There’s nothing surprising about tennis star Maria Sharapova’s ignorance of Tendulkar. These people should realise that cricket is played by just some ten nations and the ICC is struggling to popularise the game. The game doesn’t invite the same enthusiasm around the world as do football and tennis. Even hockey and basketball have a wider following than cricket which is restricted to the former British colonies. There is no need to feel hurt that Maria doesn’t know about Sachin.

VS Ganeshan

Bangalore

Give farmers a break

The finance minister should give more priority to agriculture and the farm sectors. All those who eat should support the farmer, otherwise there will be a food crisis. The pitiable condition of the agricultural sector is evident from the fact that the share of agriculture is just 17 per cent of GDP even though 60 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture.

The Government should make agriculture more profitable; the sector should attract educated youth. Though subsidy is now a dirty word, the FM should allocate more subsidy to agriculture and reduce the prices of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, reduce the price of tractors and harvesting machines and reduce crop insurance premium for small farmers to 1 per cent of the insured sum. The FM should also allocate funds for research and innovation in the farm sector.

S Raghunatha Prabhu

Alappuzha

Tricky business

With reference “We don't need fancy infrastructure” by Narendar Pani (July 4), while the bill for all public expenditure is borne by us, huge infrastructure like modern airports are as much required as basic ones like road connectivity from villages to cities, schools and hospitals for the poor.

Where will the funds come from, considering the poor finances our government has and growing fiscal deficits? Besides, the advance tax collection this year has not been that great. It is a tricky situation.

Bal Govind

Noida

The displaced farmer

With reference to your editorial “Knee-jerk solutions” (July 4), as urban areas exploded the peripheral farmer was displaced from the epicentre of mass demand as also from water sources that were commandeered for cities. The hapless farmer was forced to look up to someone who would meet his needs of transport, ready cash and prompt off-take of produce in the absence of storage facilities. The wholesalers provided him all this and extracted their cost from both producer and consumer.

Merely delisting fruits and vegetables from the APMC Act does not take away the basic logistics that the farmer will continue to have to contend with. Setting up self-contained kibbutzes that would provide storage, processing and direct market access at designated locations across the nation is one way out.

R Narayanan

Ghaziabad

The present government cannot evade the issue by just saying that the sky-high price rises and inflation are a legacy of UPA’s 10-year misrule. It is nice to know that the government is taking measures like cracking down on hoarding and black-marketing, imposing stock-holding limits, raising the minimum export prices, delisting fruits and vegetables from the APMC Act and improving the supply chain to control the upward inflationary spiral of price increases. But how far these ‘quick fixes’ will go to ease the price burden remains to be seen.

A substantial rise in fuel prices and freight transport tariffs has sent commodity prices soaring. Thus the current crisis situation is of its own making.

The Government’s first priority must be to bring down the prices of all essential commodities and services to affordable levels and ensure social security with special emphasis on food security for all households without insisting on reducing the level of subsidy.

G David Milton

Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu

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