Despite protests the former Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam has been appointed governor of Kerala. The question is whether he can act impartially. Like with the President, the Constitution bestows the governor with a lot of responsibilities. The governor can guide the authorities in leading the State towards progress. Politicians oppose each other. Everybody wants power and position. The media wants to create news by building fake antagonism between individuals and groups. What is required is for the governor to be non-partisan.

TV Jayaprakash

Palakkad, Kerala

Terror’s India chapter

The announcement by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri that his organisation is setting up a dedicated wing to wage jihad in the Indian subcontinent with communally sensitive Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and Gujarat as the focus of its future activities has set alarm bells ringing. Reports on the recent death of an Indian youth while fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria only suggest that Muslim youths from India are joining the ISIS. Besides, there have been intelligence reports of terrorist cells being active in pockets.

While the Centre has done well to sound a nationwide alert and asked State governments and security agencies to be on their toes and take all precautionary steps it is also imperative that the various agencies keep a tab on the likes of Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the Students Islamic Movement of India and closely monitor their activities.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bangalore

Market man

MR Mayya, former executive director of the Bombay Stock Exchange who passed away on September 4, was a veritable encyclopaedia of capital market operations. He was a selfless worker who worked tirelessly for bringing together all the regional stock exchanges. The creation of Inter-connected Stock Exchange was an effort in that direction with which I had the privilege of being professionally associated.

Unfortunately, his dream could not be fully realised due to factors beyond his control. One will always remember the humility of Mayya and his yeoman service to the capital market of the country.

SD Israni

e-mail

Show some ethics

This is with reference to “Kingfisher staff still waiting for that elusive pay cheque” (September 5). It goes without saying that most employees depend entirely on the salaries they get to run their homes smoothly. Even a day’s delay in getting the pay could upset the applecart; the trials and tribulations of the employees of Kingfisher are unimaginable. There should not be any difficulty for the UB group to raise funds to pay the outstanding salary to the employees of Kingfisher. When whopping sums are splurged on the Royal Challengers, the group should have discharged its duty by paying the salaries regularly. The UB group was trying to do too many things.

HP Murali

Bangalore

Fighting poverty

This refers to “Too many hungry stomachs” by José Graziano da Silva (September 5). The revelation that there are more than 800 million hungry people on the earth is quite staggering and that nearly one in four of them is an Indian is worrisome. The startling number of hungry people in India coupled with instances of malnutrition makes the task of our policy planners daunting. The writer's laudatory words with regard to India’s contribution to fighting poverty and starvation are gratifying.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

Building on capital

It is learnt that Vijayawada and the surrounding VGTM (Vijayawada, Guntur, Tenali and Mangalagiri) regions will be the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. What the State government now needs to do is accumulate material and human capital and ensure faster growth.

S Ramakrishnasayee

Ranipet, Tamil Nadu

Erratum

n The writer of the article, “Too many hungry stomachs” (September 5), is José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the FAO, and not as published. The error is regretted.

Treat all religions alike

India’s Constitution enjoins the Government to be secular, which means that it should not interfere in religious matters or if it does it should do so equally for all religions. Unfortunately, the government of Andhra Pradesh (and Telengana and other States) are administering and managing only a particular religion’s places of worship. The Andhra Pradesh government is even funding the construction of churches by allotting money to the AP Christian Minority Finance Corporation which is funding the construction of churches. To be truly secular and to show equality and give equal treatment to all religions, churches and mosques and their administering and managing institutions should also be brought under the government by amending the Endowments Act which now only covers Hindus temples and their charitable institutions.

TH Chowdary

Secunderabad

Back to basics

This is with reference to the article “No easy path to higher growth” by SS Tarapore. The Government has to create an environment for growth by promoting policies which are transparent and by spending more in towards creating assets over the current misguided subsidies. Loans generate savings and not the other way around. We need to understand this and try to include all our citizens in our banking system. Inflation is a structural problem when we exclude the majority of our population from the banking system. Even if we improve the supply side and reduce food inflation, we cannot expect headline inflation to fall much below 7 per cent. This is because we have a very weak and non-inclusive banking system which is responsible for the structural inflation that we have right now. When we have a banking system that provides credit to all the people who need it and allows them to save, eventually it will reduce the leakages in the financial system responsible for the structural inflation. Let’s go back to basics and bring down inflation to get us back to our potential growth.

CR Arun

Email

Managing gurus

Connecting with children is an old idea and an acceptable practice in our society. That said, why are political parties so worried about the proposed speech of the Prime Minister to the children of the nation? Let us accept the reality that a Prime Minister has the right to address all or any section of society. Political parties have the right to criticise him in case they feel that he has used this opportunity for political gains or has said something against them. But how can one assume in advance that ahe will use this opportunity for his party’s advantage?

Let us remain cool and avoid over-reacting and concentrate on big issues facing the country.

Dilip K Raina

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

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