Hear them

The impressive turnout in the first phase of J&K polls is a welcome development. Voters should be congratulated for rejecting the separatists’ call for boycott. This shows people of J&K are very much with India no matter the pressures and provocation. The Centre and politicians of all hues should recognise the confidence the people of J&K have in India and concentrate on development and peace for them.

VS Ganeshan

Bengaluru

Ensure financial safety

The RBI credit norms and its meticulous implementation by banks need to be reviewed by a high power expert committee to bring to light the huge loans given to undeserving borrowers.

The global financial crisis was imported by the US through its careful concatenation of undeserving home loans neatly packaged as toxic financial steroids. Its Indian avatar is the large undeserving loans which unfortunately cannot be packaged and exported. The poor taxpayer is the victim of the resultant benevolent write-offs by PSU banks of prominent defaulters who should not have been given access to such crucial formal finance.

Small and medium enterprises that form the economic spine of our country do not get easy access to banked finance but large corporates with deep pockets borrow joyfully and default shamelessly. The expert committee must not only expose such defaulters but also bring to light the brokering modus operandi behind such largesse. It is high time deserving small businesses get access to banked finance and the RBI ensures the common man’s financial safety.

S Vaidhyasubramaniam

Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

Come together

Your editorial, ‘Break this cycle’ (November 26) is a call worth heeding. It is a strange phenomenon of Indian politics that a party proposes one thing while in power and opposes the same when out of power. The BJP was at fault in this regard while in the opposition. The Congress now thinks it is their turn to pay back.

After all, the ultimate beneficiary of a non-partisan attitude will be the people whom they loudly profess to stand for.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

Our polity has to mature and be bi-partisan on important issues and legislations. The BJP while in the opposition scuttled many important Bills and one could say that 2009-14 was the most ineffective period, with adjournments and pandemonium more often than constructive discussion in Parliament. Many Bills such as those pertaining to GST, insurance, FDI in retail and so on were not allowed to be passed by the Opposition, just for the heck of it. Now the BJP wants to get on with business. If the BJP is expecting the Opposition to be bi-partisan, it can, while tabling theBills give credit to the Congress.

Sridhar Narasimhan

Email

Similarly looted

I fully endorse the views expressed in the letter, ‘Blatant looting by banks’ (November 26). I too had a similar experience, with Citi Bank which insists on an average minimum deposit of ₹ one lakh in the SB account, failing which ₹500+service tax @ 12.5 per cent is automatically deducted every month from the account. I lodged a complaint with the ombudsman, but no action was taken against the bank. RBI rules clearly state that there is no requirement of minimum balance in savings bank accounts.

GK Ramaiah

Bengaluru

Voting can’t be forced

It is not fair to enforce compulsory voting. Like our constitutional right to religion includes the opposite, the right to vote includes the right to refrain from voting. When MPs and MLAs are allowed to abstain from voting in Parliament and the Assembly, why should we expect citizens to vote compulsorily. Our voter IDs have so many errors in name, address and gender, with names missing between one election and the next. When the government fails in its duties to provide basic necessities to those living in poverty, how can the government force its citizens to vote compulsorily?

MS Souindararajan

Coimbatore

Ferguson verdict

It was as clear as day that Darren Wilson, a white police officer, committed a capital offence when he killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in a roadside ‘confrontation’. Still the grand jury found “no probable cause to indict” the accused. The controversial ruling has reinforced the perception that a black person’s life is worth less than a white person’s.

The massive protests across the US is a tipping point that came about as a result of a number of similar incidents of racial discrimination and brutality. The treatment meted out to African-Americans by police officers clearly goes to establish that racism is very much institutionalised and ingrained in the American law enforcement and judicial systems. The flooding of streets by thousands must galvanise the US government into reforming the criminal justice system to ensure delivery of equal justice for all.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

Revisiting past sins

With reference to the editorial, ‘Break the cycle’ (November 26), reform Bills have long suffered in this nation not for want of economic prudence but for lack of political maturity. The proposals on GST or FDI in insurance were first mooted by the NDA only to hibernate under UPA-I. Saner thinking saw them being revived under UPA-II, now to be subverted by the very same BJP in sheer pusillanimity. This perhaps is the unsavoury side of leading democracies. The Republicans in the US Congress are doing much the same with Bills brought up by their president.

True, political bi-partisanship ebbed away after the Nehruvian era. The BJP expects others to rise beyond their political interests and get progressive legislations passed. The BJP now must seriously introspect and seek a genuine rapport with the Opposition and get the job done. Parties once inside Parliament owe no allegiance other than to fulfilling the duties for which they have been elected.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Eye-opener on employability

The article “Skilled workforce will be the key to Make in India” by Sachin Adhikari (November 26) was an eye-opener. The recent finding that 47 per cent of graduates are not employable is a sorry state of affairs, especially so when many students are from poor families and studying on educational loans. While Make in India is a highly innovative idea, we can see how wide the gap is between the workforce available and employability.

Perhaps our education system needs revamping, skill enhancement, training and monitoring by a nodal agency at periodic intervals to access the employability of the emerging workforce. It is well-known that only some graduates from technical universities are employable in the respective areas of their study. An example of this is the number of technically qualified engineers joining banks as clerks.

Mathew Abraham

Thiruvananthapuram

The response to open Jan Dhan Yojana accounts in public sector banks has been immense. The share of PSBs is near 100 per cent whereas that of private banks is only 3 per cent. This shows the callous attitude of private sector banks in implementing the development programmes of the government. Profits are the reason for this. Under these circumstances how far it is justified to curse PSBs for their poor performance in generating profits compared to private banks? Let the RBI keep this in mind and give licences to private banks only when they participate in development programmes.

TSN Rao

Coimbatore

The larger heart of Love

The unfortunate end of the 11-year-old Sneha Paul would pain anyone. The doctors deserve our gratitude for their earnest work. But human efforts fail beyond a certain limit.

The story of this girl has opened the eyes of the people to the possibility of rushing to the help of the needy to raise the resources, particularly money, to save life. Raising a huge sum of ₹75 lakh through ‘crowd-funding’ has now proved to be a remarkable success, though, at the end, there was sadness beyond words. This effort shows that ‘love survives’ even after life ends.

PV Sankaranarayan

E-mail

The Karma Theory

While addressing the third Dr. Verghese Kurien Lecture, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan rightly said that the flow of credit relies on the ‘sanctity’ of the debt contract. The sanctity is attached because the borrowers raise money “with the promise to repay the interest and principle”. No one can disagree with Rajan when he says “the sanctity of the debt contract has been continuously eroded in India in recent years”. This erosion would put brakes on credit expansion and may pose threat to the survival of public sector banks, which are liberal in providing credit facilities, whenever the business community faces economic slowdown or the global scenario impacts their business prospects.

The question of the Governor, “How many large promoters have lost their homes or have had to curb their lifestyles despite offering personal guarantees to lenders?”, should touch the conscience of our businessmen. Companies can ignore Corporate Social Responsibility, but they cannot lose the “sanctity” attached to the debt contract.

When the judiciary and Debt Recovery Tribunal are not able to proceed further and recover more than ₹30,590 crore, while the “outstanding value of debt sought to be recovered was ₹2,36,600”, the Karma Theory would catch up our business men, who think that it is their “divine right to stay in control”.

The money of the public is either written off for the sake of business continuity or waived off for political opportunities. Like wants and desires of men and women, which are endless, the thirst for corporates to have more and more credit is without any limit. Before conscience catches up with them, let the corporate show a little mercy and pay back the money of the people.

SA Srinivasa Sarma

Hyderabad