The jobs conundrum

The article ‘Rupee appreciation has hurt job creation’ (January 21) is a wake up call to the government as the lack of adequate attention in job creation is not only hurting the government politically but also a cause for intense social unrest. It needs to be pointed out that the rise in economic status alone might not be enough to ensure satisfactory living standards of people but necessary steps should also be ensured for job creation to make cash availability especially to the rural masses. This can be ensured only by adequate job creation to make people economically better placed. To create more jobs, development of industrial, commercial and even agricultural sectors is vital. The rapid development of the educational sector has led to a large number of educated youths seeking jobs. Therefore the effort should be to enlarge productive sectors especially the MSMEs with possibilities of job creation , a step which calls for study of various connected problems by an expert body and investment of adequate money.

Coimbatore

The ‘Mahagathbandhan’

The prelude to a mouth-watering political drama has been written for 2019 with an appetiser in Kolkata . A range of opposition parties came together to address a mega rally in Kolkata where in soaring speeches were delivered, gracious gestures exchanged, clever slogans worked the crowds with expectations running high. They all had a common target: the BJP in general; and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief, Amit Shah, in particular. The election was presented as a binary — the BJP alone on one side with the rest of the country on the other. In the aftermath of Mamata Banerjee's rally, the pertinent questions that need answering now would be — what would be the role of the Congress in the political near-future?

Hyderabad

With reference to the Editorial ‘ECB sops’ (January 21), this route of funding has advantage of rates over that of domestic pool that is also far smaller and that foreign lenders provide far more flexible terms of provisioning security for borrowings. Sectors which are performing well are seen to have lower ECBs. It is also true that as companies’ performance improve , their ECB/Total Liabilities substantially get reduced, with infrastructure and power being the exceptions. Sectoral oversight vis-a-vis ECB outgo, will be a key factor. Further, while ECBs can be a blessing for some companies; they now account for 30 per cent of our total external debt, raising questions of overall debt sustainability. Also the forex risk, in the absence of hedging could be a concern.

Debt payments towards ECBs may continue to contribute the most significant portion of total debt payments even as the contribution of payments towards ECBs is seen to be rising.

Since in international practice, repayments towards short-term debt are not included in the total debt payments, a reduction in the minimum maturity for ECBs, as proposed, could be another area to be watched by regulators.

Navi Mumbai

With reference to ‘Poor umpiring in Pandya-Rahul Case’, if the BCCI is richest cricket body in cricketing world today, a significant part of the credit goes to the Indian cricketers. But it is also unfortunate that CoA’s two top most office bearers, Diana Edulji and Vinod Rai do not see eye to eye. The recent Pandya-Rahul episode is as much a failure on BCCI’s part as much on these two player's. Both these players have committed a mistake and that should be punished but by delaying the judgement and asking apex court to intervene is really taking things too far.

Noida

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