Bad spice• WITH such controversies surrounding reality shows these days, might one ask how real these shows are. Whatever the circumstances under which the participants are required to stay together under one roof, the biggest reality remains that they are on camera, which is bound to affect their behaviour. After all, how long would the routine behaviour of the participants hold viewers’ interest if nothing dramatic happened? These shows, for all their ‘reality’, desperately need cheap drama, controversies and spice to survive. The only purpose served by the unwarranted controversies surrounding Celebrity Big Brother and now Shipwrecked is that they make the shows more popular. Nobody ever believed that racism has been wiped out from the British, American, European or any of the other societies. Now, do we really need to give so much importance to the ‘views’ of participants in these ‘reality shows’ to the extent of intervention at the ministerial level? — Bushra M. Hussain, Mumbai187 kudos• SHANTANU DATTA’s ‘Why 187 Mumbai stories’ (IE, January 24) was an apt epilogue to the 187 stories about each of 7/11 victims presented serially by The Indian Express. I read the series keenly and each of the pieces presented touching experiences about the plight of the families of the victims when suddenly confronted with the loss of a member. The Express deserves a pat on the back for bringing out the stories of each and every affected family. When you set out on the task, I was sure that it would have seemed nearly impossible to cover all the 187 families, but you have managed to pull off this Herculean task admirably. The series was an enormous learning experience on coping with a personal loss, coming to terms with its tragic aftermath, and rebuilding one’s life around memories of the dear departed ones.— S. Chattopadhyay, MumbaiIdeology on pension• IT is ironic that India’s economic reform regime should meet with road blocks from its own political leadership or its plans be distorted by some wrong-headed ideology (‘Together on pension’, IE, January 24). If a minor group of about 60 members in Parliament can hold the House to ransom and torpedo the New Pension Scheme even when it stands endorsed by 19 states, we must prepare ourselves for a huge fiscal open-ended liability of millions of crores of rupees in the years to come. True, the investment plan of pension corpus should have investment choices and a better administrative management for gains from healthy competition; but aiming to gain political mileage by creating obstructions will not benefit the Left. The step, though, may cause immense economic loss to the nation. — Ved Guliani, HisarQuit Iraq• IT is such a shame that after causing utter chaos and destruction in Iraq, the US president is still talking about giving the Iraq war a chance. Has he not satiated himself enough with the deaths of innumerable innocent men, women and children? Saddam Hussein, who was held responsible for the deaths of innocent people, has been hanged. Is Bush above (law and) justice, because he happens to be the president of a superpower? Did he have the right in the first place to wage the unwarranted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? It is indeed time the American president did some soul searching and stopped meddling in Iraq. — Bushra M. Hussain , Mumbai
