Priority matters

This refers to “Road to Governance 2.0” by Rana Kapoor (June 4). An effective unified governance structure, project management, meritocracy, financial strategy and e-governance are important components of governance, and the Government must pay full attention to them. These can check inflation, too. Equally if not more important, however, is poverty alleviation and distribution.

The Government cannot ignore the poor and the rural areas. Development essentially means raising the living standards of people through increased earnings and equity-based distribution of wealth and income and equity-based benefit-distribution.

Wealth creation must be accompanied by welfare measures. Whatever socio-economic expenditures the Government envisages must be distributed with least leakages and corruption. Employment creation should be accompanied by higher wages.

KU Mada

New Jersey

Farming development

“A great leap forward for agriculture” by Bhavarlal H Jain (June 6) is great news for farmers and the country. The finance minister too has struck a confident note on support for agriculture. However, we have heard such assurances before; and yet, the sector continues with no signs of improvement. Probably the problems of farmers have not been understood.

They don’t need freebies or subsidies. Just an assurance that anything produced will be bought at a predetermined price, irrespective of the market dynamics, and whatever could not be produced should be insured. Technology induction into the farm sector should be seen as compulsory. But technology will take time to reach the last farmer and we should have contingency plans to make farmers survive till such time.

S Veeraraghavan

Madurai

With the energy (oil) used to produce fertilisers and pesticides, and transportation of farm produce, we have transformed our agriculture from organic to a big polluting industry, which is also a big cause of the global warming. We need to switch to Green Agriculture to get back to our old ways and sustainable living.

CR Arun

Email

Share the credit

This is with reference to the editorial, “Green shoots?” (June 6). The green shoots are also attributed to a stable government. But I will be worried if it is entirely driven by sentiments rather than fundamentals. One should accept and appreciate the fact that the economy started stabilising following a slew of measures taken by the earlier government — such as controlling CAD, stabilising the rupee, and improving supply side to address inflation. Please give the UPA credit where it is due.

Sridhar Narasimhan

Email

Green shoots are the outcome of the positive attitude of sellers, buyers and investors born out of confidence in the new government which could totally remove the policy paralysis and flip flop of the earlier government. Now the sky is clear and there is no coalition threat and subsequent endeavour to patch the gaps. Doing away with the concept of Group of Ministers has cleared major blocks. Not depending on a coalition makes a big difference.

NR Nagarajan

Sivakasi

The postman knocks

As “India Post as banking platform” by Charan Singh rightly concludes (June 6), the post office has touched the life of every Indian, irrespective of age, caste or place. It can be a banking partner for us. Today, more than 50 per cent of Indian adults do not have a bank account and banking as a whole is an ever-growing industry.

It has never seen a decline in business volumes. The department of post and telecommunications appears to be precisely qualified to meet the objectives of the licensing policy of the RBI, as P&T has the necessary infrastructure and network to penetrate the rural sector. Hope the new government leverages India Post for banking operations fruitfully, without further loss of time and reaches the heart, hand and mind of the Indian populace.

RS Raghavan

Bangalore

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