Much to learn

The editorial, “Unmake in India” (October 10), is a meaningful analysis of why we rank 134 out of 189 nations in ease of doing business . Granted that Nokia should have been penalised for defaulting on taxes, but the action of the IT department was more punitive than helpful in recovering the money. The slow process of fault discovery, investigation and judicial action inflated the dues ten times. Apart from doing a cost-benefit analysis, the Government should have considered the opportunity cost of loss of jobs for 1000 employees with 7,000 already gone, and continuing loss of revenue by freezing the assets of the company.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Courageous decisions called for

“A clean-up for Make in India” by Pradeep S Mehta (October10) is a persuasive article. We need to focus on swift decisions and clearance of projects and ventures for augmenting entrepreneurship and business. For this , a paradigm shift in the thinking of policymakers and planners is essential. Peter F Drucker once said: “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

CG Kuriakose

Kothamangalam, Kerala

The writer is right when he says we need to reform our civil services and systems if we must move ahead in this era of global competition and supply chain management. The problem is 300 years old. Our schools were created by the ‘empire’ around 300 years ago and education involved reading, mathematics and good handwriting (because all documents were handwritten). We were basically parts of a machine used to run the empire. The machine — the bureaucracy — is still around.

Now computers have taken over. We should use cloud to create the next generation of schools; we should just allow kids from all over to exchange ideas with each other to learn. We need to just encourage them and we will see a world of difference in learning potential being unleashed. Just give computers to kids and without a trainer look how they learn to play games and surf the net.

CR Arun

Email

Suitable retaliation

The shameful act of Pakistan starting unprovoked firing across the LOC and international border is despicable and condemnable. The ferocity of the aggression was beyond comprehension and we are lucky to have Narendra Modi as our Prime Minister. It is probably the first time a Prime Minister has taken the issue head on and sent a stern message to the aggressor. This relates to national security and we should support the courageous action taken. Instead, the Opposition and particularly the Congress Party converts every issue into an anti-Modi issue and goes political. If the Congress continues like this, it will become irrelevant to the political system.

K Dwarakanath

Bangalore

NTT order

It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court quashed sections of the National Tax Tribunal as unconstitutional and is paving the way for deciding the other tribunals constituted for other specialised legal areas. In fact, the tribunals have been constituted to speed up the legal process.

The Supreme Court injunction is a major setback to the Government’s efforts to make the laws transparent and dispose of cases speedily. The decision may impact other tribunals.

D Sureshbabu

Hyderabad

Bankers’ blues

At a recent election rally, Modi is reported to have praised bankers for responding to his Jan Dhan Yojana call and opened more than the expected number of accounts. Yet, he is not taking any steps to finalise the matter of bank employees’ salary revision pending since November 1, 2012. This is affecting the morale of over 10 lakh employees of PSU and old private sector banks. Another issue he has ignored is appointing heads for about 5-6 PSU banks. One reason could have been that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been unwell, but now that he is back onduty, may we expect fast-tracking of decisions on these two vital issues?

KR Nayak

Mangalore

Take them to task

Call me a war-monger but I must say that an observer of Pakistan’s words and actions will be convinced that peace with the country is just wishful thinking. India seems to have learned no lessons from the Saurab Kalia incident or 26/11 Mumbai terror attack or even from the Kargil war. Pakistan can do anything to Indian soldiers or citizens and can go scot-free and we will continue to hold talks with Pakistanis, even with Hafiz Saeed. We should sever all diplomatic ties with Pakistan. The present firing at the border is intended to please the rising star of Pak politics, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who recently said that his party would get the whole of Kashmir from India. This is also intended to announce the advent of new Pak ISI chief.

S Raghunatha Prabhu

Alappuzha, Kerala

All in one

This is with reference to “A fresh approach to financial inclusion” by Rana Kapoor (October 10). One way towards financial inclusion and also pass on other benefits/services to the rural population would be to have a one-stop centre which would house a bank, an ATM, a post office, an office to register births and deaths, transfer direct benefits, etc. This would help in addressing the infrastructure bottleneck. The panchayat office can be converted to the one-stop centre.

Sridhar Narasimhan

E-mail

Fix it first

The investment climate in the industries in India is getting better thanks to the new government’s policies. It is a welcome change from the days of policy paralysis. That said, we should note that every government conducts a Global Investors Meet for fresh investments, but nothing much comes out of such events. The authorities ignore the fact that so many industries have been shut down due to various reasons. The government has to make the atmosphere very congenial for the revival of these industries and announce various tax concessions for the takeover of the existing stressed and closed companies.

P Kailasanathan

Bangalore

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