• Apropos of your editorial ‘Trusted & rusted’ (May 25), Congress and its UPA allies need to always keep in mind that they have come to power by highlighting the NDA government’s failure in addressing the problems of 90 per cent of the population: the problems of poverty, unemployment, bijli, sadak, pani, hospitals, schools, and so on. The very first words from them, therefore, ought to have necessarily been about these problems. Instead they are busy talking about disinvestment, stock market crashes, POTA, saffronisation of textbooks, etc. — M.C. Joshi On e-mail Pieces of the pie • It is unfortunate that in your editorial you could only highlight the dubious credentials of Taslimuddin and totally ignored the credentials of his mentor, our new rail mantri (‘Laloo’s tracks’, May 25). The integrity of our prime minister cannot wash away the cases pending against them. — Prakash Kejriwal On e-mail • In the very first over Manmohan Singh has bowled too many wides. By including tainted ministers in his cabinet, he has let down the people who voted for the Congress. — Vasudeo Tewari On e-mail • It has been agonising to watch members of the United Progressive Alliance fight over the allocation of ministries. Over ten days have gone by since the declaration of results for the 14th Lok Sabha and the new government has not even released a vision document outlining its roadmap for the future. — Prasanth Kanakadandi On e-mail Shadow play • There is little point in blaming individual BJP leaders for their party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections. Similarly, it is no use blaming reforms for the defeat. Advertisement campaigns can never bring political victory by themselves. There are major political factors which should not be lost sight of. The BJP may be down but it is not out. While the top leadership would no doubt analyse the reasons, it should constitute a shadow cabinet with a young leader in charge of a few subjects. — S. Subramanyan On e-mail Politics in sport • The article ‘Inverted apartheid: Zims should be treated like Safs’ (IE, May 20) irrationally and in a racist fashion drags the name of an African hero, President Robert Mugabe, and the ruling party in Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF, into a matter that belongs purely in the realm of sport. It would be much fairer if those who are seething at the collapse of colonialism would attack President Mugabe for asserting African sovereignty by putting an end to the colonial theft of African land. This would tell all of us who and what such people really are. Patriotic Zimbabweans agree with their president that giving 2,290 hectares to someone because they are white while allowing the original indigenous owner a maximum of 24 hectares of less productive land is plain wrong. People like Trevor Chesterfield clearly disagree with the abolition of this kind of apartheid, and that is why they are abusing the sports pages of newspapers with their racist vitriol, a stratagem that is not as clever as they think. — Jonathan Wutawunashe Ambassador of Zimbabwe New Delhi
