Health is wealth

With reference to the editorial, “A weighty conundrum” (November 5), a bold commitment is needed for a push to spending on public health services at a time when 67 per cent of the expenditure on health in the country is from people’s pockets. India’s annual healthcare spend ranks a low 85th (among 185) in the world. UPA-II had proposed a health service to cover free medicines as part of a “minimum package” of cashless outpatient, inpatient and diagnostic care for all citizens.

Towards this, the Government would need to find ₹3 lakh crore for health over the next five years. This apart, to rationalise universal healthcare costs in the long haul, the scheme was necessarily to go hand-in-hand and coordinated with fighting malnutrition, which cost too has to be factored.

Sadly, 47 per cent of India’s children below the age of three are malnourished. For the poor to get free healthcare, funds must actually reach them. The National Rural Health Mission, which will be a major instrument for the delivery of the free healthcare proposed, today stands tainted in various States.

Also, healthcare is a State subject, and the Centre can exercise little control over how efficiently the money is utilised. India at present has one doctor for 1,700 people as against 1 per 469 in the UK.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Playing politics

With reference to “The politics of memory” by Poornima Joshi (November 5), what is common between the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the 2002 Godhra Riots and the 2014 Muzaffarnagar and Trilokpuri riots is the politics played by politicians with vested interests. Instead of defusing the situation, they would rather play politics. Sadly, the situation has not changed much in the last 30 years, only the intensity of communal riots has varied.

There is nothing wrong in remembering Sardar Patel more than Indira Gandhi on October 31, but investing thousands of crores to build a statue of unity is going a bit too far.

The Government could have utilised this amount for a more useful cause — perhaps bringing justice to the victims of riots and rehabilitating the families once and all.

Bal Govind

Noida, Uttar Pradesh

The writer rightly highlights how political rhetoric is a cruel joke on the victims of communal violence. The celebration of national unity day is meaningless unless there are genuine efforts to maintain communal harmony in the country. It is true that the scars of history can’t be erased but justice delivered to victims would instil confidence in our justice system. Although it has been said that justice delayed is justice denied, in this case if it is finally delivered finally, then it would be exemplary.

Political parties should stand together to handle the menace of communal violence by bringing strong legislation to deal with communal violence.

Deepak Kumar

Bhiwani, Haryana

Technology for farmers

This refers to the article “What next after Mars?” by SN Balakrishnan (November 5). Yes, we should be proud of our space research agency for what they have done. But when we hear that more than 320 farmers have committed suicide in the past five months in Telangana because of failed rains and the debts they got into, we should ask ourselves what we need to do to save these precious lives.

In Rwanda they are use satellites to insure crops, that too at low premiums. Why can’t we use our satellites to this purpose to save our farmers? It is a simple technology of integrating land mapping to the use of mobile phones and monitoring cloud cover in the region. With this they will get the right information to insure crops at low premiums.

They are clear about which region and lands have got rainfall and which haven’t. The point is they are given seeds after they have lost the crops for want of water to sow at the right time. This saves the farmers as they get the seeds and fertiliser when they need them the most. We should move in this direction as soon as possible.

CR Arun

Email

Awful state

The editorial would sadden every right-thinking citizen in the country. It is horrendous that in the last 67 years, the scourge of malnutrition has not been addressed. Children dying at the age of 3 or 5 years is unacceptable. It is even worse that the Unicef global nutrition data says 48 per cent of children under 5 years are stunted. Our ranking in the global hunger index is a dubious distinction.

RK Sridharan

Chennai

Sleepless bankers

The report of India Ratings about the probable high quantity of NPA/Restructured loans for the ensuing year ended 2014-15 is quite astonishing. Restructuring of loans is not a permanent solution, it only postpones the awkward situation. Unless it is addressed immediately the situation in 2015-16 will become worse and put the entire banking system into doldrums. It is high time the Government and the RBI sit together and find a solution to this burning problem which makes banking circles sleepless.

TSN Rao

Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh

Banking nightmare

“Restructured loans of banks may zoom by ₹1 lakh cr in next 5 months” (November 5) is a grim forecast. That 82 out of the top 500 companies are financially distressed and another 83 have severely stretched credit metrics will prove to be a tall mountain for the concerned banks to climb/scale. The banks’ tasks for the timely implementation of restructuring package of stressed accounts are really cut out. It is incumbent on the banks to ensure that no defaulting corporate is getting away scot-free.

There was a clamour for publishing the names of persons/entities who have stashed black money abroad. Why not the affected banks reveal the names of the aforementioned 165 companies whose accounts are causing undue stress and strain to the banking system in the country? The public has a right to know their identities.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

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