Height of hypocrisy

Having witnessed the way Prime Minister Modi repeatedly insulted the farmers from Tamil Nadu and other States who demonstrated in Delhi for almost a year seeking relief by refusing to meet them even once and also using police force, one wonders how Modi could declare in Odisha that his party’s focus is on the farm sector. Given the Vyapam scam, Lalit Modi fiasco, and the multi-crore rice scam in Chhattisgarh, all during BJP’s rule, it is an irony that Modi is calling the Naveen Patnaik government corrupt. It is not the Congress that is duping farmers but the BJP that has gone back on its election promises to the poor farmers.

Chennai

With reference to ‘Band-aid or not, farm loan waivers count’, despite being a stop gap arrangement, we know that farm loan waivers do help our farmers . And till the time our politicians do not start thinking out of the box for a more comprehensive and long-lasting solutions to our agriculture problems, we have to live with this approach. Because of oversupply of onions, prices have dropped drastically in Lasalgaon, the biggest onion market in India. Farm loan waivers have become flavour of the season and will remain so till next year’s general elections and we can only hope that it helps farmers’ financial health. But the time has come to improve the supply chains, provide quality inputs and offer better prices to farmers’ produce.

Noida

“Pay packet blues” (December 25) presents an interesting picture while comparing pay and pay hike of top management in India with that of US. One survey showed that the variable pay component of total compensation for them here is rather low. In family-managed companies promoters count among the highest paid in the country. They have a defining say in the selection of independent directors and remuneration committee and this paves the way for high salary.

This is not to detract the need for higher pay to them for their pains and risks but to sound a note of caution so that there is equity between their earnings and those of their workforce whose efforts equally contribute to profits.

Pune

Citing the reason of national security, the Centre recently empowered 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer in the country. No doubt, it is a retrograde step considering the grave implications it would have on fundamental right to freedom including the right to freedom of speech and privacy guaranteed by our Constitution to all the citizens of the country.

The apprehensions raised by many that the Centre’s proposed move would only enable the state authorities to have a unhindered snooping of its people are not unfounded. Securing and protecting national security is of paramount importance for the state authorities, but it should be done without trampling upon the right to freedom of speech and privacy.

Sholavandan (TN)

With reference to ‘KCR calls on Mamata, Patnaik to build consensus for Federal Front’ (December 25), it goes without saying that the latest attempts of the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to forge a non-Congress and non-BJP front in the run up to the next Lok Sabha elections, could largely be a tactical move to carve out political space locally apart from keeping their power centric hopes ‘alive’ at the national level.

While Rao has been quite vocal to find an alternative to the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA but the fact also remains that the Congress-led ‘Mahagathbandhan’ which also includes both theTDP and TMC, may eventually shatter his astute game plan.

One just shudders to imagine the rationale behind all such self-serving and need based political ‘hobnobbing’ even in the midst of their well known ideological differences and more significantly, their (universally acceptable) leadership crises.

New Delhi

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