• Your editorial, ‘No parachute politics’, going into “why the Congress needs to highlight its state-level leadership, beginning with Karnataka,” seems rather removed from ground reality. Consider this. The Congress removed S.M. Krishna from the state just because Kharge and Dharam Singh carried stories against him to the high command, without realising that, in the process, it was promoting factionalism in the state unit. Then to weaken JD(S), it recruited the other scheduled caste leader, Siddaramiah, to its fold. And now, it has added a dozen to its side, again from the otherwise discredited JD(S). This may help the Congress to steal a march over Deve Gowda’s outfit, yet it can stoke more factionalism in its own ranks, because there are too many contenders for chief-ministership. Neither ideology nor idealism has a place in our political parties, and practical realities count for nothing. Otherwise, Deve Gowda should not be the man to preach political virtues, given his own murky politics, and the Congress would do well not to mouth ‘secular’ ideals, given its many compromises. — Prasad MalladiNidadavole (AP) Ratna well shelved• The Government of India did well in not awarding anybody the Bharat Ratna this year also. Apart from raging controversies over the awards for some individuals and illogical demands to confer it on others, it is better that the government deferred the decision. This one decision saved the value of the award, for which the government has to be complimented. Hope, better sense prevails among the people who demand such awards for their favourites. — V.S. GaneshanBangaloreCricketing perjury• The exoneration of Harbhajan Singh from racist slur charges proves that arrogance and perjury go together. Australian players who in writing accused Harbhajan of calling Symonds ‘monkey’ are liars. Now BCCI should take up the matter with ICC for bringing disrepute to cricket by the behaviour of Australian players and also wasting its resources on false accusation. — Sudhir K. BhaveMumbaiGloves off• Adam Gilchrist’s retirement from Test cricket is a big blow to world cricket in general and the Australian side in particular. He was the greatest wicket-keeper cum batsman the world of cricket has ever seen. He was one of the hardest hitters in world cricket and his clean glove work behind the stumps created a new world record for maximum dismissals for an wicket keeper. Adam Gilchrist retired in his peak form, and cricket would miss a player like him for a long time to come. Well done, Gilchrist. We truly loved your game and you were a true entertainer!— S.N. KabraMumbaiBill behind her• Aprpos of your Printline piece, ‘Bill Clinton wants in!’, the problem is that Bill Clinton is a citizen of the US, where one cannot remain President beyond two tenures. Now he can rule through his wife, Hillary Clinton, if she wins the race to White House, changing the saying ‘there is a woman behind every successful man’ to ‘there is a man behind every successful woman’. — Dalip Singh Ghuman Chandigarh
