MSP hike

The government’s decision to hike the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of wheat for the rabi season appears to be primarily guided by political and electoral calculations.

Wheat being a default crop for farmers with access to irrigation in much of Northern and Central India, they do not need any special incentive above assured government procurement for growing the crop.

Even if domestic wheat stocks dip, the government can resort to imports. Political considerations must be kept out of determining support prices.

M Jeyaram

Sholavandan (Tamil Nadu)

Tackling hunger

India’s hunger ranking at 111 out of 125 nations is not surprising. India has rich resources but not planned for equal distribution. The number of billionaires in India is swelling. The simultaneous deterioration in hunger status demonstrates the faulty economic policies being pursued.

Addressing malnutrition does not seem to be on the government’s agenda.

Callous attitude in this matter will have serious impact on the country’s productivity.

AG Rajmohan

Anantapur

Yield curve worries

This refers to the news on creation of adequate buffer to withstand the shock of hardening yields. As per RBI guidelines banks should build up IFR (Investment Fluctuation Reserve) out of realised gains only on sale of investments subject to available net profit of a minimum of 5 per cent of the investment portfolio.

The present maintenance of 2.2 per cent on HFT and AFS might prove inadequate in the rising bonds yields scenario. Apart from inflation and liquidity influencing interest rates, global factors especially unabated rising interest rates in US and Europe which could influence interest rate management of RBI.

Hence RBI need to have a well chalked out plan to meet such contingencies. One of the options is to alter the percentage of securities held under HFT, AFS and HTM based on the ground reality.

Srinivasan Velamur

Chennai

AI in health sector

Apropos the news “Artificial Intelligence in healthcare sector holds promise, but needs regulation: WHO” (October 20), the caution sounded by WHO DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is not only timely, but also have a great import for the future of the health sector. Healthcare sector has quickly adopted to AI, Machine Learning, etc. Wherever the medical processes are handled through implementation of AI technology, the principles of transparency and trust should be given primacy.

Kosaraju Chandramouli

Hyderabad

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