Standing Tall
I fully agree with the strong sentiments expressed by your editor in the October cover story ‘The Resilient Indian’. As India forges ahead in virtually all fields—even sports—it is imperative that we guard our flanks. Great empires don’t have soft underbellies and every great empire has ensured stability at home before embarking on global domination. This is clearly not a hawkish neocon stand. As former great powers like the US decline, it will be China and India that will have to move and fill the power vacuum. If we don’t step up to the plate then someone else will. and they will lead the world.
Amit Arya
New York

India is indeed being buffeted by ill winds at this crucial juncture in its development. Yes, business goes on but the fact is we have to make every Indian safe and secure—both at home as well as in the market­place. I remember the pre-Diwali week five years ago in Delhi. The city had just been rocked by explosions in various crowded markets and the markets that year reported a 70 per cent decline in retail sales. The fact is for many businesses it can be survival or bust because Diwali is the time when 70 per cent of annual sales are reported. I for one forbade my wife from shopping in any market and whatever was required  I would fetch personally from hurried visits to the shops. During pre-Diwali shopping days my Kamla Nagar market normally has barely standing room but that year it wore a deserted look. That’s where the terrorists and anti-nationals are winning. We need air-tight security for all Indians
Sanjay Narasimhan
Singapore

Which is the only insurgency in the world to have been completely eradicated? Answer: Punjab separatism. If you are one of those people who were numbed by the daily body counts reported in the newspapers in the 1980s, you would have experienced the horror of Sikh terrorism in those days. Most people going to work in the morning in Punjab those days didn’t know if they would return home alive in the evening. But two men changed all that: Punjab Police chief K.P.S. Gill and Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. Together they went after the terrorists with a vengeance—literally. If the terrorists kidnapped a cop’s child and asked for the release of a terrorist rotting in jail, the Gill would order the kidnapper’s mother or brother to be ‘kidnapped’. If they threatened to kill the child, the police told them clearly they would chop their relatives to pieces. Some terrorists actually wept and surrendered before the police, begging for mercy. Gill and Beant Singh terrorised the terrorists. They and some determined individuals ensured Punjab held out even as Pakistan, Canada and Britain were providing sanctuaries to the terrorists.
Jay Patel
Dubai

November 2008