Letters to the editor dated July 15, 2020

By ejecting Sachin Pilot as the Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, the Congress has once again shown its inability to tackle difficult situations within the party. The developments in Rajasthan may also result in serious problems in the administration of the State. Deft handling of the situation could have helped avert the current political crisis. The fall of the Congress from a position of eminence has been due to its inability to address the concerns and aspirations of its party members

Coimbatore

This has reference to ‘There is sense in Sensex movements’ (July 15). The market obviously has factored in the adverse effects of Covid, the tensions with China and also the good performance of the agricultural sector. Hence, the daily movements in stock market are based on day-to-day developments and are range-bound. While this is understandable, it can be observed that major movements happen only is certain stocks and there is set pattern in the market rally. For instance, the shares of banking, IT, metals, pharma and automobile firms generally move in tandem even though there is no sector-specific development. A mature market should take into account the fundamentals of companies also and this is lacking now. The individual share price movements do not reflect the relative performance, and retail investors who want to invest for the long term need to be cautious.

Mumbai

This refers to the editorial on India’s solar plans (July 15). In the last six years, India’s solar power generation capacity has increased more than eight-fold. A host of incentives such as subsidies, tax holidays, quicker depreciation and duty concessions has helped promote renewable energy firms, but these cannot continue forever.

The solar sector needs to adopt better technology quickly to cut costs as well as to scale up. We must pursue research into storage technologies too, as that will dictate the rate of progress of the intermittent energy sector. We must also be pragmatic in obtaining collaborative tech even as we set up our own research institutions.

Navi Mumbai

Apropos ‘Govt issues new guidelines for FPOs’ (July 15), it is indeed a decisive step to encourage small and medium farmers, whose ambit must be extended to other sectors, including plantation crops, especially coffee. Though the sustenance of coffee growers is influenced more by international circumstances, this sector has been omitted from the slew of fiscal packages announced recently. At least small and medium coffee growers under the FPO category could have been offered some assistance during the severe crisis.

Halekere Village, Karnataka

It is surprising that the Essential Commodities Act is no longer applicable on masks and hand-sanitisers. The indisputable truth worldwide is masks and sanitisers are the first level of protection from Covid-19. The government’s argument for taking these items off the essentials list is that there is excess supply now. But this reasoning is not convincing enough. The Centre should reconsider its decision and bring back the two items under the Act until the pandemic ends.

Hyderabad

The Covid pandemic has no doubt disturbed the academic schedule of schools. But as education becomes rooted in the family and home environment, it’s a great opportunity for parents to make use of this time to experiment. Earlier, parents were complaining that they do not know what is happening in school. In online classes there is a greater need for parents to fill the gaps in learning. We had a situation where parents’ responsibility used to end with dropping children to school, now there is an opportunity for parents to be involved directly with their children’s studies.

New Delhi

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