This refers to ‘Women, uninterrupted’ by Poornima Joshi (September 28). If the chief proctor can take a moral stand and quit why cannot the vice-chancellor? What a pity that the Prime Minister had to intervene and ask the chief minister about the incident, and the police have still not recorded the victim's statement. We can not let our women down.
Bal Govind
Noida, Uttar Pradesh
The GDP story
If we look at GDP trends in the liberalisation era, it can be seen that whenever economic reforms were introduced, the GDP initially showed declining trends followed by recovery and exceeded the earlier level in a few quarters. This is because all major economic reforms have the tendency to significantly impact or break or modify certain established paradigms. Consequently a new pattern will take time to fall in place. Naturally the GDP will shrink.
Two revolutionary economic reforms — demonetisation and GST — happened within a short span of seven months (in less than three quarters). Their impact is anyone’s guess. No wonder GDP growth took a reversal in the first quarter of FY 2017-18.
N Vijayagopalan
Thiruvananthapuram
Heed Sinha’s warning
The NDA Government will do well to take seriously the strong observations of Yashwant Sinha (’Congress back Sinha’s take on economy, BJP plays it down’, September 28). The fall in exports, investments, industrial production and steep decline in employment are palpable. The Government should not pretend not to notice the writing on the wall. The economy is not limping, its actually treading backwards.
The priority of BJP, it seems, is to bring as many States as possible under its belt which distracts governance at all levels. The common man put up with the after-effects of demonetisation solely on the PM’s assertion that it would weed out black money. Not only was the objective not achieved, it put back the economy by years. GST is at a nascent stage of implementation. The Government should not allow it to become a disaster. Sinha’s outburst should serve as a wake-up call to tone up the administration.
V Subramanian
Chennai
The services angle
Our economy is much more dependent on consumer spending than on demand for exports. India is a services and consumer-driven economy looking to step up spending on infrastructure and boost manufacturing output but the need of the hour is to realise that growth without development is unsustainable and that is why India is experiencing jobless growth.
Vinod C Dixit
Ahmedabad
The hungry must starve
This refers to ‘A very hungry, and angry, world’ by Jinoy Jose P (The Cheat Sheet, September 28). There are many collaborative forums at the international level that regulate trade, economic affairs, promote peace and space research, and protect the welfare of people. They receive abundant financial support, except for those safeguarding underprivileged children.
In India, 14 out of every 100 people are still undernourished but still we try to monetise all our foodstuff by way of export. While most of the world sets aside huge sums for space research and defence, it fails to avert the internal threat of famine.
S Lakshminarayanan
Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu
Tough for women
If a male head honcho says “I gave zero time to my wife, no time to my children” (September 27), then you can imagine what his female counterparts must be dealing with! Back in 2014, Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsico, said she “dies with guilt” over the compromises she makes to balance her career with family life. The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, remarked, “There's no such thing as work-life balance. There’s work, and there’s life, and there’s no balance.”
What’s the way out? Nooyi says, “If you don’t develop mechanisms with your secretaries, with the extended office, with everybody around you, it cannot work.”
CV Krishna Manoj
Hyderabad
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