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E-mail from readers the world over
Date sent: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:06:03 PDT I am inspired by the interview. I am equally proud that I graduated from St Joseph's, the same college from where he had graduated. We have few men who have really dedicated their lives for the welfare of our country. Kalam is one of them. As Kalam put it, we Indians have an in built "negativism" in our system. We should try to shed that and surge forward. As someone said: 'Don't ask the country what it has done for you, ask what you have done for the country.' We can do a great service to the country by changing our attitude. For instance, let us practice honesty. Let us try to lead a simple life. Let us try to be sincere. Practising the above is itself a great achievement. I thank Rediff for interviewing Kalam. It is excellent stuff. A regular reader
Date sent: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:20:29 -0500 They have to be punished. It should teach a lesson to others.
Date sent: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 18:34:20 PDT Your pages are filled with timely articles on topics that are hot. Shanbhag's article on the US-64 scandal is timely but extremely biased. His article conveys the impression that we should all be thankful to UTI for taking such good care of us and the market. On the contrary, UTI is like any other public sector undertaking. An employment guarantee scheme for financial has-beens. UTI will not declare its holdings to its own investors and he wants investors to thank the Unit Trust for its transparency! The only thing that is transparent is the disingenuity of the UTI higher-ups when they talk of US-64 not being a NAV driven scheme. What audacity! I daresay that the whole article reeks of the "hidden hand". Only this time the hand is a domestic one and not a foreign hand. Probably the only thing worse than investing in UTI is having Shanbhag as one's investment advisor. It is extremely disturbing to see a man touted as an investment advisor peddle such incompetent and misleading advice. UTI's inability to declare its NAV is absolute hogwash. There is nothing in the financial world that does not have a certain determinable market value. The value of ONGC shares changes daily and so does the value of real estate. Why should it be so difficult for UTI to have its real estate appraised daily or at regular intervals? After all companies are required to reveal their book value (which includes ALL assets) to their investors. Finally, if UTI finds it so difficult to declare its NAV then at the very least it could disclose its holdings... unless its chairman does not know what its holdings are either! Why can't we have public hearings into the UTI mess up? Why should Subramaniam not be made answerable to the people whose money he manages? And then if there indeed is a "hidden hand" then it will be exposed in due course of time. Unless we set this issue right in a forthright manner the Indian taxpayer will end up subsidising the incompetence of some confused fund-manager somewhere. Prem Natarajan
Date sent: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 00:30:02 EDT I was a student in Calcutta during the 60s and 70s. We have believed in some of his economic philosophies always!!!
Date sent: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 12:33:54 -0700 It's was very pitiable to read this and imagine such a thing can happen in our great country of culture and values....
Karthik
Date sent: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 19:16:16 EDT I first ran into her news at home in Los Angeles, and then in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I believe, however, I have seen her newscast in other countries but can't remember where, nor even what continent. In LA, I enjoy watching the Jim Lehrer news hour (Public TV) followed by her ITN news. I feel that they together give me a more balanced view. If you have any clout with Dhaliwal and ITN, tell the two of them to get together -- and have her stay with ITN. Joe
Date sent: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 13:01:39 -0500 A nice thing to lead the country as a software superpower. I would like to suggest the authorities to decrease the bureaucratic levels as done by the AP chief minister which could improve the situation a lot. Santhosh Krishna
Date sent: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 21:50:36 +0530 Earlier, I worked with Wipro for two-two-and-a-half years. I feel so happy that you guys brought out this story. It is great.
Date sent: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 02:00:43 -0700 Premji's interview by Deputy Editor Zaki Ansari of Rediff was really good. It establishes to me that Rediff is not just any company on the web which rehashes stuff from traditional media, but in fact has its own unique direction and reporting style. The interview itself was very informative and made good reading. I would suggest that the top of each part contain a brief line on whose interview it is. Cheers to everybody at Rediff. Sridhar Dhulipala
Date sent: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 08:32:45 -0700 Short and sweet. Nice photos.
Date sent: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 17:41:15 +0530 Lovely. Simply magnificent. Ankur
Date sent: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 13:25:09 -0700 This was an extremely interesting article. I also think that if the five are found guilty, they should be punished to the maximum extent possible. Anyone who wants to try out deer meat (especially of an endangered species) deserves to spend the rest of his/ her life in jail. This from someone who (till now) really respected Salman, Tabu and Neelam. Denzil Fernandes
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 13:13:54 +0300 Now at least, Kerala politicians should sit back and think of the state's dirty politics. They are not allowing the cultivation of any profitable crop. When rice is not profitable, why do they insist on its cultivation. If we have money we can easily buy rice from outside, as we buy other things. Here politicians are only interested in bandhs and strikes. They want to destroy everything and remain in the political picture.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 14:46:29 +0530 I fully agree with all the three industrialists and understand their concerns. The present-day politicians will ruin this country and it will take another 50 years for us to return to what we are today. There is not one politician, who has a positive attitude or will to implement the liberalisation programme that was initiated by Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. Look at the present government, I am sure this is the worst-ever government we have ever had after Independence. We don't have the required money to improve our infrastructure and when people come forward to invest money in our country, politicians play spoilsports. I blame the Opposition parties, as their main duty is to oppose whatever the government does or tries to do. Not to forget that the people who are in power now, have done the same thing when they were in the Opposition. With all these politicians, I am sure that the infrastructure will not improve. Look at one classic example: Bangalore international airport. I am sure this city (the so-called Silicon Valley of India) will not have an international airport for another 10 years. Murali
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 08:32:30 +0200 I agree completely with Mukesh Ambani... It is the small and large businesses that create wealth for India. These are the companies and industries that build a capital market, and sustain it. I believe that the government should open up to this and realise that they should be regulatory and build the rules. The players should be the companies themselves. For example, with the opening of the Internet Service Provider sector, we will hope to see the real meaning of the word "service." I am not so sure that VSNL can provide an unbiased regulatory influence by being a competitor itself. Let the market open up, and see how the ISPs perform... Will VSNL and DOT give the market away? We all know the answer, though we hope it isn't how it will be. Deepak Shenoy
Date sent: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:45:58 MDT It is just unbelievable -- what you and others in the media point out, but the board just refuses to visualise or acknowledge! We all know that Mongia is not the best opening batsmen we have, but still the board decides to send the team without one. Jadeja is anyday a better choice for Test cricket than Robin Singh but still the team management chose Robin Singh for this Test match. If he had to bowl the few overs, Jadeja could have done better. It is very clear that our team does not enter the field with a gameplan. The BCCI seems to be riding upon the recent wins India had and thinks that they have hit the right combination. Why can't they get rid of Sidhu now, do they want to get him the same public sentiment Prabhakar got after serving India well for a long time? Maybe Sidhu should gracefully quit the team instead of turning into a liability. I can't visualise him playing for India in the World Cup! And what does the board have against Kambli? The BCCI did not learn with the KL and Toronto fiasco of splitting the team into two and are hell bent upon doing more stupidities before the World Cup. India will end up playing now on all the subcontinental pitches and then get to England's fast tracks for the World Cup! And it is very evident that India is not looking towards to the World Cup now. Can't they see or plan these things properly? After all, what are they paid for? I mean we all can see and figure out these things, why can't the BCCI? Mohit Bharagava
Date sent: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 19:47:04 -0400 (EDT) I really liked your article 'In God We Trust'. I would like to point out one more deficiency in our cricket. We have good strike bowlers in Kumble, Srinath and Agarkar. As you know strike bowlers are meant to take wickets. So we should provide them with attacking fields. They should come in when there is a new bat or during the start of a session when they are fresh and effective. If a pair has put on 50-odd partnership and are batting at the fag end of the day, it makes no sense in bowling the strike bowlers. They will be plundered for more runs as they don't bowl in a restrictive line. We should have a Mickey Mouse bowler (borrowing Boycott) to bowl the donkey overs. We don't do that. Our captain never has enough confidence in them. Whenever a partnership is building against SA it is not Donald or Pollock who bowls to them. It is Cronje and Kallis. They bowl outside the off stump, frustrate the batsmen and eventually buy the wickets. The same goes for all the top test teams. What do we do? Bowl Srinath, Kumble again, get smashed, blame them, drop them and shatter their confidence. Ganguly and Robin bowl around 5 overs between them in the entire match. Manoj
Date sent: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 17:31:53 -0500 This is with reference to Prem Panicker's analysis on the recently concluded Test match with Zimbabwe. Very astutely compiled and very incisive in nature, this analysis should serve as a starting point for some thorough soul-searching for Azharuddin and his humbled eleven. Eight years back, Bishen Singh Bedi had remarked about the Indian team, "This team deserves to be dumped into the Indian Ocean". At that time the remark was discarded as an unnecessary emotional outburst. Eight years later, it is the same "village idiot" Indian team and I wonder if even the Indian Ocean is deep enough for our cricketers. In fact the premises are all wrong - The team is led by a player who has absolutely no clue about captaincy. He stands in the slips or the mid-wicket bobbing his head back and forth, hands held out in front as if to say "I did not ask him to pitch short". I cannot recall the last time that Azhar walked up to a bowler and had a discussion with him between deliveries or overs. It is a "do what you please world" situation. Contrast this with Sachin Tendulkar's enthusiasm when he led a depleted team to a 4-1 victory over Pakistan, with bowlers like Mohanty and Harvinder in his ranks. And he did that by counselling his bowlers from mid-on. Something which Azhar in 13 years of international experience refused to pick up. For that matter, I can't think of the last time that Azhar actually stood his ground alone, to pull India out of trouble, much less propel them to victory. If there is an isolated incident or two, it will be against a weak attack like Kenya's or Zimbabwe's and that too, in home conditions. If Sidhu is dropped for rash shots, why don't they ban Azharuddin for playing the only way he seems to know? The other issue is that of the openers -- ever since Gavaskar left the stage in 1987, we have lacked a specialist opener. Our response to this has been ridiculous -- we tried to a point and simply gave up after that. So poor Nayan Mongia would be asked to at least stay till Dravid and Sachin had their pads and gear on! While we sneaked out with this approach at home, we got caught flat-footed in Zimbabwe. Prem Panicker's futility can be understood only too well. With such illiterate selectors and such a preposterous captain, the whole cricket-loving public shares Prem Panicker's feeling of futility. Srini Sanivarapu How Readers reacted to Ashok Mitra's recent columns
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