This refers to ‘Error in intermediate results gives Telangana exam fever’ (April 25). In Telangana, the publication of intermediate results with discrepancies is not an error but utter negligence on the part of the Board of Intermediate Education. The inexcusable laxity resulted in 18 students committing suicide. There are proper rules and procedures for the conduct of the examination, evaluation, processing and publication of results. But in this case, there were lapses right from evaluation to data entry. Before the publication of results, the officials concerned should have rechecked as almost a third of the students who appeared for the examinations had failed.

Who should be held responsible for the suicide of the 18 students? The government or the private firm? Despite having a competent government agency, why did the State outsource the task of processing results to a private firm? If the government had acted swiftly and assured the students of republication of results after thorough evaluation, the untoward incidents could have been averted.

S Lakshminarayanan

Cuddalore, TN

That three lakh of the eight lakh students who took the exam failed should by itself have alerted the authorities concerned. Outsourcing the processing of results to a private entity was a big blunder. Now the government should ensure that the revaluation exercise is done on war footing and the correct result of the candidates published at an early date.

RS Raghavan

Bengaluru

Govt proposes, RBI obliges

Apropos ‘RBI divests entire stake in NHB, NABARD’ (April 25), the fact that the RBI has divested its remaining stake in the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and National Housing Bank in February and March this year did not come as any surprise at all. The government now fully owns these two financial institutions as the RBI stake-sale of 1 per cent in NABARD in February yielded ₹20 crore and 100 per cent disinvestment in NHB (being its wholly-owned subsidiary) in March has brought in ₹1,450 crore to the RBI’s kitty.

However, the entire amount of ₹1,470 crore would now appear merely as some book entry in the central bank’s balance sheet (as at end-June 2019) since it is incumbent upon the RBI to transfer its surplus profits to the government after providing for its own mandatory obligations (under Section 47 of the RBI Act, 1934).

Interestingly, both the RBI and the government have been on the same page ever since Shaktikanta Das took over as RBI chief in December last year. Moreover, gone are the days when the RBI and MoF were not seeing eye to eye over the controversial issue of preserving the autonomy of the central bank.

SK Gupta

New Delhi

Farmers vs MNCs

The law suits of PepsiCo India against farmers on plea of infringement of its registered rights over the potato seeds may be legally valid.

But morally it is infringement on the basic rights of the farmers. The plea of the MNC that the produce from its registered seeds are used by its competitors does not hold water and is seen as an arm-twisting tactics on the poor farmers who are already facing acute distress due to various factors.

Video-recording the conversations of the farmers without their knowledge is an act of high-handedness by the MNC, which is trying to control the food and beverages sector.

When PepsiCo is so authoritative in establishing its rights, it should understand that the huge amounts of water it draws from river and underground sources are primarily the property of the farmers. All right thinking persons should gather information on the exploitation of water sources by MNCs for their beverage business and claim compensation.

S Veeraraghavan

Madurai

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