The Chinese move
The report, “China issues names for 15 places in Arunachal” (Page 1, December 31), is outrageous and spotlights China’s insatiable appetite to acquire, by hook or by crook, more territory from its smaller neighbours.
What seems to have triggered China’s unilateral claims on Arunachal Pradesh is apparently the Vice-President of India’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh and India’s procurement of the S-400 mutilayered air defence system. As China’s expansionism under its current leader is becoming bigger and bolder, it is time the rest of the world takes steps to halt this. China could be deriving strength from its veto-wielding powers as a permanent member of the UNSC. The need, therefore, is to strive for the restructuring of the UNSC and make it more democratic.
Nalini Vijayaraghavan,
Thiruvananthapuram
Indomitable print
Some say that this is the digital era, with no place for print. But I differ with this. Thousands of books, papers, periodicals and magazines are printed every day. And a huge army of impatient subscribers and readers wait for them. In Kerala, for instance, nearly a dozen newspapers are published daily and sold. When one reads a digital form you are just reading it. But when you are reading it in print you are experiencing it (OpEd page, ‘Notebook’ – “Legacy of the printed word”, December 31). I do not think that the digital form can be on a par with the print experience.
Muhammad Fayiz,
Keecheri, Kannur, Kerala
There is little doubt that print publications in India will continue to flourish despite the invasion of online ‘editions’. Ardent readers in India will always prefer the print edition of a newspaper for a variety of reasons: it is ‘easy on the eye, very easily portable, has an ownership factor’, and provides for more leisurely reading than online articles do. The feeling of ‘a warm newspaper right off the press’ is lovely which an online edition obviously cannot provide. Also, print is everlasting and unchanging unlike the online world in which articles seem to disappear. Online reading cannot provide the kind of joy and refreshment that a reader derives while sipping his morning brew and browsing through a paper.
R. Sivakumar,
Chennai
Of course, there are many high technology alternatives to print such as e-readers, online books and their audio versions. Thus, the value of the conventional printed book and newspaper has reduced a bit.
As a reader of The Hindu for the past two years, I have derived great pleasure reading the newspaper in its physical form. Things did change a bit after the novel coronavirus pandemic and the associated fear of virus spread. But the contentment and the joy that one feels reading a hard copy cannot be matched by the online version.
V.S. Sindhuri,
Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh
Holding a newspaper in one’s hands and experiencing the freshness of its pages, and then reading page after page with a tumbler of piping hot coffee is matchless. The digitally advanced may prefer Net news but the technologically-challenged (like me) always choose page over screen. The conventional way of reading a newspaper is better than the ‘inventional’ way of reading it. It is sad that in this Google-age, the joy of reading a newspaper is on the decline.
K. Pradeep,
Chennai
For those who were introduced to the world of the newspaper from a young age, there is no greater pleasure than reading print. The draw of the printed word in the form of a physical newspaper remains unmatched, though it must be conceded that this has begun to slowly wane with the introduction of the ‘digitised’ written word. The online subscriber may enjoy the advantage of getting instant news round the clock without waiting for the dawn of the next day. And there may no longer be the need to physically preserve important articles and reports and not have the problem of accumulating paper. The greatest advantage of an online newspaper is that there are references to the previous reports on the same topic. But still, print is print!
V. Lakshmanan,
Tirupur, Tamil Nadu
There is no alternative to the printed word. In certain offices that I worked in Delhi, I had the opportunity and the pleasure of ‘culling’ articles from various newspapers and pasting them on A4 sheets. Age-old print may be pushed off the pedestal, but it is only for a while!
Monisha Bhattacharjee,
Kolkata
Rain on Thursday
The unexpected and incessant heavy rain that battered Chennai on Thursday is a pointer that adverse weather events are increasing in frequency. No stone should be left unturned by policymakers to rebuild the city with climate-resilient infrastructure. There must also be a zero-tolerance policy toward the encroachment of water bodies. The growing vulnerability of our cities and towns to climate change cannot be ignored (Chennai, December 31).
M. Jeyaram,
Sholavandan, Tamil Nadu
Whatever the explanations and excuses, the entire meteorological paraphernalia which includes the army of private bloggers and other allied, freelancing weather forecast practitioners was caught unawares. Merely saying ‘we warned you’ is not enough. A metro caught in a weather event has a lot to lose, as Thursday’s event showed.
Sivamani Vasudevan,
Chennai
Victory in South Africa
With its victory in the first Freedom Test against South Africa, Team India appears to be heading in the right direction of breaching the ‘Final Frontier’. The fabulous win assumes significance considering the tendency of the team to capitulate in overseas conditions. The memorable win will be remembered for the stellar performances of the pace bowling attack spearheaded by Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj (‘Sport’ page, December 31). The win will also be a boost to the new coach Rahul Dravid.
B. Suresh Kumar,
Coimbatore
