Letters to the editor

Court and cricket8226; INDIA, it would seem, is run by the courts. Be it in curbing vehicular pollution, checking unauthorised construction...

Court and cricket

8226; INDIA, it would seem, is run by the courts. Be it in curbing vehicular pollution, checking unauthorised construction, or watching a cricket match on TV, it8217;s the courts that bring solace to the common man. Take the Nimbus-Prasar Bharti slugfest that led to millions of cricket lovers missing the first India-West Indies ODI at Nagpur on January 21. The battle got worse when the public broadcaster, Prasar Bharti, refused to accept any of Nimbus8217;s preconditions for sharing its feed with DD. Nimbus is the company that has bought the telecast rights to all cricket matches played in India from the Board for Control of Cricket in India for 612 million Rs 2,700 crore for four years. Prasar Bharti and India8217;s I038;B Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi say that Nimbus must share its feed with DD. Nimbus says this will hurt its business interests. The minister terms this 8216;unpatriotic8217;. Nimbus says DD can take the feed, but must encrypt the signal so as to prevent piracy and then moves the court on the issue. But larger questions still remain unanswered: why don8217;t the interested parties solve this problem before the tournament actually begins? Who is to blame for the mess 8212; the government or Nimbus or the BCCI? Is the government, which says it is working in the public interest, really doing so, or is it only interested in making money from the golden goose called cricket?

8212; Md Ziyaullah Khan , Pune

Chappell attack

8226; IT is quite disturbing to learn that Greg Chappell was attacked by an Oriya activist in broad daylight for something in which he had no role to play IE, January 23. The cricket team is selected by the BCCI and not by the coach himself. So if the activist has to protest at the non-inclusion of Oriya players, he should protest in a non-violent manner against the BCCI. By hitting Chappell, this man has served his cause badly. He should be punished suitably, so that no one in future will dare to dent the image of our country in this way.

8212; Saad Ullah Khan , Aligarh

8226; THIS refers to the report that the Indian cricket coach, Greg Chappell was manhandled at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. This is not to justify the attack but, to be honest, Greg Chappell, has experimented a bit too much, thus arousing the ire of the public. And the performance of Indian team in the recent fixtures had set the dice rolling against the unconventional Australian former captain. Bad performances of the Indian team vindicated the seething anger of the public against the dropping of the out-of-form Sourav Ganguly. On top of that were the acrimonious comments from the coach himself.

8212; Krishna R. Patel, Narsinghpur, MP

SRK8217;s charms

8226; THE new man in the hot seat of Kaun Banega Crorepati on Monday was looking quite nervous, though he used all his 8216;heroic8217; experience to hide that. He did not look as confident as he looks in films. No doubt, the show got very high TRPs this time. But Big B was surely bigger as an anchor. Shah Rukh Khan is not as polite as Big B, and he sometimes overacts. I will not be surprised if, in the coming days, audiences start demanding that Bachchan come back. As an anchor and a radio/TV commentator for over 20 years, I can say that an anchor8217;s naturalness of speech and expression is essential for the quality of a show.

8212; Ahmad Rais Siddiqi, New Delhi