While we need to be concerned, we must not be overly perturbed over the rupee’s decline vis-a-vis the dollar, that are purely decided by market forces.

Clearly we have not been adding a steady value to our currency, to earn higher rate. We do not manufacture goods in a scale and quality that is sought by nations and markets. What matters is how our currency moves up or down over long spans. A steady falling trend reflects sub optimum productivity and high inflation hastens value attrition. We are still building the economy at the base level, and growth must be achieved through higher production.

Innovation through quality research gives enormous leverage to a nation’s economy and export potential. Bringing stature to the rupee is a journey of faith and toil.

R Narayanan

Navi Mumbai

Perennial problem 

This refers to the article “Why is the gender gap widening in India?” (July 18). It is a paradox that India ranks 135 out of 146 nations in terms of gender disparity mainly because of lack of women’s empowerment despite having had a woman Prime Minister in the past (US is yet to elect one).

This is also despite women being empowered by law to head local bodies. So gender equality exists only on paper as is evident from news reports of women sarpanchs in rural areas being just proxies for their husbands and other male relations.

Also, it is very difficult for a large, democratic Asian nation to figure in the top 10 — all the five top countries in the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranking are small in size and population.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Think of the common folk 

This refers to the news report ‘Single package of cereals, pulses, flour etc. weighing more than 25 kg not to attract GST’ (July 18).The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Custom (CBIC) having clarified that a single packet of cereals, pulses, rice, flour etc.weighing more than 25 kg or 25 litres would not fall in the category of pre-packaged and labelled commodity for the purposes of GST and would therefore not attract the same, makes little sense. In fact, the actual position should have been the other way round.

One just fails to see any rationale behind repeatedly punishing the tax-paying retail consumers while suitably exempting the big guns from the levy of the GST. Strange are the ways of the working of the nation’s “revenue-centric” GST Council which never ever fails to safeguard the financial interests of both the Centre and the States but usually gets bogged down by various administrative or procedural “hiccups”. It rarely comes to the rescue of the common folk.

SK Gupta

New Delhi

Welcome reverse migration

This refers to the report ‘Mid-size IT firms forced to move where talent is - small towns’ (July 18). Perhaps this is one of the positive side effects of the recent pandemic which sowed chaos across the world. The urban migration and the craze for “going abroad” had reached alarming levels in India.

Now we find young executives creating opportunities to work from home and in rare cases where employers make their life uncomfortable, getting self-employed in places of their choice.

Last two years, there is an attitudinal change in the NewGen workforce, factoring in variables other than remuneration package in their work-life balance sheet. This is definitely a positive impact of the pandemic.

MG Warrier

Mumbai

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