Letters to the editor dated April 12, 2021

With reference to Viewsroom column ‘Being human’, when a State Chief Minister mentions his prevailing illness and still talks about why all eligible people must take vaccines then it sends a very strong and positive message to not only his State’s people but to the whole nation. Such messages go a long way in creating trust with common people and breaking certain prevailing myths in our society. Other political leaders must take a leaf out of Kejriwal's book and lead by example.

Noida

Politicians, sportspersons or for that matter celebrities are not taken at face value. To suggest that if they are more vocal about their ailments in public it shall inspire confidence of the masses and taper down stigma associated with the morbidities is going too far.

Furthermore many celebrities are endorsing various products and these products often fail and brand ambassadors have often come under fire. Lately veteran actor Akshay Kumar who recently tested positive for Covid was trolled for a product he vouched would keep Covid at bay. The public figures of the current age do not enjoy the credibility quotient of yesteryear politicians or sportspersons.

Noida

Apropos ‘Covid-19: India vaccinated over 29 lakh people on Sunday’ (April 12), it was highly encouraging to learn about such a large number of being vaccinated on a single day. While such a hike may be attributed to four-day 'Tika-Utsav' (from 11 to 14 April) being implemented at the call of PM Modi, but the fact still remains that the Covid vaccination ought to be available to all vulnerable segments of the society irrespective of their age. This view gains more importance since in the last 24 hours, more than1,52,000 fresh Covid cases including 904 deaths were recorded, taking the death toll to 1,70,179. Sadly, India has now surpassed Brazil in the spread of this deadly virus.

However, as regards the imposition of 'lockdown' by some States, it goes without saying that such a move may not yield the desired results and even prove to be counter-productive. As against this, strict enforcement of proper wearing of the standardised face-masks (implying no poor quality face masks) apart from maintaining personal distancing at all public places, may be more useful in controlling the spread of the virus. States must urgently consider imposing some ‘exemplary’ fines on all wilful violators without any exemptions. An old saying very famously says: Prevention is always better than cure.

New Delhi

The article ‘Banking on Algorithms and Chatbots to avoid bad loans’ (April, 12) is a pointer to where banking is headed. However, though the so called ‘Ai Banks’ may handle with ease most tasks in a bank, how successful they would be with regard to lending activities remains to be seen.

Banks consider an applicant’s capital, character, capacity and the intention to repay, before taking lending decisions. Though a computer may successfully measure the first three attributes based on inputs received from independent sources like credit bureaus, the last named may not be easy to gauge merely on the basis of one’s BP and voice stress, while answering the predefined questions of a chatbot. When the unscrupulous are able to beat polygraphs and lie detectors, chatbots may not be 100 per cent successful in spotting them. The task may be even more daunting, in a country where bank customers speak a variety of local languages. However, the news is doubtless a wake up call to banks to scale up their customer service to survive in a milieu of growing competition and cost cutting.

Chennai

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