• If you go back and take another look, there is no Bengal versus Rest of India situation. It’s a clear case of Right versus Wrong. Kolkata is not upset because Dada was left out of the national team — far from it. They were upset at the way it happened. Kolkatans have taken to causes in sport before. They are a passionate lot and therefore passionately hate injustice, in any form. — Soumitra Saha Mumbai Brutal silence • In the murder of Manjunath, India has lost not just a valiant son but an honest officer in a corrupt nation. I expect no urgency in investigation or any consolation from UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav or from any other politician of that state. Even the BJP is mum, though it is in the opposition. But what has left me aghast is that neither our so-called honest prime minister nor Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has condemned the incident publically and promised strict action against the culprits and other kinds of mafia across the nation. All the UPA hype about progress, growth rates, development, transformation of rural and urban areas will amount to nothing if if we can’t assure security to a young and brilliant person who chose to work in a government company, shunning a lucrative MNC job in India or abroad. — Sandeep Joshi Delhi The larger task • IOC officers are evidently upset over the murder of Manjunath in UP. It is their responsibility now to ensure that he did not die in vain. They should courageously stand up against corrupt practices and devise practical ways to curb the rampant adulteration at petrol pumps. — C.R. Bhattacharjee Kolkata Just slogans • The ouster of the RJD government in Bihar is welcome. Much credit goes to the election commission which conducted elections in as free and fair manner as is possible. The rejection of the RJD proves that people are no more impressed by ‘‘social justice’’ and “secularism” without any visible development. — Shubhajit Chakraborty Kolkata Bias is showing • The humiliating defeat of India at the Eden Garden grounds raises issues beyond the strict confines of “cricket”. Initially it had appeared that the coach was indeed being objective in his moves against Sourav Ganguly and for Sachin Tendulkar despite the Little Master’s disastrous showing in recent ODIs. But his stand against Sourav even for the test matches leaves the inescapable impression that he was no longer being objective, but only vengeful against the former captain. Otherwise he would not have been averse to ‘experimenting’ with Sourav for the ODIs even at the cost of Tendulkar. — A.N. Mitra Delhi Bad policy • Who is running India’s foreign policy? Do they want Nepal be taken over by the Maoists? What serves democracy better? Why should India support them and not the king who is fighting with his back to the wall? If the mandarins in South Block feel so much empathy for democracy, why are they engaged in a peace process even in the face of unrelenting terrorism coming from a military dictator run Pakistan? — Venkata Mangala On e-mail
