— Sham Sankar

Trivandrum

Empire buys back

• Ratan Tata is defying gravity. He is on a roll, acquiring one British company after another. First it was the Tetley tea brand, then came the acquisition of Corus steel, and now, Tata has bought the Jaguar and the Land Rover from Ford. One wonders if this is a case of the erstwhile colony striking back?

— Sarat Pattanayak

Bhubaneswar

Himalayan feat

• The people of Bhutan must be congratulated on successfully beginning the transformation of their country from a Himalayan kingdom to a full-fledged democratic state. Democracy will hopefully make Bhutan a more stable and powerful nation in the coming years.

The United States, which always loudly champions the cause of democracy in the Middle East, should learn something from Bhutan. It should note that the Bhutanese have been able to introduce democracy without shedding a drop of blood.

— Saad Ullah Khan

Aligarh

Linked pay

• One may welcome the Sixth Pay Commission’s proposal to hike the salaries of Central government employees. After all, government salaries must be measured against those in the private sector. This would enable the government to retain its best employees. Otherwise, very soon there will not be any quality personnel left for government jobs. In fact, there will also be an exodus of existing bureaucrats for private companies.

However, there is still no guarantee that government employees will indeed become more efficient and honest after the hike. Therefore, raises must be performance-linked.

— S. Krishna Kumar

Mumbai

On Sunny

• Calling a spade nothing but a spade always exposes the truth ‘Say it again, Sunny’. And the truth can make one lose one’s friends. Sunil Gavaskar’s plight is just that. Not used to diplomacy and hypocrisy, Gavaskar has antagonised his ICC bosses. But, regardless of what the ICC thinks, Indians should let Gavaskar know that they are right behind him on this.

— P.K. Chakraborty

New Delhi

•SUNIL Gavaskar’s comments should be seen in the context of the racial discrimination that the ICC has been actively involved in or has passively condoned. Be it the differential treatment in the case of Venkatesh Prasad’s gesticulation or the Harbhajan controversy, the ‘dinosaurs’ have always demonstrated their colonial tendencies. This is not the first time that Gavaskar has stood his ground and spoken up even when no one from the official circles of Indian cricket has dared to do so.Indians should protest against every aspect of racism so blatantly practised by certain unsporting people associated with cricket.

— Aditya Gore

Mumbai