It can be done

The Express has done well to reproduce the allegedly plagiarised passages 8216;Rewriting Indian history, xerox...

The Express has done well to reproduce the allegedly plagiarised passages 8216;Rewriting Indian history, xeroxing world history8217;, IE, October 7. I am not a historian. Armed with a rudimentary knowledge of English, I tried to rewrite one of the original, plagiarised passages. The passage which was not even substantially modified by the NCERT authors went: 8220;Shortly after the opening of the Estates General at Versailles in May 1789, the representatives of the third estate, angered by the king8217;s attitude, took the revolutionary step of leaving the body and declaring themselves the National Assembly.8221;

Here8217;s what a non-historian like myself can do to rewrite this information without plagiarising: 8220;Several historians have noted that the king8217;s obstinacy after the opening of the Estates General at Versailles precipitated a crisis. The angry representatives of the third estate declared themselves the National Assembly in May 1789, and this was a definitive revolutionary step8221;.

This was written in a space of a few minutes. I do not think it is particularly well written. My point is that if a non-historian can do this in five minutes, an experienced historian should be able to do a much better job in half an hour. At the very least, they owe the original authors an acknowledgement.
8212; K. Narasimha Rao,Hyderabad

Biases are telling

Please refer to the Express report of September 24, particularly to the sentence awarded to the criminal, Dara Singh, for killing an Australian Christian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons. While I will appreciate the need to highlight the said news item sentencing a criminal, I wonder why there were no news items of this kind on issues like the atrocities including rape and loot committed on thousands of Kashmiri Pandits, due to which they forced to become refugees in their own country.

I also wonder why there has not been even one judgment punishing the criminals who committed atrocities on Kashmiri Pandits due to which they were forced to fled Kashmir. Several Pandits were forced to leave their properties, lands, houses, furniture and flee at short notice. Neither was an attempt made to assess the value of their properties nor was any compensation made for the properties left behind. I would like you to ponder over these biases: why justice done to the minorities is invariably highlighted, while injustice done to the majority is ignored.
8212; K.K. Murthy, New Delhi

BCCI8217;s dinosaurs

Apropos 8216;Ganguly-BCCI spat queers the pitch8217; IE, October 13, what a shame that the hugely interested cricket fans got such mediocre treatment from the BCCI. The Motera pitch was the second best way to kill any interest in Test cricket. The wicket was so flat, so slow, that even in the first half an hour, the result was evident. Venkat Sundaram no doubt is an experienced cricketer but seems to have his brain in the wrong place. I think the cricket loving public in Ahmedabad did the right thing by staying away. We need more sensible people like them to get the message across to the dinosaurs controlling BCCI. By the way if you are wondering what the first best way to kill interest in Test cricket is, well, it is the practice of preparing wickets which will be dusty, give an uneven bounce and turn prodigiously on day one within the first hour.
8212; K.L. Narain, On e-mail