RBI and letter
It is for the first time in the history of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and for that reason any central bank, that the Governor of the RBI has said that the RBI’s communication to the Government for missing inflation targets and charting out details on when it is likely to achieve the target of 4% (against the prevailing mark of 7%, which is only expected to go up further), will not be available to the public (“RBI says letter to govt. on missing inflation target not to be made public”, September 30). With the repo rate having been raised by 190 bps within a very short period of four months (which is unprecedented) and the rupee against the dollar moving fast to touch the 90 mark (despite the RBI’s repeated interventions to stabilise the fast weakening rupee at the cost of India’s forex reserves), it becomes understandable why the RBI wants to keep its letter away. Perhaps the RBI wants, or wanted, to be blunt in detailing the real reasons for the sorry state of affairs in the country.
Tharcius S. Fernando,
Chennai
‘Study tours’
Readers, especially in Kerala, are quite baffled to read about Ministers in the Kerala government going abroad on study tours! The State is deep in the red as far as finances are concerned, with no money to pay even Kerala State Road Transport Corporation staff. One has not come across governments in other States, both near and far, sending their Ministers on ‘study tours’ on some pretext or other. The ruling party is supposed to be the poor man's party. Are not such tours an additional financial burden?
Sivadasan N.,
Azhikode, Kerala
Breakfast scheme
The article, “Is TN’s breakfast scheme populist or pertinent? (OpEd, October 4), took me back to my school days. My formal schooling began in 1944. As my father was in a transferable government job, I studied at the government high school, Balia, government jubilee school, Lucknow, government high school, Mathura and government inter-college, Faizabad — all in Uttar Pradesh. Due to the issue of war financing, the government was on a massive austerity drive and there was strict food grain rationing right up to 1947 and thereafter. Though the British did not need votes to remain in power, we were still given, as a mid-day meal, roasted, boiled and sprouted gram, every day of the week. No one, including the media of the day, ever termed it as freebies or populist, or questioned it as being pertinent.
Rajan Ugra,
Bengaluru
