One has not forgotten how several Team India members were received by Indian fans only a few months ago. India will soon spar with Australia. What happens if we lose? Should we not learn to take victory and defeat in our stride?

— M. Ratan

New Delhi

•The importance we have come to attach to success scares me. Suppose the Pakistanis had hit just one more sixer in the World Cup? Would that have made India a flop team? If that were the case, I am sure, our cricket crazy compatriots would have condemned today’s heroes as zeroes.

— M. Hasan Jowher

Ahmedabad

Muslims left behind

•I fully endorse Vitall Gupta’s views in his letter, Progeny power. A.K. Sharma, who has blamed the Muslim community for the population explosion in his letter, ‘Teeming millions’ (IE, September 25) should know that it is poverty and lack of education that are responsible for the malaise. For example, the birth rate in the backward states of UP and Bihar is the highest and almost equal in both the Hindu and Muslim community, and the lowest in Kerala, which has the highest literacy in the country. Moreover, poverty in the Muslim community is higher because of caste-based reservations. Its members find road blocks in the path to progress. The major chunk of seats in educational institutions and in government jobs goes to Hindu and Sikh reserved categories and women. Even the poorest of the poor Muslims have to compete within the non-reserved categories. Naturally, they get left behind. Reservations and other concessions should be on an economic basis.

... contd.