This is with reference to the editorial, ‘WTO’s existential crisis’ (December 15). Subscientific agricultural practices, the absence of reclamation of verdant areas, continuing subdivision and fragmentation of agricultural holdings, politicised credit extension and undue waiver of loans, inequitable power subsidies, disapproval of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices by the States, unreliable weather monitoring and lack of coordination between the Centre and the States are impeding land reforms in India.

Consequently, these handicaps do not enable India to implement the prescriptions of the WTO immediately. India must objectively articulate that nullification of subsidies will come through only in the long term, beyond the proposed cut-off of end-2023 for developing nations. Till then it should not be compelled to implement measures for export competition, public stock-holding and special safe mechanism. Till we reach self-sufficiency in agriculture, we must have protective support from the WTO.

The extension of the available moratorium on the TRIPS agreement must be sought as certain genuine issues related to Indian proprietary items such as basmati rice, turmeric, medicinal herbs and so on are yet to be resolved in our favour. The FDA has unilaterally promulgated the privilege of examining Indian drug manufacturing facilities for allowing the import of Indian medicines.

It has also crippled the formulation of Indian R&D innovations in addition to strangulating the manufacture of generic medicines. These prejudicial regulations of the US contravene the fundamental principles of the multilateral trading system of the WTO. If the WTO pays heed only to the strong tactics of developed countries, it will stand only for the World Trade Ostracism of developing countries.

B Rajasekaran

Bengaluru

Allow Parliament to function

This refers to ‘Washout threat hangs over Winter Session: Jaitley’ (December 15). During the two decades preceding and succeeding Independence, the legislatures functioned smoothly and gave shape to several statutes including the Constitution and the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. There were informed and intelligent debates before finalising every clause of the documents that later became statutes. The credit goes to the then political leadership, which did not have an opposition that thought its only role was to ‘oppose’, and the Indian National Congress which respected and allowed ‘informed dissent’ from within, and took into confidence an opposition boasting great leaders, but was not very strong, going by numbers.

The recent session of Parliament which debated the relevance of observing November 26 as Constitution Day has proved that reasonably informed debates in Parliament are still possible. I am referring to speeches like the long one made by Sitaram Yechury in the Rajya Sabha. With the emergence of coalition politics, legislative procedures from panchayats to Parliament have suffered a setback, mainly on account of divergent interests among political parties. This transitional phase is unavoidable but the taxpayer has every right to expect elected representatives to allow Parliament to function smoothly when it is in session.

MG Warrier

Mumbai

Pathetic performance

This is with reference to ‘India ranks 130th in Human Development Index: UNDP’ (December 15). It is pathetic that India with 65 per cent of its population below 35, is ranked so low. People are the biggest and most complex asset of any organisation. Many organisations treat their human assets in same manner as they treat other assets.

It is sad that while trade unions bargain for higher wages and other facilities, they hardly ask for the mental wellbeing of employees. In India we lack good counselling systems which is also one of the reasons for low productivity. But MNCs have a system by which grievances are redressed. An employee has various roles to play in society and the organisation has to respect all those roles and not merely as a person on the payroll.

Veena Shenoy

Thane, Maharashtra

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send your letters by email to bleditor@thehindu.co.in or by post to ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Hindu Business Line, Kasturi Buildings, 859-860, Anna Salai, Chennai 600002.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW