Letters to the editor dated March 15, 2021

This refers to ‘Fine-tuning flexible inflation targeting’ (March 15). One tends to agree with the reasons attributed by the author for continuing with FIT when it is due for a review. While the RBI Act battles for “consumer price index” as the target for inflation measurement, the choice of “core’ over “headline” by the author is inexplicable as core excludes food and fuel items with fuel being the main cause for the rise in the price of various food items and which has a link with all other items included in the measurement of the CPI. Also, food and beverages constitute about 46 per cent in the CPI basket.

Going by the present trend, the global crude oil prices seem to be moving up unabatedly with fuel prices in India touching the ₹100/litre mark and the government not having any clue on arresting the price rise.Also, the RBI’s monetary policy approach, in terms of interest rate management (linked to inflation), seems to be one sided not reflecting the views of the market as proved by the recent devolvement of bond auction

Chennai

Apropos ‘The scepticism about corporates’ (March, 15), the stance of the politicians is only public posturing. It is an open secret how the coffers of political parties get filled up, come elections. If we consider India’s GDP, while the share of agriculture is about 20 per cent, the rest is contributed by manufacturing, services, public administration and defence.

To become a prosperous economy, India needs the continuous growth of all sectors. Though indispensable, agriculture cannot provide employment to all the educated youth of the nation. Against this backdrop, the Finance Minister’s statement that ‘the government cares for the poor and respects the wealth creators’ sets the record straight.

Chennai

Public sector bank unions are at it again. Is this two-day strike, timed after a two-day weekend, intended to cause maximum discomfort to customers? Customers have borne the brunt of bank strikes for many years and are unlikely have any sympathy for the protesters. Taxpayers’ money has for long been used to bail out PSBs for their indifferent performance.

With extensive private participation, we have seen the telecom sector transformation. Mobile telephony with a national footprint is now accessible by all sections of society due to near-zero cost of service; it has also contributes handsomely to the exchequer through spectrum fees. We could do with smaller public sector presence in banking too.

Pune

While our Constitution had envisaged the policy of reservation for socio-economically backward sections in education and employment as a tool for their uplift, parties across the political spectrum have leveraged and continued to leverage the issue of reservation for their vote bank politics over the decades to the dismay of many.

The Supreme Court, through its landmark Indra Sawhney judgment, had capped all reservation at 50 per cent, but there is no let-up in States breaching that cap with impunity. Politicisation of the issue of reservations does not bode well for our democracy. It is time political parties shunned their narrow approach towards the issue of reservations.

Sholavandan, TN

The SEBI has circulated a consultation paper on provisions relating to independent directors. The primary role of independent directors is to safeguard the interests of minority shareholders and to monitor the integrity of related party transactions.

If the reason behind the cooling-off period is to pre-empt the independent director from defending past transactions, a gap of two years will be sufficient. In the case of companies engaged in innovations, on revival path, start-ups, etc., continuity is of essence and a long cooling-off period may be a handicap.

Mumbai

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