Long work hours

If every employed person in this country were to follow Narayana Murthy’s prescription of a 70-hour work week, society will have to pay a catastrophic price for it. It will create a generation with mental and physical problems, ballooning the per capita healthcare costs in the process. Familial ties will suffer, leading to more crimes — inflating law and order problems and costs. Not to mention soaring attrition and workplace conflicts.

For a Murthy or a Musk, long work hours may seem plausible or even desirable, but to impose it on the wider employee population will be calamitous. Employers have the responsibility to design their jobs in such a manner that enough leisure time exists for their employees to take care of themselves and their families.

Rohit MJ

Kottayam, Kerala

Farming techniques

Apropos ‘No doomsday scenario’ (October 31), the monsoon is playing havoc with farm output. The South-West monsoon this year was not uniform across States. A few regions had excess rainfall leading to flood and few others have had near normal rainfall, impacting the agricultural out in the process. The report that the standing crops in parts of Eastern UP and Bihar are unfit for human consumption and are to be used only as fodder gives rise to fears of impending shortage of grains and pulses.

The Centre needs to give more emphasis on encouraging farmers to adopt latest techniques in irrigation and in diversifying the cropping pattern.

RV Baskaran

Chennai

Climate resilience

This refers to ‘Climate change is knocking on the door, invest in irrigation, says economist Gulati’ (October 31). One tends to endorse the economist’s view that the government has to develop a climate resilient system that is able to withstand both droughts as well as floods. He has also rightly emphasised on the need to invest in educating farmers on the sustainable use of water.

SK Gupta

New Delhi

Rupee settlement

This refers to ‘Third party trade can push Re settlement system’ (October 31). The RBI rolling out International Trade Settlement in rupee by opening special rupee based Vostro accounts for making payment to exporting countries accepting rupee payment is well-timed. This move not only reduces the need for dollar settlement but also lessens currency exchange rate risk. But when there is huge rupee balance in Vostro accounts, exporting countries find it difficult to utilise the rupee reserve.

At this juncture, permitting the exporting country to import from India on behalf of a third party country and settle through its Vostro balance will be a pragmatic move to use the mounting rupee reserves in Vostro accounts and attract more countries to this win-win mechanism.

NR Nagarajan

Sivakasi, TN

Green credits

The Green Credit Programme (October 31) provides actionable options spread across sectors such as planting trees, preventing water pollution, practising sustainable agriculture, managing solid/industrial waste, and reducing air pollution, carrying out mangrove conservation and manufacturing products with an eco-mark label. Unless these gain traction as a community movement, getting the desired result would be difficult.

AG Rajmohan

Anantapur, AP

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