In connection with the news item “Facebook keen on e-governance services” (July 3), Facebook’s respect for user privacy has always been suspect, the latest being the controversial experiment they conducted in 2012 involving manipulation of feeds without the explicit permission of the users concerned.

In fact, the UK government is currently examining whether the law was violated during the course of Facebook’s experiment. So it would be unwise on the part of the Indian government to allow sensitive e-governance data to be managed by a foreign organisation.

Aravind Narasipur

Chennai

Thought-provoking

The article “Public sector banks face identity crises” by S Adikesavan (July 3) is thought-provoking and well articulated. There is an urgent need to form a separate banking structure for the purpose of financial inclusion, small business and trade, large industries and so on. The woes of PSBs can be traced to the unbridled and unwieldy growth engineered just to get business volume and losing focus on capability and skill sets of bank employees.

Adding fuel to the fire was the imprudent decision to do away with development financial institutions such as ICICI, IDBI, IFCI, paving way for banks to take the unknown route of lending for huge projects without adequately qualified loan appraisers. Manipulation through financial re-engineering to camouflage ground realities in the form of debt restructuring would not be in the interest of lending institutions.

RS Raghavan

Bangalore

Education’s the way

The article “Orphaned by our education system” by Megan Reed (July 2), points out the serious fault lines in our education system and the inefficiency of measures to eradicate poverty. Poverty and education are interlinked with each other. A large chunk of poor people cannot achieve their full potential because of poverty.

Most of the poor people are in a state of education-based poverty trap. If everyone gets a formal education they can be employed in jobs that need higher skill sets. As a result there will be a dramatic increase in their earning capacity. Poverty can be eradicated gradually.

Thamattoor Harikrishnan

Thrissur, Kerala

Tax filing terrorism

Nobody addresses problems faced by pensioners with taxes. Most pensioners own single houses and are not likely to have capital gains. Where is the need for the ITR2 which is very complex even to download? Income tax filing should be easy. Pensioners over 70 years should be free of this ordeal.

S Prabhakar Gupta

Hyderabad

Old is not gold

Inflation has been one of the main killers of our economy. While it has resulted in increase in prices of all goods and services on which taxes are being collected, it has depleted the value of money in the hands of the common man. The revenues of the Government increases automatically. Farmers are being doled out loan waivers while being provided subsided inputs and exempted from any income tax; so too the industries. Then there is the food subsidy for 80 per cent of the population.

Taxpayers’ money is being used for dubious purposes like the erection of statues and memorials and so on. What about senior citizens who form 10 per cent of the population and have no pension and benefits of employment? If loans of farmers and industrialists can be waived, why not that of senior citizens? At least the tax exemption limit for them should be raised to a minimum of ₹5 lakh and the subsequent slab could be at 5 per cent. The government neither provides any social security nor protection against inflation.

S Narayan

Mumbai

No tears

It is the right move to bring onion and potato under the Essential Commodities Act. Now it is for state governments to invoke the provisions of the Act and take swift action against hording. One also expects the Reserve Bank of India to bring back selective credit controls to restrict advances against these commodities by prescribing higher margins and interest rates. This will supplement the efforts of the Government.

S Kalyanasundaram

Email

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