selecting the remaining 4 or 5 players without any rationale, ie -- select an entirely new player for a tour, give him virtually no chance or very little chance to prove himself and then chop him for the next tour makes no sense. I think it is to pander to the individual selectors' and other officials' regional affiliations and pressures. It not only destroys the confidence of the young players but also does not build any second level of players for the team who can form a viable alternative. Also there is no healthy competition for the established players. I would like to suggest a more balanced, open and in the long run effective selection policy. There has to be a three tier selection policy -- there should be a core pool of 16 to 17 players, there should be a second level of players who would constitute the India-A team and then the regional players playing for their respective regions. A new player has to breakthrough from one level to the next level on the basis of consistent performance. The idea of a pool of 16 to 17 players is that we should always shuffle the composition of the final eleven -- rest some players and give the others a chance thereby avoiding over-exposure to the key players given the amount of matches that are played. Also it will create healthy competition and keep the players on their toes. Getting into this level or out of this level should not be on the basis of a single match or the whims of the selectors. This will ensure that a player gets sufficient chance to establish himself and we do not judge people on the basis of a single performance. The present Indian selection policy is bizarre to say the least. The only way a youngster can break through is if he comes with a bang, ie, if he is able to grab the first and sometimes only available opportunity, which to me is not logical. There have been many instances of great players who failed in their first few matches and then went on to achieve great laurels. On the other hand established players have no reason to perform at their peak because their position is not threatened. We need not change the final eleven for important matches but in the non crucial matches and other first class matches we can always experiment with a few changes. The next important step would be the India-A or second level which should consist of players with consistent good performances in the regional teams, these players should be exposed to a lot of international matches before they can break into the first level, this would avoid bringing in totally unsuitable players into the playing eleven and then dumping them. The last tier would be the regional players who are selected by the respective states. In order that we develop players who will be successful in the international circuit we should ensure that we have pitches which reflect those outside the subcontinent and play some of the regional matches in these pitches. Though there is a disadvantage in this system that extraordinary talent like Sachin Tendulkar may be ignored the national cap for a while, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. We can always accelerate the transition from one level to another in such cases but not before they have completed at least one full season in the present level. The selection of the final pool of 16 players should be an annual affair -- at the beginning of a cricketing season and not tour by tour. We should have a definite plan within the year when we will play international matches and then layoff at least a couple of months for the players to recoup, rejoin their family and improve on their shortcomings. As far as possible we should have at least one domestic tournament where all the players can play in total seriousness. There should be no tours scheduled during that time. My ideal schedule for the Indian cricket season would be like this:
July, August: Lay off. No cricket being played.
Apparao
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 1999 2:01 AM I really enjoy your articles. We love this game of cricket. We don't miss any ODI games. We had a good time watching the last game between India and SL, specially enjoyed Amay Khurasia. Nobody could say that he was playing his first ODI. I have a suggestion regarding his batting. Since you can reach all across world, you may be able to pass it onto Amay Khurasia. This guy shuffles across and in the process his leg stump is open. A bowler like Shoaib Akhtar can really trouble him. The way he took Sachin Tendulkar's wicket actually is admirable. Vivek Chaudhary
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