It refers to “Agriculture ravaged by liquidity crunch” ( November 23). There is no doubt that the negative effects of cash demonetisation were mostly felt by the farmers who were ready to start sowing rabi crop. The government has allowed farmers to procure seeds for the rabi crop using old currency and the withdrawal limit has been increased to ₹ 25000, but still a lot needs to be done. The Government should speed up the process of setting a bank branch in villages with more than 5,000 population. Every household in a village should have a bank account.

Bal Govind

Noida

This refers to ‘21 lakh tea, jute workers set to join banking system’ (November 23). Demonetisation has been welcomed by 87 per cent according to various agencies; this indicates people of our country have appreciated the bold step of the Prime Minister. However, a minuscule percentage are making a mountain out of the molehill for extraneous reasons. With the jute and tea industries introducing its workforce to the banking system, instances of non-payment are ruled out.

HP Murali

Bengaluru

Small change

This refers to Vinson Kurian’s report ‘Local service providers, shopkeepers go for the ‘swipe’ to keep the business running’ (November 23). The solution for the post-demonetisation problems will lie in: ensuring adequate availability of ₹100 and below currency notes across the country; planning the changes in collection of used notes; and rationalising deployment of ATMs in cities and towns to make more of them available in suburban and rural areas.

A cashless economy is not that near. But ‘household’ stock of high value notes can be bought down drastically, while the need to ensure adequate supply of lower denomination currency should not be underplayed.

Coins and notes with religious bodies and organisations like transport corporations should be flushed out into the mainstream by appropriate “disincentives”.

MG Warrier

Mumbai

Globalisation revisited

Apropos ‘Why globalisation, as we know it, is dead?’, (November 23) the success of globalisation is founded on the belief that the whole world is a single entity in which people work in manner that benefits all the participants in the activity irrespective of the country to which they belong. Initially, undeveloped and developing countries like India took advantage of this and enhanced their economic value while meeting the needs of the developed nations.

However, when the balance of benefit tilts in favour of one country at the cost of the other (as in US where immigrants prospered and the US citizens lost their jobs) a conflict of interest emerges, threatening globalisation. Yet, in the long run rejection of this concept is self-defeating because no country in the 21st century is self-sufficient in all respects.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Political dividend

All the by-election results in four Lok Sabha and nine assembly seats across six States and one Union Territory indicate clearly that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation policy has been endorsed by the smart, sensible, patriotic voters. The anti-demonetisation rallies and disruption in the Parliament over the past seven days by Congress, SP, BSP, AAP, RJD have not worked.

Hansraj Bhat

Email

Musician extraordinaire

M Balamuralikrishna was a musical genius. He has popularised Carnatic music so that it is no more alien to the hoi polloi . His Oru Naal Podhuma was a lyrical melody universally enjoyed for its evocative tunes. There was no musical instrument which he could not play to perfection.

G David Milton

Kanyakumari

Erratum

In the obituary of M Balamuralikrishna published on November 23 (‘The musician who loved motor cars’), the sentence that begins “For seven centuries, this...” should read “For seven decades, this...” The error is regretted.

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