Payback time

Enough is enough. It is the soft approach of the Indian government that has resulted in continuous terror attacks in Kashmir for the last few decades. Imran Khan must remember that like the captain of a cricket team, he is responsible for all terror attacks originating directly or indirectly from Pakistani soil. All diplomatic and economic relations with Pakistan must end till the country stops assisting terror groups.

New Delhi

With reference to the editorial ‘Into a black hole’ (February 25), the government’s decision to generously recapitalise public sector banks is indeed a cause for worry. Despite doing so year after year, there has been no improvement in the performance, efficiency or profitability of PSBs. If the balance-sheet size has improved, the NPAs have also gone up. Considering the amount of money poured in, the number of PSBs that are in the black are hardly any. The situation of PSBs would have been better had no recapitalisation been made.

Kottayam

The government had earlier budgeted a capital infusion of ₹65,000 crore in public sector banks in the current financial year ending March 31, 2019, of which, ₹23,000 crore has been infused. To give PSBs a boost, there were plans to infuse ₹1.35 lakh crore through recapitalisation bonds, an euphemism for lending, and an additional ₹76,000 crore through budgetary support and market borrowing, to make up a total of ₹2.11 lakh crore — less than 10 per cent of the current NPAs. Clearly, the support is far from adequate. Post the Lehman Bros episode in the US, policy-makers believed AIG’s insurance business remained a going concern and that AIG had sufficient collateral to borrow from the central reserve at low risk to taxpayers; Lehman’s status as a going concern was suspect on its capital position and access to cash. AIG was given a massive $182-billion bailout and Lehman, abandoned. AIG was back on its feet in quick time and moved full steam into profit zone. A hesitant and rationed approach to capital infusion in PSBs will not help.

Navi Mumbai

It would seem that Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets great store by the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme, announced in the Interim Budget, for his return to power. The Opposition sees it as a ‘pre-poll bonanza’ and as a ‘financial inducement’ to farmers to vote for the BJP. The income support scheme for farmers just months before the election is an admission that the support of farmers is crucial for a good performance in elections. The ‘retrospective effect’ given to the scheme has led many to ask if it is a ‘new old scheme’ or an ‘old new scheme’. BJP supporters hail the kisan scheme as a ‘game-changer’ in that the likely beneficiaries (members of about 12.56 crore households) make up a sizeable chunk of the electorate. But then the cash hand-out of ₹6,000 a year (₹17 a day) won’t go even some way towards mitigating farm distress. What looks like tokenism cannot be relied on to make any worthwhile difference to the condition of the impoverished and debt-ridden farmers.

Maruthancode, TN

Three orders passed by the Supreme Court in 2016, 2018 and 2019 do not question the three-tiered verification process that forest rights claims undergo under the 2006 Forest Rights Act. On January 29, 2016, a three-judge Bench held that “if the claim is found to be not tenable by the competent authority, the result would be that the claimant is not entitled for the grant of any patta or any other right under the Act, but such a claimant is also either required to be evicted from that parcel of land or some other action is to be taken in accordance with law.” Statistics from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which is the nodal agency under the 2006 Act, show that lakhs of titles were distributed to genuine claimants even as several lakh claims were rejected across 20 States.

Magadi, Karnataka

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