Seeds of protection

This refers to the editorial ‘Weather proofing’ (March 20). As you have rightly pointed out, there are many gaps in the formula adopted for claims under crop insurance.

Insurance settlement is inadequate and delayed, while the demand for government grant gains momentum, leading to complacency on the part of farmers even to salvage damaged crops. While grants may partly compensate the losses of farmers, there is no solution to price rise of the inputs.

The recent mishaps owing to un-seasonal rain and wind is not a one-time damage and the uncertainties of climatic changes and the vagaries of the monsoon are likely to be a frequent affair.

The government should consider floating an exclusive crop insurance company to take care of the agricultural sector and such an agency should also provide advisory services to farmers on facing such eventualities and salvaging damaged crops.

M Raghuraman

Chembur, Mumbai

The government should use satellites to insure farming. It can combine cellphones and satellites to deliver insurance coverage to farmers. Africa is leading the way in this direction. Let us use mobile phones to track and replenish seeds and fertiliser when farmers met with disasters. You can find the evidence when you use satellites to map farmland. Farming in the most risky business you can engage in. We must use technology to help farmers.

CR Arun

E-mail

De-link it

The proposed amendments to the RBI Act, 1934, as announced in the Budget would have missed proper attention by the common public, as there are enough catches for engaging their attention in a positive way in the budget 2015. In fact, the Budget is meant to be an exercise to deal with the anticipated revenue and capital receipts and payments of the government, and arriving at the deficit or surplus.

The RBI Act amendment is deemed to be not an issue to be dealt in the Budget. Then why the same has found a place in the Budget? The finance ministry thought this as an appropriate platform as it knew that the so-called objective for which the RBI is set up is going to be affected or restricted.

The 2015 budget happened to be the platform for the proposed implementation of the FSLRC provisions curtailing the RBI’s role, although RBI Governor who has been hailed as the best Economist even by IMF, had objected to implementation of FSLRC undermining RBI’s role, in many forums earlier. It would appear as if his voice has been silenced by the Finance Ministry which would lead to further strained relations between the RBI and government.

On the one side RBI has been asked to honour the inflation targets while its hands are tied with no freedom to use the monetary policy instruments at its will. It has been deliberately forgotten that management of government debt, is also a part of the RBI’s tools for monetary management.

Rugmani Vinod

Thiruvananthapuram

Backward worries

If the verdict of the Apex Court striking down the inclusion of Jats in the central list of OBCs is a master stroke, Justice Gogai who wrote the judgment deserves additional accolades for directing the government to consider some other really backward sections such as the transgenders for inclusion in the list of OBCs.

Further, complete reassessment of and review of the list of present MBCs is very much necessary considering the fact that while a few of the communities in the list deserve to be shifted to the SC category to enable them to get more benefits in view of their real backwardness, and utter poverty, many other communities have to be removed from the list as they are more forward now than many in the forward list who are languishing in penury beyond comprehension.

Tharcius S Fernando

Chennai

Clarification

b In response to the report “NSE benchmark: Nifty may give way to Quality 30” (March 20), NSE has clarified that as of now there is no plan to replace the Nifty. The report was based on the reporter’s conversation with an NSE spokesperson on record.

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