Letters to the editor dated March 22, 2021

BJP has promised in its election manifesto for Bengal assembly elections that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act will be implemented in the very first cabinet meeting. This will not be possible as the Ministry of Home Affairs has informed the Lok Sabha that it has been given extra time till July 2021 to frame and notify the rules to implement the CAA. Until the rules are not notified the Act cannot be implemented. Though the CAA was passed in Parliament, the rules for implementation are still being drawn up.

Jalandar

Apropos the editorial 'Managing the second waive' (March 22), the rise in infections across the States is worrying. Preventive steps are not being followed earnestly. In many places body temperature check is done for namesake. At some places, the thermostat is fixed on a stand and one has to go and stand before the focus point. But, unfortunately, no one is around to monitor the process. Sanitising hands before entering temples and malls too have become routine with doubts arising about the quality of sanitisers being used.

Assembly elections and by-elections in States are a a major reason for the spike in cases as SOPs for Covid are not adhered to during campaigning and rallies. It is a pity that political parties who cry hoarse during electioneering, seldom advise the public to follow the Covid protocols. Re-introduction of night-long, week-end curfews and complete lockdown for a week or more in all sensitive cities and towns would be needed to contain the spike.

Chennai

As there’s a sudden surge in the number of Covid cases across the country, it’s time to undertake course correction. There is talk of imposing lockdown once again, but that will be detrimental to economic revival and will not help halt the surge in a big way.

The government must speed up the pace of vaccination and people in general must shed all fears they may have and come forward to get vaccinated. Wearing masks in public places must continue, and one cannot be careless about it.

Noida

This has reference to ‘Water — preserving a precious resource’ (March 22). Water is more precious than gold in the sense that the latter is not indispensable for livelihood. There is no one-stop solution for water management.

The per capita annual availability of water is constantly depleting.

Apart from maintaining natural storages like lakes and tanks, new dams are to be constructed. Compulsory water harvesting at homes and desalination of sea water at coastal areas will improve availability of water.

Awareness is to be created on saving water and technology should be used for reducing water consumption in areas like sanitation and gardening besides pushing for drip irrigation and reuse of treated water. Above all, water should be adequately priced.

Mumbai

This refers to a news item on the interpretation of “unpublished information” related to ‘insider trading’. US regulator like SEC (Security Exchange Commission) and SEBI have been making changes in the regulations to ensure that a certain section of privileged investors do not get enriched to the disadvantage of common investors.

Though the so-called “tipping off” by those who are closely associated with a company do occur, it is the difficulty in collection of material evidence to nail the culprit which leads one to go ‘scot free’ in the end.

The sharing of unpublished price-sensitive information is also widely prevalent in banking circles while processing proposals (projected balance sheet) related to corporate credit and merchant banking areas.

Hence the need on the part of bankers to scrupulously adhere to non-disclosure agreement prohibiting certain section of staff from dealing in shares based on sensitivity of issues handled by them.

Chennai

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