Trust the RBI

This refers to “Devious agenda to erode RBI’s autonomy” by S S Tarapore (July 14). The RBI should be independent with a clear mandate of protecting the currency. Price stability is the main responsibility of the central bank. It should be given a free hand in targeting inflation, and that target should be the CPI, as the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan believes. The Government cannot instruct the RBI to cut rates when the CPI inflation goes out of the RBI’s comfort zone.

We can find a lot of ways to suck out all the NPAs and free up capital in the banking system. All these problems can be solved if we trust the RBI to find solutions to our current problems.

CR Arun

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Delhi’s dilemma

No one will grudge the efforts to beautify the residences of the ministers and senior civil servants of New Delhi. But some elementary facilities should be given to the myriad colonies of the city where people live without even basic civic amenities (“Lutyens Delhi to get a face lift”, July 11).

Coincidentally, a Mumbai newspaper reports about how, even after 16 years, two Delhi super-speciality hospitals are still not ready to take patients. No wonder, The Telegraph , London, writing on Delhi’s state-of-the-art hospitals, pointed out that beneath the city’s slick flyovers, women of Delhi gave birth to babies without any medical attention. So much for price political accountability and official responsibility.

S Subramanyan

Navi Mumbai

Push for quality education

The edition of Portfolio (July 14) has done a good job in discussing the various aspects of the Budget, with focus on market responses. The deficit in skill-sets in education at the present juncture, especially in professional courses, is a matter of concern. The educational institutions should form a panel of experts, who should constantly interact with companies and identify courses that need to be incorporated into the syllabus. Also, the students should be attached to major units for acquainting themselves with the practical skills that need to acquire.

TR Anandan

Coimbatore

Taxing issues

The Finance Minister gave a commitment in his Budget speech that the Government would provide a stable and predictable taxation regime and avoid retrospective taxation. Strangely, in the same Budget, Arun Jaitley altered the basis of taxation on the investments already made in Fixed Maturity Plans for one to three years, increasing the tax burden three-fold. This will hit the credibility of the Government. I urge him to make the new provision effective on investments made after July 10 or from Assessment Year 2016-17.

KK Sharma

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Roadmap for BRICS

This refers to “Modi heads to Brazil for first multilateral engagement” (July 14). On his way to Fortaleza, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has aired the issues to be discussed at the BRICS summit. But it is to be noted that five (BRICS) summits have taken place in the past but nothing conclusive has come out of them so far, except meeting at the WTO and discussing crucial issues like cap on farm subsidies. Now, the time has come for the BRICS leaders to come up with a workable plan for inclusive growth and sustainable development along with maintaining regional and global peace. There are still some unresolved issues among some of the BRICS’ members (mainly between India and China). A roadmap for fixing these issues must be drawn first.

S Lakshminarayanan

Cuddalore

Bringing in investments

This is with reference to “Budget sets out roadmap for investor-friendly climate” by Suneeta Reddy (July 14). Of course, the Budget has set the tone for fiscal prudence and consolidation. Other issues such as controlling inflation, creating REITs, providing impetus to manufacturing sector, hiking the FDI cap on insurance and augmenting health insurance facilities have been stressed upon. The path is now clear for foreign and domestic investments.

NR Nagarajan

Chennai

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