This refers to the article ‘Climate start-ups can weather funding winter’ (July 29), the need for investment and the immense opportunities for venture capital and corporate investors from high polluting industries in climate tech start-ups is timely and thought provoking.

De-risking the returns and exit related issues from start-up investments, besides long gestation periods for scaling up these entities which are currently haunting the investment community in this segment are issues that need to be taken care of to create healthy investment eco-system.

Considering the initial capital expenditure involved — from the tech product developing stage to the fully commercial operational stage, these start-ups need nurturing and support by equity investors.

Evolution of policy guidelines facilitating banks to extend collateral free loans to these asset lite models and sops to equity investors venturing investments in this is segment are the need of hour.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Brace for further repo rate hike

Apropos ‘After Fed rate hike, RBI may follow suit, say economists’ ( July 29), such a move seems imminent, if one goes by our past experiences.

It's a different matter that there may be 'divergent' views about the quantum (30-50 bps) of the hike in repo rate to be announced by the RBI’s MPC in its August 5 meeting even as it remain focused on controlling inflation.

It also goes without saying that any additional hike therein may further aggravate the situation pertaining to the extant cost based 'demand-supply mismatch' of funds that may be so essential for keep the 'growth wheel' of the economy moving.

The IMF’s latest forecast of India’s GDP growth of 7.4 per cent is sharply lower than its previous estimate of 8.2 per cent for FY22-23, but marginally higher than the RBI’s estimate of 7.2 per cent.

But more worryingly, the IMF has also projected the Indian economy to grow by 6.1 per cent in FY23-24.

Kumar Gupt

Panchkula (Haryana)

Affectionate leader

This refers to the article ‘Solving the ‘people’ puzzle, the JRD Tata way’ by Adrian Terron (July 29).

A valid and reliable test of a great leader is the number of talented people he discovered and developed and the type of successor/s he created.

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata was one such leader. He entered several new businesses, many of them unconventional and diverse like airlines, hotels, automobiles, tea, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, financial services, etc. He chose the people to head them in a meticulous manner and gave them required autonomy to excel.

He developed stalwarts such as Sir Homi Mody, Sir Ardeshir Dalal, Sir Jehangir Ghandy, Dr. Freddie Mehta, Russi Mody, Sumant Moolgaokar, Xerxes Desai, RK Krishna Kumar and Darbari Seth.

Some eyebrows were raised when he selected Ratan Tata as his successor.

But the latter expanded the Tata empire far beyond what he inherited.

The greatness of a leader is the product of his leadership style, JRD was an “affectionate” leader truly. Like Mahatma Gandhi was in politics.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Mining lithium

This refers to the news report ‘India may open up lithium mining in batteries quest’ (July 29).

It is heartening to note exploration agencies’ discovery of lithium deposit resources in Karnataka and also the Centre’s plan to remove these items from the restricted list and allow private miners to extract lithium which is the key component for EV batteries.

Deployment of huge volumes of battery storage is vital for achieving target of 500 GW of clean energy by 2030.

Huge imports of lithium will further widen the current account deficit and impact the rupee’s value.

RV Baskaran

Chennai

comment COMMENT NOW