Learning from mistakes
This is with reference to “Shinde cornered” (Feb 23). IM terrorists have allegedly carried out twin bomb blasts killing 15 people and injuring more than 80 besides damaging public property. The Hyderabad blasts reveals our ‘chalta hai’ attitude. It has become ritual for politicians to offer condolences to the families of victims, declaring paltry compensation to the injured and so on. It is stunning that the union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had prior information of the bomb blasts and didn’t do enough to stop it. In the aftermath of 9/11, USA learnt how to take precautionary measures and have successfully tackled 40 attempted attacks without any political interference. Our indifferent laws across the country are motivating terrorists from across the border. Despite the government forming different agencies to deal with terror, our conviction rates are negligible.
—Deepak Chikramane, Mumbai
Punish the IM
It appears that Indian Mujahideen (IM) operations are just increasing in India.
Hyderabad’s Dilkush Nagar was yet another example. We know their modus operandi so why aren’t we doing something about it? We should not be cooling our heels on learning about potential attacks but be more proactive about preventing them. We should have separate set of forces to combat terror attacks. We should not allow the strikers to go scot free and make sure the terrorists are severely punished. When we know the identity of the culprits, why the wait to put them them under bars?
—Anandambal Subbu, Navi Mumbai
Faulty review system
This is with reference to “Ashwin gets Clarke, ‘no DRS’ saves him” (Feb 23). No doubt Test matches are on the wane. However, after the advent of T20, we have come across more positive results and in some cases the Test matches have finished in four days too. No doubt many legendary cricketers have supported the DRS System. The reality is most of the playing captains have found the present system faulty. The recent verdict against Kallis in South Africa, that too by the third umpire, has proved that the present system is faulty and needs fine tuning. Hence the BCCI stand against it is correct. By the by, I sincerely hope that Dharmasena’s error at Chennai is not a deliberate one to force BCCI to toe with the present faulty DRS System.
—N Mahadevan, Goregaon
Banning the truth?
Is the high court’s stay on ‘Crime Patrol’ justified? (“Court stops telecast of Sony’s Crime Patrol’s Om Prakash Chautala episode”, Feb 22). It refers to surprise stay-order by the Delhi High Court on an episode of popular TV serial ‘Crime Patrol’ telecast on Sony TV. All this just because the said episode was based on a news-story on the infamous teachers’ recruitment scam involving the then Hrayana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and others who have filed an appeal at the court against the verdict of trial-court. All the stories of this TV serial are based on real stories of criminal cases which are mostly pending in courts. Therefore there seems to be no logic in staying this particular episode only because it might affect appeal having been filed against verdict of sub-ordinate case in the matter. At least the judges of High Courts should not be considered as flexible by assuming their verdicts might be affected by telecast of some TV serial, and that too when all the TV news-channels have prominently telecast panel-discussions on the matter. If panel-discussions on TV channels cannot affect High Court proceedings, how can a news-story based on the episode can be considered to affect court-proceedings? It is not proper to deprive members of public from such public-interest TV serials which with useful alerts provided in public-interest against wrong-doings in the society.
—Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi
Killing cricket, the Indian way
By depending on spin all the time in our backyard we are digging our own grave yard. Visiting teams to India mock our pitches. From Day 1 of this test, the pitch looked like a fifth day wicket. Using modern technology, can’t we prepare pitches that will be more or less similar and give our batsmen and bowlers enough practise on them before they embark on a tour? Knowing fully well our inherent weakness against pace bowlers, foreign teams bring fast bowlers to test matches to upset the apple cart. This is going for years and yet the BCCI doesn’t care about improving the image of Indian cricket team on foreign soil. We called five fast bowlers from West Indies (Stayers, Griffth, Gilchrist, King and Hall) to help us play against fast bowlers after the disastrous tour (0-5 defeat) to the Caribbean Islands in 1960s and we never learned our lessons even after 80 years of Test match cricket. The reason for preparing slow wickets is to suit our so called superb batsmen, who fail miserably and surrender their wickets without even a semblance of fight on bouncy tracks. How long we can survive in international cricket without the technical know-how of playing fast bowlers? It is time for introspection and we should not kill the game in India only to keep our image of being tigers at home. We can go for tailor-made wickets at home and win matches and get the warning of ICC in the process for preparing deteriorating wickets to suit our so called spinners, who fail miserably on foreign soil all the time. This tale of spin will continue and as long as it does, our team will always remain in the backdrop.
—Calicut Krishnan Subramaniam, Navi Mumbai
