Raising fresh hopes

Apropos 'Centre nominates DFS Secy Sanjay Malhotra as Director on RBI’s central board' (February 17), his nomination to the 21-member Central Central Board of RBI takes place in terms of Section 8 (1) (d) of the RBI Act, 1934. Malhotra was earlier the Chairman and Managing Director of REC Ltd.

It is fervently hoped Malhotra’s presence on Central Board would strengthen the RBI-Centre’s extant cordial relationship. Addedly, his appointment could amicably resolve some of the RBI’s long pending internal issues too, which mandatorily require the MoF’s approval.

Vinayak G

New Delhi

Businessmen need elbow room 

This is with reference to the column ‘Treating the businessman as a felon’ (February 17). It has rightly advocated the need to allow enough elbow room for businessmen to operate as straitjacketing them or placing hurdles in their path could stymie their efforts to get their businesses off the ground.

In a country where corporate frauds are quite common and several businessmen find themselves in the dock for a diverting bank loans, misappropriation and other malpractices what is really necessary is to adopt different yardsticks whereby businesses that conform to set norms are not penalized in any way and those that stray from the straight and narrow path are not given any leeway to indulge in unfair means to further their business interests at the cost of ethics and principles.

CV Aravind

Bengaluru

Paradigm-shifting technologies 

This refers to the article “Leveraging CSR for funding tech innovations”, (February 17). Innovation is the process by which new ideas are developed to respond to societal, environmental and economic needs.

By generating new products, services and businesses, organizational models and behavioural changes, innovation speeds up and scales up national efforts to address climate change. It is the key to implementing sustainable development goals. In India small enterprises have played an important role in technological innovation .

They often face challenges such as lack of finance. CSR if used for funding these start-ups will help entrepreneurs to transform inventions into technologies to meet the societal needs. Even the incubators and accelerators can play an important and multidimensional role in supporting new climate-resilient and low emission technologies.

P. Sundara Pandian

Virudhunagar

Separate roles

With reference to the Editorial "Voluntary reform" (February 17), the separation of chairman and MD roles has been actively debated for the last few years after submission of Kotak Committee report in 2017.

The report articulated the advantages which include: (a) providing a structural advantage for the board to act independently; (b) reducing excessive concentration of authority in a single individual; (c) clarifying the respective roles of the chairperson and the CEO/MD; (d) ensuring that board tasks are not neglected by a combined chairperson-CEO/MD due to lack of time; The arguments are still valid.

Regardless of the parentage of a company, professionalising board is essential once public shareholding and investments are allowed. The splitting of posts has worked well in banks after RBI stipulation and protecting the ownership interest should not stand in the way of professionalism. As a first step, splitting of the two posts may be implemented in companies where public shareholding exceeds a certain level. Li

M. Raghuraman

Mumbai

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