Back to resort politics?

This is with reference to the news report ‘Resort politics may check in as Karnataka stares at hung Assembly’ (May 12).

With exit polls predicting a hung Assembly, the voters’ hopes for a stable government may come cropper.

Matters relating power-sharing will take centre-stage, with issues such as infrastructure, jobs, economic development, and investment in health and education facilities taking a backseat. The party that comes to power must work towards fulfilling the aspirations of voters.

Veena Shenoy

Thane

SEBI’s ‘ad’ diktat

With reference to “Wrong ad pitch” (May 12), investors flocking to stocks, mutual funds, derivatives, and government securities has led to a huge growth of investor advisory agencies and research analysts.

The new code imposed by SEBI is on par with similar disciplinary measures laid down for other registered capital market intermediaries with the only exception that there is no requirement of prior approval of the advertisements.

Similarly, while the IPO guidelines provide for disclosure of the past track record of the intermediaries in advertisements to facilitate informed decision of investors, it may not be appropriate to bar the RIAs/Ras to highlight their past performances.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Defining farmers

Apropos ‘Who exactly is a farmer’ (May 12), despite an existing approved policy on coverage of various categories of people falling under ‘Farmer’ category, it is quite intriguing to know that the definition of ‘Farmer’ is being tweaked by the bureaucracy while devising or implementing farmer oriented schemes.

Whereas the PM-KISAN benefits 87 million farmers (who actually own cultivable land), the NSSO survey estimates the number of farmers to be 150 million,. Most of the present schemes do focus on the farmers who own and farm the land.

It is pathetic that the landless agricultural workers are being kept outside the purview of; definition of ‘farmers’ leading to denial of access to agricultural credit, farm insurance and interest subvention . It’s time to widen the scope of farmers’ definition.

RV Baskaran

Chennai

Apropos “Who exactly is a farmer?” (May 12) is a relevant write-up especially during pre-election season when political parties lure farmer-voters with freebies based purely on land holding documents. The large percentage of absentee landlords provides them an advantage to enjoy pecuniary benefits with least effort, which the actual farmers fail to receive.

The main reason for this anomaly is lack of data, which may not be easy to compile.

With suitable amendment to laws, uncultivated land could become more productive and farm-labourers without documents may reap benefits.

Rajiv Magal

Halekere Village, (Karnataka)

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