LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Let’s remain secular

India is a secular country. There are a lot of holy scriptures with all the philosophical and spiritual content to put individuals and society on the correct track. The Bhagwad Gita , which emphasises the significance of karma yoga (which, in essence, means ‘Let us do our duty truthfully, but not expect any reward for the same’) cannot be a national book. Also, one must not be oblivious to the fact that Lord Krishna (who has not said ‘God’ anywhere in the Gita ) created a war to teach people the principles of karma yoga.

S Ramakrishnasayee

Ranipet, Tamil Nadu

Manage crude prices

This refers to your editorial, ‘Have we got our mojo back?’ (December 8). As rightly said, the fall oil prices is a major reason for the present positive outlook. But this is on account of increase in production by the US and increase in supply by Saudi Arabia; both these are strategic initiatives to put down Moscow by reducing Russia’s realisation from crude exports. This may change any time. It is better if any further fall in crude prices is not passed on to consumers. Government may create a separate fund and transfer the amount realised on account of fall in crude prices in future. This will put the consumption under check and also help to meet any spike in prices in future.

Another area of concern is the huge NPAs of banks which reduce their ability for further credit take-off. Tough measures are required to reverse this trend.

S Kalyanasundaram

Email

Re-engineering planning

The Prime Minister took the right step consulting the chief ministers before reshaping the Planning Commission. That most of them recognised the need for the same should make the process as painless as possible.

An organisational design aimed at greater involvement by the States could be derived by adapting the ILO model. The apex body could consist of the Prime Minister, some central ministers, all chief ministers and domain experts to delineate policy, plan targets, allocate resources and resolve inter-State and Centre-State issues.

At the second tier a smaller body comprising the PM and a few CMs could provide supervision in implementation. Each State could have a cabinet minister in charge of planning, execution and evaluation as a full-time responsibility. States could be given autonomy to tweak the targets and re-allocate the resources within given limits.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Beware, investors

This is for those still invested in ULIPs — the money-making machine mis-sold by insurance companies in 2006-2008. Quite a few of the ULIPs had a condition by the name of ‘Persistency Units’ whereby the maturity holder was bound to get bonus units. Now as the maturity time abounds (in most cases people took the policy for 10 years), the sales team of insurance companies have started calling holders and unethically advising them to switch to some other scheme. This is to save the insurance company from allocating bonus ‘Persistency Units’.

Aakash Goel

Email

No choice

As a bank employee working in a PSB, I am pained by the diatribe against bank employees. We appreciate and understand the trouble caused to the public due to the bank strike. However the continuing indifference of the government and the IBA to the demands of bank employees has forced employees to resort to the extreme action. The rigid stand of the IBA is the primary reason behind the relay zonal strike. The wage revision due since 2012 is yet to be settled despite 14 rounds of talks between the bank unions and the IBA.

It is perplexing that the Finance Minister has not spoken a word on the burning issue even though the UFBU, an umbrella organisation for bank employees, took up the matter with him. The attempt to cite rising bad loans as a ruse to deny wage revision is nothing but a disgraceful move to protect corporate defaulters. Jobs in PSBs can no longer be considered white-collar given the huge workload and poor pay package compared to the central government and other PSUs.

J Anantha Padmanabhan

Srirangam, Tamil Nadu

Foolish idea

The recent proposal by the government to remove kerosene from the PDS list and pass on the subsidy amount to the beneficiary may turn out to be penny wise and pound foolish. The cost of alternative sources of power and cooking gas renders the solution ineffective. The rationale of cash transfer, based on a popular perception of ‘public savings’, does not work because the source of funds is inflow from taxes. This defeats the entire purpose of usage of money in development at the macro level.

Vikram Sundaramurthy

Chennai

Preserve tolerance

Sushma Swaraj’s call to make the Bhagavad Gita the national scripture is not just contestable, it’s downright combustible. It comes on the heels of the controversy sparked by the “ haramzadon ” remark and goes to establish that there is a method in Narendra Modi’s cabinet colleagues’ madness. It has to be seen as part of the BJP’s larger game plan for the revival of Hindu culture and tradition to the exclusion of other faiths.

And what do we make of the Haryana chief minister’s tongue-in-cheek remark that the Gita is above the Constitution. To elevate the Gita — a part of one of the ancient Hindu epics — as the sole ‘national scripture’ in a multi-religious country is to relegate the other holy books and mete out step-motherly treatment to religious minorities. Manipulating the levers of power to promote one religious text at the cost of other sacred texts is totally unacceptable in a secular democracy. The gentler strain of Hinduism that celebrates the multiplicity of the divine and the plurality of forms of worship is now under threat from demagogues wielding the reins of power. The synonymy of Hinduism with tolerance must be preserved in this age of bigotry.

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

Recently one TV channel was banned for a few days as it contained vulgar dialogues. Though a ban on the media is not desirable, if things go over the limit, then that’s the only solution in the public interest. Self-censorship in films has failed completely; even the Censor Board has failed to perform its duty to check vulgarity. Bollywood and the TV fraternity comprise responsible citizens — they must promote morality, decency, honesty, cultural values, social values and so on. Therefore, our actors must refuse to utter cheap and vulgar dialogues.

M Kumar

New Delhi

Reform the administration

This refers to your edit, ‘Have we got our mojo back?’ (December 8). We have got a global cycle in our favour. But this should be complemented by readiness in our administrative capabilities to absorb this positive feedback loop. We should, for instance, buy and stock more crude oil when it is available cheap. Having a patrol boat with no inventory of spare parts will affect our coastal security. We need to reform our administration first and not let these people loot ₹ 900 crore as just happened in Uttar Pradesh.

High growth doesn't just happen. We should have the administrative capabilities to make it happen. We are not hearing anything in this important issue, other than self-certification by factories themselves. Businesses don’t eat food and they don’t need fresh air. They exist only to make a profit. So how can we make sure that we don’t get affected by their acts. We need to penalise those who violate our laws and make sure we have good living conditions in this country. For our rights to be protected we need a good administration, for this we need to implement administrative reforms.

CR Arun

Email

Welcome change

The idea of constituting a planning body under the Prime Minister with chief ministers as members on rotation basis, technocrats, financial experts and so on, is a welcome one. This eliminates the grouse States have had that they were at the mercy of a central body which often did not understand the ground reality in the respective States.

It seems a majority of the States are agreeable to this newly proposal which definitely gives them more say. Change should always be encouraged.

VS Ganeshan

Bengaluru

The reported move to restructure the Planning Commission is a realistic step in tune with the changing times. If the Congress-ruled States are clamouring against it is solely because the Planning Commission was born out of a Nehruvian concept. If the new-look plan panel envisages a role for the corporate and private sectors and will also pave way for cooperative federalism, why oppose it ?

It is pertinent to note that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also favoured a restructuring of the Planning Commission but lacked the political backing for it. Change is essential for progress. The pragmatic stand of rulers should always be a bipartisan approach for the growth and development of the country.

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

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