AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

VOICE MAIL

        Sir,

        With reference to the Point Blank on 'Shady Connections' in News Today (18 August), I wish to say that it is common knowledge, not a cliché that the urge of self-preservation is stronger in us, the human beings, the homosapiens than in any other living being in the animal kingdom and over the years this strong urge has come to be the exclusivism of our political tribe, at all events, of Indian politicos. And in this art of survival our honorable M Karunanidhi has already shown an uncanny ability when the chips are down and his stocks low. It is incontrovertible that the political history of Tamilnadu has been inalienably mixed with media of one kind or other; if cinema was MGR's prop up, print media, that of our rationalist kingmaker Karunanidhi. And all was well with the latter till May'07 when the nephews in their gung-ho tried to get above themselves only to get cut down to size by the King's family in no uncertain terms, leading to the doors being shown to the untrustworthy grand nephews.

        Now sensing threat from their 'alienated bloodlines' through 'operation cable,' fearing reduction to a pigmy, the King is now on a cable war path, with a determination of not to knuckle under to 'Suns.' Ostensibly to augment the State Exchequer and to protect the cable operators but to insulate his battered image and to perpetuate laziness among the populace, his mission of launching Arasu Cable TV Corporation is getting to reach a flash point in the political war path with the elite IAS officials task getting reduced to that of spear carrier for Karunanidhi. Could there be anything more mockery and insinuating insult for the bureaucrats than to hold cable when they are supposed to administer to the needs of people through their concerned Ministries.

        And the ultimate suckers are who else? We the people.

        Sir,

        It is a pity that the media has treated George Fernandes with harshness. The same media had nothing to say when Rajiv Gandhi in Parliament referred to Jaipal Reddy who was then a Telugu Desam MP that 'he has a crooked mind in a crooked body'. A foreign born Sonia Gandhi called Vajpayee a 'gaddar'. Did the media go fire and tongs at them? What is decency and probity in public life-to sugar coat untruths, to mislead the nation, to bulldoze the will of the people?

        Soft-spokenness is no criterion of being right. The Congress accused George of having demeaned the high office of the PM. Well, what does the high office of the PM indicate? It is Manmohan Singh who has demeaned the dignity of the PM post by being ever subservient to Sonia Gandhi and thanking her profusely for selecting him as the PM. Under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress has degraded every single

        Constitutional post and rammed democratic norms. So George cannot take away what was not there and could not further demean or degrade any Constitutional high office. It is the Prime Minister who should apologize to the people of this country for not only misleading

        them-but giving scant respect to the majority will of the people articulated through their representatives. This is undermining the basic tenet of democracy and mortgaging the sovereignty of this nation.