Promoting millets
Millets has long had an ardent consumer base among the working class for its extraordinary sustenance and nutritional value. Being hardy and less dependent on water, millets are an invaluable crop to many arable and arid environs.
Promoting millets to other water surplus regions is a great vision. Reducing rice and wheat consumption would need earnest promotion in the media.
People must be weaned from their ingrained culinåry habits.
Unless the demand is first created, incentives and schemes for producing millets could prove a mirage. It will be long process but ultimately rewarding.
R Narayanan
Navi Mumbai
Unproductive session
That the second leg of Parliament’s Budget session has gone down as the shortest and the least productive sessions ever is a matter of serious concern.
The Opposition usually raise the hackles of the ruling dispensation against their alleged alleged acts of commission and omission in Parliament and stall proceedings.
But the BJP legislators disrupting Parliament to avoid discussion on the Hindenburg-Adani Group issue is baffling.
It is time both the opposition and the government bury the hatchet and ensure Parliament remains the forum for constructive discussion.
M Jeyaram
Sholavandan (TN)
Preference for MCLR
Apropos ‘India Inc says no to repo-linked loans; prefers to stay with MCLR’ (April 10), till a decade or so, Base Rate and Prime Lending Rate (PLR) were the mainstay in banks’ lending. With the deregulation of the interest rate regime, the scenario changed.
When MCLR (Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate) was introduced in 2016, banks were required to calculate their lending rates based on the marginal cost of funds which considers amongst others the cost of borrowing, interest paid on deposits etc.
This helps the banks in ensuring that the lending rates are responsive to changes in the policies of RBI and market conditions etc. Per this, no banks can make any lending below the MCLR rate.
Banks now have implemented the Extended Bank Lending Rate (EBLR) or Repo Linked Lending Rate (RLLR) for home loans, educational loans and automobile sector.
Practically, it will be a more challenging task of bringing all corporate loans under EBLR where the changes would be more frequent than the MCLR.
RV Baskaran
Chennai
Health concerns
Apropos the article “How safe are the medicines we use?” (April 10), the patients have no clue about the quality of the drugs they consume. That some drug manufacturers are unscrupulously exploiting the hapless patients and pushing substandard drugs and making money is unethical and inhumane.
The fact that as many as 18 licenses of pharmaceutical companies had to be cancelled, more than one third of the inspected companies had to be issued show-cause notices, and three product permissions were cancelled is a serious matter.
The erring companies as well as the substandard drug names should be displayed on regulatory sites and given wide publicity.
In the absence of any other avenue to check the quality of medicines, the responsibility of educating the public and conveying the relevant information about drugs and their manufacturers is undertaken by the regulatory health authorities.
Kosaraju Chandramouli
Hyderabad
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