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Old order must change

This refers to the edit “Opposition?” (December 5). The complete rout of Congress party and unexpected success of the BJP in all the three Hindi-speaking States should make it and the members of INDIA realise that it needs a positive agenda, a committed and strong organisation at local, state and national levels and a transformational party president to confront BJP led by an untiring and a visionary leader, inspired party workers and a believable roadmap for the country.

As for the Opposition, its unity is held by the slender thread of anti-Modi feelings replete with anti-Modi rhetoric. Its allegation of corruption, RSS domination and poor state of economy have failed to impact the voters. With Modi’s trustworthiness still high it will not yield results in Lok Sabha elections too unless Modi commits a blunder in between.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Independent role

With reference to “Up, close, professional-Independent directors” (December 5), given the rising number of corporate frauds and governance issues independent directors have paramount role in protecting the interests of minority shareholders and upkeep of corporate governance.

Especially, their indomitable professionalism, knowledge & experience will help the functioning of a corporate irrespective of the disputes between the promoter groups. The reputation of corporates are being dented due to frequent disputes among promoters concerning their dynastic rights, sharing of wealth and management control and independent directors have critical role to step in to set things right and safeguard the interests of shareholders.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Chennai under water

Torrential rainfall unleashed by a cyclonic storm in Chennai had literally brought the city to its knees, with almost all its areas experiencing heavy inundation. While the preparedness of the city administration to tackle the fallout of the cyclone helped avert human casualties to a greater extent, the massive water logging in the last few days reflects the miles that the city has to go to become flood-resilient.

Encroachment of water bodies and wetlands which exacerbate the problem of water logging and the callous attitude of the state machinery to prevent it leave a lot to be desired.

Adoption of a policy of zero tolerance for the encroachment of water bodies while ushering in concerted measures to make the city climate-resilient are the need of the hour.

M. Jeyaram

Sholavandan (TN)

Banks in a mess

The news on SCBs writing off loans worth ₹10.5-lakh crore in the last five years depicts a gloomy picture of Indian banks. The fact that 50 per cent belong to industrial houses and wilful defaulters account for more an 20 per cent further indicates the murky state of affairs in banks.

Though banks claim that such write offs do not result in waiver of liabilities and recovery actions would continue, the poor recovery rate of such loans proves its ineffectiveness.

The capital crunch which banks face forces government to recapitalise PSBs.

The undisputed fact is there is a banker-corporate-political nexus in granting industrial loans.

It is time commercial banks tighten their loan risk assessment skills and thwart external influence while granting loans.

Srinivasan Velamur

Chennai

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