Women in Bihar elections

With reference to ‘Bihar elections: Do Women’s votes counts’ (October 28), due to lack of education and empowerment, most of the women vote for the same candidates to whom their male counterparts in the family have voted. However, with the spread of education, various facilities for girls (giving girl students cycles to attend the school), the scenario is slowly changing. It is only through spread of education that women will get empowered and cast votes as per their choice. The government should focus on educating female children in poor families where with the right support, the talent can be tapped, and voting choices are made freely.

Veena Shenoy

Thane

Winding up blues

With reference to the Editorial ‘Clearing the air’ (October 28), the judicial ruling upholding the winding up rights of trustees and the direction to obtain consent of majority of unitholders of the beleaguered mutual fund, before its enforcement, is timely and laudable. However, there is still uncertainty on the rights of unitholders. This segment of investors are neither shareholders nor contributors for creation of long-term assets of the AMC. Further, they will be neither having any voting power nor controlling power on the assets under the management of the AMC. Likewise , in majority of the funds, the trustees are either appointed by the sponsor of the fund or by the AMC, for monitoring the fund operations by AMC and to initiate necessary steps in case of discrepancy and to realise the distressed assets for distribution. Though the SEBI regulations provides for obtaining the consent of the simple majority of the unit holders, there could be some legal challenges in effective execution of such rulings.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Revamping Commerce Ministry

With reference to the article ‘A Commerce Ministry for the 21st Century’ (October 28), creating new departments and heading them with more secretaries will not address the problem. We should not forget that we have an Indian Trade Service (ITS) that was formed in 1977. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), which is the Cadre Controlling Authority of ITS, is an Attached Office under the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The DGFT is headed by Director General of Foreign Trade (HAG level officer). The sanctioned strength of ITS, as on date, is 189, comprising of 54 posts of Assistant DGFT at JTS level, 63 posts of Deputy DGFT at STS level (inclusive of NFSG), 64 posts of Joint DGFT at JAG level and 8 posts of Additional DGFT at SAG level (inclusive of 5 posts of Development Commissioners in the Special Economic Zones encadred into ITS). The influx of the IAS cadre into these specialised function has weakened the morale of these elite trade professionals. Reviving the ITS is the only solution.

We are living in a time where trade embargos are more crippling than a military manoeuvre. There is no deterrence stronger than a trade surplus for which we need to rearm the Indian Trade Service.

Nandagopal

Chennai

Social media and voting

With reference to the article, ‘Social media will have the casting vote’, does the influence of social media on its 500 million Indian users swing election results? There were about 910 million voters in 2019 so a significant part is unaffected. Of 500 million social media users there is a subset that leaves out politics. Another subset does not vote and the third is aware enough to make its own choice.

There may be some correlation between hate mongers in social media and the incidence of social disharmony and riots. However, the same link is debatable when it comes to elections.

It is time some national media house conducted a nationwide opinion poll to ascertain how many voters choose their candidate based on social media feedback.

YG Chouksey

Pune

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