Venu Srinivasan, a leading industrialist from the TVS family, apart from running a very successful business is also a great philanthropist. I have personally seen some of his glorious contributions to temples and, above all, to humanity in general. Venu is the managing trustee of Srinivasan Trust. The trust has developed self-help groups that work in the areas of agriculture, economic development, health, education, infrastructure, environment and social development.

It works with rural communities and urban slums. Last year alone, it helped 1.84 lakh women in 5,000 villages earn ₹1,500 to ₹6,000 a month, amounting to a total of ₹450 crore.

Apart from humanitarian work, he has been contributing to temple restoration at different places. For instance, in Thirukkurungudi and Nava Thirupathi, south Tamil Nadu, I have seen temples restored and being well-maintained. Upkeep and hygiene in these temples are of the highest order — a rarity in most temples.

All this work has been done with little publicity. In a world of publicity mongers, who crave for recognition even for minor philanthropic work, Venu Srinivasan is an exception.

Naming him in an FIR on a reported theft of an idol from a temple is unfortunate. Before filing an FIR minimum groundwork should have been done — he can only donate and never steal.

These hasty moves will prevent meritorious people from taking a lead role in public activities. Venu Srinivasan deserves to be recognised and rewarded for his work. If we can’t reward such people we must at least ensure they are not wrongly penalised. One hopes the government will intervene quickly and set right the anomaly, by removing his name from the FIR.

RG Chandramogan

MD, Hatsun Agro

Deposit insurance

The argument that deposits with public sector banks (PSBs) need not be insured as the government, which owns these banks, will come to the rescue in any eventuality is not valid. There are 21 PSBs and the smallest PSB has a retail deposit base of more than ₹1 lakh crore.

Against this, the Reserve Fund available with DICGC to meet the claims of depositors in case all banks fail is only ₹70,150 crore, as per its latest audited financials. In fact, as against 5 per cent mandated in other countries, the Reserve Fund Ratio maintained by DICGC is just 2.3 per cent to meet eventualities. If the availability of sovereign guarantee were to hold good for not insuring deposits, the same argument might well be put forth for not maintaining CAR as per Basel norms. If the insurance cover is not adequately increased now, the banks under PCA and other ailing PSBs will continue to lose their depositors to the new small finance banks and payments banks which are of recent origin and their resilience in any crisis is yet to be tested.

V Viswanathan

Coimbatore

Becoming more flexible

This refers to ‘RSSnomics: Populism with Indian traits’ (August 15). It is good that the once rigid Swadeshi Jagran Manch has also mellowed down and accepted the changing reality of our times. Not only Prime Minister Modi but even RSS knows that FDI is one of the most critical tools to push economic growth and create jobs.

Though good politics is generally not good economics, to gain on electoral politics the government and the RSS have been pushing more populist measures. It is a welcome sign that RSS has reconciled with the reality that being populist is better than promoting only swadeshi .

Bal Govind

Noida

Temple visits

Chief Minister, HD Kumaraswamy appears to revel in temple hopping all over the State. The JD(S) leader has been pursuing this pastime ever since he took over the mantle of Chief Minister. BJP strongman and former chief minister, BS Yeddyurappa, had also indulged in a similar exercise.

HDK’s father and former prime minister HD Deva Gowda also had a passion for visiting temples. While it is not wrong in seeking the blessings of the Almighty it must not be at the expense of the State’s administration. Service to man is service to God.

NJ Ravi Chander

Bengaluru

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