Elections and reforms

This refers to ‘President backs simultaneous polls with riders’ (January 26). The issue of simultaneous polls to Parliament and the Assembly needs to be debated. People are fed up with frequent elections and hence are reluctant to exercise their franchise; simultaneous polls will save huge expenses and give relief to the people. The country needs electoral reforms, and criminals should be barred from contesting. But will the ruling and opposition parties unite to make this happen?

HP Murali

Bengaluru

Emulate Dravid

Cricketer Rahul Dravid’s decision to decline an honorary doctorate from Bangalore University is laudable. He has once more played it straight by suggesting that he would rather earn a degree through engaging in academic research in the field of sport than accepting an honorary degree. Others would do well to emulate Dravid’s example.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bengaluru

Double-edged

With reference to ‘Oops! Trump makes China great, instead’ (January 26), what’s been missed is that the TPP is actually a double-edged sword for the US and actually not suitable to Trump’s declared vision of Buy American, Hire American. Trump’s vision is not merely to contain China’s economic growth by denying it easy access to US markets, but rather to ensure that the domestic sale of American manufactured goods are not hampered by cheap foreign imports and cause unemployment.

However Trump should not miss the woods for the trees in thinking that he can revive America’s manufacturing economy by just implementing Buy American, Hire American vision. He should take a leaf out of Chinese foresight which drove that country to build its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a network of highspeed freight carrying railway lines from Central China to Germany and Spain crossing Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. BRI has helped European countries too by generating jobs and affording easy access to Chinese goods. Trump can work on a similar rail network with countries in South America such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The fact that Trump too has chosen not to engage other nations as vital economic partners shows that the new regime in the US is offering old wine in new bottles vis-a-vis its economic outreach.

Aravind Sridhar

Bengaluru

Tax relief?

It’s been reported that the salaried class are likely to get some I-T relief. Nothing is known about cess. In the past, predictions before presentation of the budget have not come true. The salaried are the worst-hit. They are the guaranteed source of income to the Government. That is why successive governments were reluctant to give tax relief. But tax relief is the legitimate obligation of the Government towards the people because the rise in incomes is not commensurate with the rise in prices of goods and services.

With the exception of salaried class, nobody has been remitting tax on the total income earned. Examples are lawyers, private doctors, chartered accountants, tax consultants, consultant engineers and so on. It is nearly impossible to assess their actual incomes. Therefore, it is only dream to recover the tax on income of these people up to the last rupee. Something must be done about it. Unless the tax base is expanded to cover all groups, the easing of the burden on the salaried class will remain a myth.

KV Seetharamaiah

Hassan, Karnataka

Get the looters

It is not surprising that an I-T raid on the home of a Congress leader in Karnataka unearthed an amazing ₹160 crore worth of cash and jewellery. But what is painful and disappointing is the fact that influential political elements, whatever party they belong to, will some how manage to escape under some pretext or the other. Is there no solution in this land of misguided democracy with so many personal rights to pin down these powerful looting elements and punish them without giving them the hope to revive their dominance in public life?

VS Ganeshan

Bengaluru

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