On friendship One may say friendship is a bond, love, trust or affection between people, and between generations. The willingness to accept the good and the bad of the other person or nation is essentially ‘true friendship’. Inter-personal friendship and friendship between societies and nations are the keys to foster goodwill and peace all around. People-to-people understanding and peer support, which usually cement friendship at all levels, stand to be broken by poverty, violence, prejudice and hatred. Friendship doubles the joy and halves the misery, but unfortunately the equations between countries are never simple. The only consoling factor is friends of these nations are contributing their mite to infuse sanity among countries. In a similar vein, exchange of people between countries has, through tourism, education and employment, tremendously buffered friendship between different countries so dissimilar in culture and traditions. Friendly nations must reiterate their ‘sibling relationship’ on July 30, International Friendship Day. Ganapathi Bhat, Akola India’s fightback It was wonderful rearguard action by India in the fourth Test against England at Old Trafford. Finally they proved they can bat for more than a day. Jadeja and Sundar deserve all the praise for holding the fort, and Rahul and Gill also for laying the foundation. This series against England has been building up to a close finish at the Oval on July 31, though England are ahead 2-1. The fourth Test was remarkable with both teams even-stevens on credit. The close to 700 score by England was neutralised by the three centuries of Gill, Jaddu and Sundar, not forgetting the substantial contribution by Rahul in India’s second innings. An interesting thing about this series is that all the matches have gone up to the fifth day. Otherwise with the other countries Tests nowadays end on the 3rd/4th day. It has also showed up that Test cricket can be absorbing and that it should endure. The emergence of India as a major power in cricket also, has made cricket lovers in both, England and Australia place this series as equivalent to the Ashes. The crowds in the stands reflect that. Now on to the final Test. The Oval track takes spin from Day 3/4 so it will be best to play with three spinners. We must drop Shardul and play the wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav. This will not disturb the team balance as it stands now. S Kamat, Mysuru Operation Sindoor Defence Minister Rajnath Singh targeted the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, accusing them of prioritising the wrong questions during discussions on Operation Sindoor. Singh said, “Few members of the opposition have been asking how many of our aircraft were shot down? I feel their question does not adequately represent our national sentiments. They have not asked us how many enemy aircraft our Armed Forces shot down?” Actually, Singh is throwing wool over people’s eyes without answering the question – how many of our aircraft, particularly Rafale, or Pak aircrafts were lost or shot? What stops the Defence Minister from stating a figure for both queries? It is like going back to the sad Galwan times, when our 20 soldiers versus China’s 40 came down to 20 versus 4, that too after a long time. Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee, Faridabad Preventing stampedes The two back-to-back stampedes at religious places in Haridwar and Barabanki raise questions about India’s preparedness for crowd management. Being an overpopulated country, huge crowds are generally expected at many places during big events, especially religious programmes. Occurrences of stampedes at major events leading to death of people are on the rise in the country. It should be recalled that not very long ago stampedes caused the death of several people in Bengaluru while people were celebrating IPL victory, at the Delhi railway station, at Tirupati temple and so on. These were not unexpected incidents. Rather, they showed the negligence on the part of authorities. Organisation of this year’s Mahakumbh bears testimony to the fact that with proper planning and preparedness, huge gatherings of people can be conducted without causing huge loss of lives. Religious places or any places of congregation must not be allowed to become places of death. Priority should be given to the safety of people and human lives. A crowd regulation law must be enacted and implemented. Proper planning and preparedness can save lives. Disaster management protocols must be strictly followed. Venu G S, Kollam