Cautionary tale

The editorial, ‘Finding takers’ (June 10) is a warning to banks who may take advantage of the RBI’s guidelines on SDR. Utmost care has to be taken after conversion of debt into equity. In addition to the overburdened staff and the priority given to special schemes, it is doubtful if banks will be able to utilise this opportunity properly. Already the restructured loan portfolio has been looming large and is likely to deteriorate further. Hence the regulator has to ensure that such leeway is not misused this time around.

TSN Rao

Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh

El Nino scorcher

The El Nino scorcher is at India’s doorstep. India, Indonesia and the Philippines will be the most affected. Given that the prediction was made long ago, South Block had enough time to put in place a contingency plan in view of the impending drought, but it chose not to. While the grain bowl in north and northwest India have irrigational facilities, much of eastern India, at the bottom of Indo Gangetic plain, have, by and large no irrigational facilities. ICAR and the agriculture ministry must wake up to meet the emergent crisis. Ominous signs are here.

The leading private flour mill operator of Kerala has just imported 32,000 tonnes of prime Australian wheat, landed cost being ₹19,000 a tonne, duty included, while the Punjab government is clamouring for ₹19,500. The usual sources are UP and MP where the wheat crop has been ruined by summer rains. Import will be the only alternative, and that will be political suicide for Modi and co.

The extension agencies must be alerted to put in place the system of rice intensification for kharif rice, and a massive vegetable production programme. Now that the Kisan TV has been inaugurated, put it to maximum use to reach out to Indian farmers.

KP Prabhakaran Nair

Email

Poor show

This is with reference to ‘Barometer of the economy? Really!’ by Aarati Krishnan (June 10). It reflects poorly on an economy with strong o going fundamentals that waits with trepidation for any change and within days , chases every other stock to new highs or pulls down to new lows! That swings will be wilder on say an Israeli- Palestinian flare-up or dramatic QE taper in the US is understandable, but to be inexplicably swayed by endemic factors must ride on undue hope or greed.

That said, weak fault lines continue to exist, be it in the narrow band of retail speculative stock transactions or the dated 30 component Sensex and in other sectoral shares as well. Sensex seems to be largely reduced to a day-to-day ATM for retail investors, which is fine except that swings then tend to become hugely separated from the core value of a stock. Indian stock markets still remain tied to the nascent days of a command economy wherein speculation and short haul political developments were content to feed on each other.

So, small investors keep getting hurt. It is time our stock indices are reworked and investors get wiser to a regimen where fundamentals start prevailing over raw speculation.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Unscientific approach

According to forensic science , no helmet can prevent serious spinal cord injury, the main reason for the accidental deaths of two-wheeler riders. Yet, without taking any such scientific evidence into consideration or conducting necessary surveys, both the Kerala High Court and the Madras High Court have made helmets mandatory.

Statistics from the Kerala State Crime Records Bureau reveal that during the past five years after imposing the helmet law, the number of deaths of persons wearing helmets and those not, are more or less the sameWhy not cancel the driving licences of all reckless drivers of four-wheelers instead?

Ramon Srivastava

Bengaluru

Haircut time

With reference to ‘Finding takers’ (June 10), it is time to take stringent measures on corporate defaulters. Yes, banks will have to take some haircuts, which is the least they can to do as their lending decision has gone wrong. Banks’ bottomline will be severely impacted for few quarters but then it’s better this way than brushing things under the carpet.

Bal Govind

Noida, Uttar Pradesh

One estimate puts the impaired assets on our PSB balance sheets at 13 per cent. This is the kind of capital constraint PSU banks face. The RBI’s new norm will make promoters accountable for their bad governance and decisions. We are the only country to have sick companies and not sick promoters. This will be challenged by the new norm for the good. Clearly promoters benefit from the current arrangement when the cycle is up and losses are transferred to PSUs. With the new norm if the promoter does not deliver on the restructuring terms then the bank can take over the company and hand it to a professional management and then sell their stake to recover their debt. Much more needs to be done on bank recapitalisation.

CR Arun

Email

Hot over yoga

The debate over yoga is hotting up. No one would have a problem if it is kept optional. That yoga is of Indian provenance and a gift of India to humanity is a matter of pride. Yoga evolved over millennia is therapeutic and it is universally recognised as such. There is nothing intrinsically unacceptable with yoga to disown it outright. But it is no reason to thrust it willy-nilly upon unwilling compatriots.

Non-Hindus may have problem accepting the definition of yoga as “a Hindu philosophy that teaches you how to control your body and mind in the belief that you can become united with the spirit of the universe in this way”; they may prefer the more temporal definition of yoga as “a system of exercises for your body and for controlling your breathing, used by people who want to become fitter or to relax”.

Devout Muslims truly believe that some aspects go against the basic tenets of Islam. The point is that their right to hold such a belief cannot be trampled upon. “All good things in life” cannot be imposed upon people against their will. People have to be persuaded into accepting them. Yoga is amenable to be detached from religion. Maybe, yogic techniques can be adapted. Incidentally, true yogis transcend religious barriers and accommodate people of all religious persuasions in their mindscape and never speak ill of other faiths or feel threatened by them.

The planned massive demonstration of yoga drills at Rajpath in Delhi to mark Yoga Day will reduce the art and science of yoga to a mass exercise done to a plan to go over big with the world and gain an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records .

G David Milton

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

Fiasco by degrees

The fake degree produced by New Delhi Law Minister Jitendra Singh Tomar is highly reprehensible, to say the least. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should take moral responsibility for appointing such a minister.

RK Sridharan

Chennai

Shackled leadership

In his article, ‘The alarming investment slide’, Yoginder K. Alagh (June 10) laments the steep decline in capital formation and advocates more investment. While it is good as far as it grows, an analysis of the causes of the decline would have provided greater insight. It is not always lack of funds; other factors also come in the way of prudent utilisation of funds available and even deter investors from putting their money in fresh endeavours. Some of these are land acquisition hurdles, skill gap, power problem, environment clearance, labour law blues, high cost of inputs affecting profitability, logistic issues, lack of demand (as evidenced by fall in revenues), transportation issues and bureaucratic procedures.

As an earlier study showed, about 33 per cent (135) of the BSE 461 companies have beaten the obstacles and registered growth in revenue as well as profits. Ultimately, it is the quality of leadership and teamwork which provides the competitive edge in adverse circumstances. This is something business leaders have to explore within the organisation instead of depending on the government for sops.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Erratum

Tamil author Rajesh Kumar’s book debuted on the newshunt app and not the newsstand aap, as wrongly headlined in the report, ‘Tamil author’s e-book debuts on newsstand app’ (June 10). The error is regretted.

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