GDP ranking

This refers to the report ‘India scores over France in GDP’ (July 12). This is yet another case of selective comparison which is used by various national and international agencies to serve their constituency interests. Ranking countries using GDP as a parameter is like ranking high net-worth individuals (HNIs) based on their bank balances alone ignoring their borrowings and lifestyle. In the instant case, to know the position of countries in overall economic development, appropriate weightages need to be given for population, GDP, external debt, and savings rate. As countries with lower levels of GDP migrate to ‘developed nations’ status, countries with higher levels of external debt will be under pressure and costs of servicing external debts will be on the rise.

MG Warrier

Mumbai

It is a good augury that India has emerged as the world’s sixth largest economy in 2017 by surpassing France and is likely to outstrip the UK, which is placed in the fifth position, according to the analysis of data provided by the World Bank. As usual, the US is the world’s largest economy with a size of $19.39 trillion followed by China, Japan and Germany. However, in terms of per capita, India is much poorer than the nine other largest economies. There is a need to improve the per capita income which is abysmally low at $1,940, twenty times lower than France’s $38,477.

HP Murali

Bengaluru

Solving Delhi’s mess

This refers to ‘Setting a template to solve the urban mess’ (July 12). If almost 300 public representatives in the form of MLAs, MPs and Councillors cannot solve issues pertaining to the national capital, then no one else can. Right from the partition days, Delhi has been a city of migrants and it will remain so in future as well, because people from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and other States come to earn their livelihood here and settle. So load on Delhi's infrastructure will never reduce. What kind of pampered child Delhi is considered when well-carpeted roads cannot withstand even one season of monsoon. It is not money but lack of willingness to provide good governance which is hurting Delhi. And, sadly, since four years it has been a continuous fight and protest on some pretext or the other between AAP and BJP. And it is the people who have suffered the most. So both ruling party at the Centre and the State must work jointly for the betterment of Delhi.

Bal Govind

Noida

Look within too

With reference to ‘It’s sheer jumla : Congress’ (July 12), there seems to be no real justification when the Congress party terms the Centre’s announcement of enhanced MSP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s farmers’ rally in Punjab as just jumlas (fake promises). It perceives them as BJP’s ploy to shift attention from the extant agrarian crisis. Significantly, it’s spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi also went ahead to sarcastically remark that the Modi's Malout rally was an ‘epic flop’. By the way, what could be the Congress party’s locus standi in so critically evaluating the BJP’s well timed farmer-centric rally? This gains more significance as the nation’s hapless farming community has all along been taken for a ride during the entire period when the Congress party was in power at the Centre. In any case, let us always remember that “those living in glass houses, should not throw stones at others.”

SK Gupta

New Delhi

Save Taj Mahal

It is not surprising that the Green Bench of the Supreme Court has come down heavily on the government for the pathetic state of Taj Mahal, the eighth wonder of the world. It is unfortunate that the authority in charge of the Taj Trapezium Zone is still entertaining applications from industrialists to expand their factories into the protected zone despite a long-standing moratorium from the Supreme Court. With garbage strewn all over and the pollutants having discoloured the pristine white of the iconic mausoleum in Agra, one really wonders why the ruling BJP at the Centre has failed to protect the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Fiona Waltair

Chennai

comment COMMENT NOW