Lessons for India from Pak crisis
Sir, In the wake of the brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan once again stands almost at the edge of a precipice beyond which only an abyss of blood, gore and tears exists.

Pakistan’s trauma and struggle for democracy should make us value ours more than anything in the world. We should not only be grateful to those colossal leaders of our pre and post Independence era, most of whom practised humility and truthfulness till their last. We Indians should rededicate ourselves to their noble ideals that were so eloquently and luminously put across by our former Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru in his speech ‘A tryst with destiny.’

In retrospect, even the huge price India had to pay in terms of the human tragedy it was forced to face through partition riots may now seem to be entirely worth the democratic gains it could make from day one of its birth as an independent, sovereign, democratic, socialist and secular republic.          
      
SHAHABUDDIN NADEEM
Bangalore

Poor performance
Sir, As expected Indians have begun their tour on a disastrous note by surrendering tamely to the Aussies in the Melbourne Test. It was a poor performance by the men in blue considering their potential, having some of the world class batsmen in the team. Our bowlers inspite of many limitations did extremely well to restrict the Aussies, but our batsmen failed miserably on a good track. The need of the hour is to change the opening combination, and Dravid must bat at his usual position to provide the much needed solidarity. Let us hope they will begin the new year on a winning note.
INAMDAR RAMACHANDRA
Bangalore

Need for introspection
Sir, It’s clear mere hype won't help Team India in putting up a good fight against the awesome Aussies who have maintained a winning streak for 15 consecutive test matches. We can only hope to put up a good fight and not cave in dismally as happened in the just concluded first test match. All the top order batsmen collapsed like nine pins without putting up a fight. Sadly, even the veterans like Sachin and Rahul came up with poor shots. The time has come for introspection and to find out how our batsmen can face the varied attack of Aussies who are on a song. That would be the real test of character for our cricketers down under.
DBN MURTHY
Bangalore

Formidable opponents
 Sir, India’s defeat in the first Test against Aussies once again proved its inability to compete with a formidable team.  Cricket fans in India were dumbstruck to see their icons dismissed for less than 200 runs in both innings and to suffer one of their worst Test defeats. Will BCCI have the courage to cut our cricketer’s 75% match fee for this humiliating 337 runs defeat in the hands of Aussies as they gave us it as a 2008 New Year’s gift?
BIDYUT KUMAR CHARTTERJEE
Faridabad

Educate public
Sir, It is surprising that  nobody among those travelled in the general compartment of the train in which a couple was attacked brutally by four armed men between the city and the contonment railway stations tried to do even the minimum to help the victims. It should have been a spontaneous reflex action in such situaions for anyone to pull the chain and stop the train. Further, there should have been someone with a cell phone. Why nobody thought of alerting the police on what was taking place? One wonders whether people have become immune to such incidents so that they lost their reasoning power while facing them.  Perhaps it is time to educate the public through all possible media how to confront such situations.
K.K.CHERIAN
Bangalore

Stop splurging
Nowhere in the world any party has guaranteed freebies if voted to power as our Tamil Nadu CM Karunanidhi did.  Thousands of crores of public money is so casually run out by this irresponsible government. A true rationalist, unlike Karunanidhi, will not be a waste-thrift squandering public money on freebies.
V KAMESWARN
Chennai