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Journalism of Courage
There is nothing to fear from FDI in retail (‘Retail FDI: Just do it’, IE, September 2). In fact, it will help India in many ways to catch up with the retailing system that the advanced nations operate. It will also create job opportunities for large segments of our society.
The giant American company, Wal-Mart, has aggressive marketing and retailing policies; it whipped out all the Mom and Pop retailing businesses in the US. But in the US, Costco Wholesale is giving Wal-Mart tough competition. In the same way, one of our retailing companies may find a solution to Wal-Mart’s aggressive policies. When nations and people become fearful, that’s when the real problems begin.
—Arvind Amin On e-mail
Minister’s wife
• While obliging a friend, Nalini Chidambaram hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. This is one embarrassment her finance minister-husband could have been spared. Surely, she cannot say that as a lawyer she did not see the implications of accepting the CBDT brief, irrespective of the parties involved in the case.
For once, the Opposition parties are right in their hair-splitting exercise, though they are not fair to the FM who is known to be a well-organised man personally. That is something most of his own party colleagues do not like and choose to read his “self-assurance” as “arrogance”, as T.V.R. Shenoy rightly mentions in his piece ‘A judgement miscall’, IE, September 1).
—M. Chandrasekhar Ghaziabad
Free for all
• The ugly controversy between the state government and the central government regarding the dredging operation for the Sethusamudram project is indeed unfortunate. The state and centre have diametrically opposite views. Leaders are washing their dirty linen in public. The common man will find it amusing to hear such conflicting views. The citizen has to bear with such idiosyncrasies of his leaders. He had voted them to power, after all.
—V.S. Venkatavaradan Salem
Stay away!
• This refers to your editorial ‘Nip in the air’ (IE, September 3). The citizens of Mumbai did not vote for the Left parties. If there is anybody who can decide on modernisation of the city’s airport, it is parties like the Congress, BJP, NCP and Shiv Sena. The Left has no right to interfere and make Mumbai a junk yard like Calcutta. If the Congress allows the Left to interfere, they will be punished in the next election.
—Subhash Asar Dubai
Missing, mostly
• Apropos of ‘Hit and Miss Democracy’ (IE, September 1), the view of then Major General Iskander Mirza that democracy was unsuited to a country like Pakistan is as true today as it was in 1959. Why? The incompetence and corruption of the politicians who held power are good excuses for the military establishment for political intervention and seem acceptable to the public of Pakistan as is evident by the lack of a people’s movement of the kind that took place in the Philippines and elsewhere. The facts are, one, development of democracy is not a one-day process; two, the whole of Pakistan’s economy is in the hands of a dozen or so rich families; three, this strategically located country was pampered time and then, its inadequacies were overlooked till 9/11.
—Prasad Mothadaka Richmond
