Letters: Misjudged importance

Shekhar Gupta's column, 'National Interest' is always readable. But in the latest instalment ("An unusual traveller", September 26), he glosses over one pertinent fact while talking about the obsession of New York taxi drivers with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit: a large proportion of them are of south Asian origin and thus attach great importance to his trip.

The true itinerant rock star in the US is Pope Francis by a long chalk. A look at the US media should convince anyone that Chinese President Xi Jinping occupies a much larger space than Modi. Perhaps a case of the columnist getting "carried away" by "image-building… for home audiences" to quote his words? And, whoever heard of "moral stature" with respect to Indira Gandhi?

Two leading lights of Indian print journalism, T N Ninan and Shekhar Gupta, sharing the same page is a most welcome sight. But I noticed a rare lapse of Business Standard’s editorial page style sheet in Gupta’s column: Modi, Graham and Nehru are referred to by just their surname, no honorific, once each.

Shreekant Sambrani, Baroda

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