This refers to your editorial, ‘Small State theory’ (May 24). That Telengana is doing wonderfully is far from the truth. KTR the son of the CM who is IT minister and minister for municipal administration is tech savy and articulate; he is on a propaganda spree. The beauty of Telengana politics is a series of populist measures. The government is announcing schemes which cannot be implemented even in the next 25 years! They say they will construct two bedroom apartments for all its citizens but the reality is they have constructed only few thousand apartments. Similarly their announcement of providing free education for all from KG to PG is yet to see the light of day. It is incorrect to say that Telangana is a new State, actually it is Andhra Pradesh which is a new State.

K Ashok Kumar

Kolkata

The small State theory will be vindicated only when a humongous State confronts unmanageable factors such as lack of growth initiatives, a divided society, huge geographical expanse, inept administrative functioning, skewed revenue channels, soaring unbalanced expenditure curve and missing links of progress in general. Most of the demands for small States are fuelled by political polarisation, electoral results, dynastic lineage, nepotistic prejudices, communal concentration, ethnic supremacy, religious hegemony and so on.. Corrupt individuals whip up the passions of the student community.

Unless sectarian views, a parochial attitude, fissiparous tendencies and an insular mindset are negated, national integration will not thrive. Neither is small beautiful nor big unviable; only etiological and compelling reasons justify small States and districts. Once a political mandate is obtained, the leaders should turn apolitical.

B Rajasekaran

Bengaluru

Puzzling indeed

This refers to ‘Why are India’s sovereign ratings poor?’ by Nandini Vijayaraghavan (May 24). Credit-rating agencies rely too much on historical data. This is too simple an approach as amply proved when they could not predict the 2008 credit crisis. The euro crisis has put Italy and Spain into a massive debt trap. This is an extraordinary situation and it is puzzling how they are rated as BBB/Stable/Positive.

China is an export driven economy. Corporates rely too much on housing and construction which is a bubble waiting to burst. Donald Trump’s promise to impose sweeping tariffs on imports of Chinese goods may make things difficult to handle. Brexit may also pose a risk to the Chinese economy. Pegging the Chinese currency to the US dollar is not based on market forces. India is undertaking massive reforms and unlike these countries its strength is derived intrinsically.

Srinivasan Velamur

Chennai

The right note

This refers to ‘Missed opportunity’ by Tina Edwin (From the Viewsroom, May 24). GST implementation is the most important tax reform since 1947 and we should be happy with its present modalities though improvement is always possible. It has already taken 16 long years from conceptualisation to implementation. Hence there is no point saying we have missed the opportunity

There are only four tax rates and zero rate need not be considered for counting the total number of rates. The Centre has succeeded in convincing all the State governments to adopt GST, and minor adjustments are always possible in the coming days. With GST implementation, tax evasion will be a thing of the past and tax compliance will be the norm. This is going to tone up efficiency in the tax administration and also prevent corruption in the present system.

S Kalyanasundaram

Email

Strong support

Javed Aktar and Shabna Azmi deserve praise for their bold opposition to triple talaq and their insistence on its ban. It would be good if Muslim personalities came out and pressured the AIMPLB to ban it. This is not a prestige issue. Further, it is unfortunately being politicised. It is time the entire nation should came out in support of Muslim women in this regard.

VS Ganeshan

Bengaluru

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