Cricket in India is individualistic

Cricket in India is individualistic
The recent Test loss has proved that the laws of battles are equally applicable to cricket also. Firstly, the side with superiority in numbers wins. But cricket allows only equal numbers. Next, the side with greater strategy wins. But here too, both were equal. Then, the side that has the greater desire and mental strength wins. And that’s where the Australians were one up on us. But that’s not all. Australians play as a team and it does not matter which cricketer reaches which milestone. Today, we are more concerned whether someone gets his 100th century rather than if the team wins. And when it happens it will be used to console ourselves of all the lapses. Maybe the call for the Bharat Ratna (or is it Bharat Rottena?) will become even louder. Cricket is an individual game disguised in a team format.
—TR Ramaswami, via email

51st pipe burst this year
On December 28, around 10am, a 12mm old Tansa water pipeline burst on Dr BR Ambedkar Road, Dadar. Around 6 million litres of water was wasted. Pipe bursts are one of the reasons there is a water shortage in many houses. When asked, chairman of the BMC’s Standing Committee blamed old pipelines and contractors who did a shoddy job on them. According to statistics, 27 pipes have burst in 2010 and 51 in 2011. The government needs to take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen anymore.
—Simrin Manwani, Mumbai

Drama at the Rajya Sabha
After copious volumes of scrappy discussion, expenditure and debate, what we have seen is nothing but the outcome of either a toothless Bill or an endorsement of a failed exercise. One even went to the extent of flaying by saying that the opposition parties would rather see the nation fail rather the government succeed in passing a meaningful Bill. One party’s loss is another one’s gain. The Trinamool and RJD party’s vehement stand on removal of the Lokayukta clause, in a way aided the UPA government to sabotage the Bill. While the Upper House went through the rigors albeit with enormous hiccups, the Lower House proceedings clearly showed that none of the MP’s or MLA’s wanted the Lokpal Bill at all. This in turn has reinforced the Anna Hazare camp by keeping the buzz alive while there are talks of Sonia Gandhi attempting to pull off a coup by mustering a massive attendance at a rally proposed at the same MMRDA venue. The entire nation stands in disbelief today at this blatant shortchanging attitude by the Indian polity. The whole nation is witnessing and also understanding the real intent behind the Lokpal Bill. This indeed is a grave threat to democracy.
—Deepak Agharkar, via email

II
The midnight drama in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Lokpal Bill was a mockery of the system. It exposed all the members as inept, apathetic and opportunists.  There were 187 amendments suggested in the Bill and there was no move to reach any kind of agreement before the debate began and nobody was willing to arrive at a dialogue or compromise. There was hardly any clarity on what each side wanted as a result of which no voting took place and the bill has been retained to the back-burner until the budget session in February. Precious time and public money was wasted and the complete lack of respect our parliamentarians have shown  to the people of India is disgraceful.
—Bhagwan Thadani, via email

III
Two days of burlesque theatre at the Rajya Sabha on the Lokpal Bill has shown a mirror to political outfits of the nation. It is for no reason that the Lokpal has waited for an audience at the gates of the House for forty two years, without success. The Civil Society digressed from its ideological vision and sadly took a pseudo -political detour to pander to its ego ending up in a travesty of Kolaveri syndrome. Should they eventually decide to rejoin the original course, they would realise that time and tide wait for none.
—R.Narayanan, Ghaziabad

Freed interest rates for NRIs good move
In a welcome move, RBI has freed the interest rates on term deposit accounts of NRI accounts. To make the remittances and savings more attractive, it is for Income Tax department and the finance ministry to give further fillip to this issue. They should bring on par the TDS for NRI’s at 10% on par with that of resident account holders against the current prevailing rate of 30%. Also form 15G and form 15H should be allowed to be submitted by them if they feel that they are within the tax limits so that there will be no tax deduction at source. Another irritant issue is levying of service tax on foreign exchange remitted by them through wire transfer when they send the money to the dear and near ones. This is a small gesture to the NRI’s who earn and remit sizable foreign exchange and remits a part of it to the near and dear ones. This will definitely result in increased inflow as they will be more encouraged to increase their investment back to the country.
—Gopalan Kidambi, via email from San Francisco