Letters to the editor dates October 22, 2020

The government declaring productivity-linked bonus to Central Government employees of over ₹3,700 crore for the ensuing festival season is certainly welcome move. But what about the revision of pension for retired bank employees, which has been pending for more than a decade? Do they not deserve financial support, if not for celebration at least for meeting their medical expenses? Their concerns shouldn’t be ignored.

Hyderabad

With both the UPA and the BJP-led NDA having made public their manifestos for the ensuing Bihar Assembly elections, voters obviously find themselves at the crossroads. In fact, a sort of rat race has now begun with tall promises — of providing jobs to millions of youth, making the State an IT hub, etc — being made by their respective leaderships. The moot question is: Will they be able to deliver on their promises? Sadly, none of them talks about any action plan to effectively deal with the massive floods that cause some unimaginable damage to agriculture, roads, rail tracks and the homes of the poor each year across the State.

Bengaluru

This has reference to ‘SEBI must set corporate governance standards’ (October 22). The existing guidelines issued by SEBI are comprehensive and they are refined periodically depending upon need. The success of corporate governance need not reflect in top-line and bottomline alone but the way the organisation functions as a social being. Response to investor grievances, labour relations, process of decision-making, adherence to law of the land, customer satisfaction, CSR, etc., are the important parameters that reflect the robustness of the corporate governance standards of a company. But the standards should not be confined to listed companies alone and the spirit of the guidelines should be applied to their unlisted subsidiaries also.

Mumbai

There’s a need to determine the right responses to complex governance events. The responses should not be routine, merely adhering to the compliance requirements. Real intent matters and the response to the stakeholders should uphold investor values. The attitude, value system of those at the top of the corporate ladder play a vital role in good governance. Also, there are many unlisted public/private companies which are governed well and generate returns on investment far exceeding the corporates in the listed domain. Extending the envisaged ‘standards’ to these firms as well will help lay the foundation for building a healthy and sustainable corporate sector.

Mumbai

This refers to ‘Seed industry urges govt licence to develop cannabis’ (October 22). At a time when agriculture is facing innumerable hardships to achieve financial viability, any attempt to make cannabis a licensed crop may result in mass exodus of farmers towards it and, thereby, hamper food production. Any move in this direction must be opposed.

Halekere Village, Karnataka

The Indian Council for Medical Research’s trial findings indicate that coalescent plasma therapy does not benefit Covid-19 patients.

The off-label plasma therapy has been tried in the hope that the antibodies derived from plasma filtered from the blood of those who recovered from Covid would neutralise replicating viruses and check the growth of infection. But it was not to be; the clinical evidence was to the contrary; it showed that the plasma therapy does not reduce mortality and prevent the progression of the disease to a severe stage. What was thought to be a silver bullet for Covid treatment has turned out to be clinically unviable. The trial findings do not diminish the value of altruism shown by blood donors to do what they could to aid recovery of Covid patients.

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

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