Offering freebies is insult to today’s women
Offering free public transport to women by the Delhi State government headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a poll gimmick before elections. This is an insult and disrespect to the fair sex who are being used in dirty politics by the Chief Minister who is trying to woo women voters with freebies when he has nothing to show by way of achievements during his tenure. We are today living in an era of equality and women in no way are inferior to men. Services that come without cost are not just unreliable but undesirable as well. Security for women is a major concern in Delhi and free transport would mean compromising on safety as security services costs a lot of money.
Mumbai doesn’t need such gimmicks and people would rather prefer to pay for their travel but expect quality commuting in the bargain. Politicians should behave rationally and election tantrums to please voters should be avoided as citizens have become educated today. People expect good governance and not freebies as the parliamentary elections just gone by is an example where leaders who gave false promises were rejected by the people.
S.N. Kabra
Abolition of bank charges a right step
The Reserve Bank of India has taken a practical step in right direction by waiving bank-charges for Real Time Gross Settlement RTGS and National Electronic Funds Transfer. It is noteworthy that money-transfer through cheque-clearing costs much costlier to banks than electronic-transfer of RTGS and NEFT. To further encourage cashless transactions, transaction-charges on payments received through credit or debit cards should be totally abolished. Banks issuing credit-cards can be compensated by government through funds saved by abolition of various incentives announced at time of demonetisation on November 8, 2016 like on purchase of petrol-diesel through cards. It is also time to abolish penalty for not having some stipulated Minimum-Balance in banks at a time when government encourages even zero-balance accounts.
Cashless-transactions can be further encouraged by imposing cash-withdrawal limit for individuals to say rupees 48,000 per month and by introducing seven-day working of all banks for twelve hours daily in two shifts by giving bank-employees two weekly holidays by rotation like is being done even presently by some smaller banks of private-sector.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Reduction in repo rates should be passed to existing loan takers
Reserve Bank of India has announced further cut in repo-rate to 5.75-per cent making it lowest since the year 2010. However banks and Non-Banking-Financial-Companies luring new loan-takers by offering competitive lower interest-rates, is not passing benefit of reduced repo-rate to existing loan-takers. RBI should make it compulsory for all banks and NBFCs to pass on benefit of lower interest-rates because of cut in repo-rate to existing loan-takers without being asked for.
It is also time to discourage loan-business by imposing a total ban on financing of NBFCs by banks. It is not fair that NBFCs are financed by banks for money-lending business instead of banks directly giving loans without involving NBFCs as middle-agencies. There should be a total ban on telephone-calls encouraging people to avail loans. Foreclosure-charges on every type of loan should be totally abolished to allow loan-takers happy exit from loans. It should be ensured that interest-rates for education-loan should be lowest even lower than that for home-loans.
Some highest limit of interest-rate should be fixed for loans either by banks or private individuals, firms, agencies etc. Even abnormally high interest-rate of about 48-per cent per annum on credit-card defaults or accepting provision of boldly-written Minimum-Amount-Payable on credit-card statements should be covered by suggested highest interest-rates.
Madhu Agrawal
Maharashtra is facing severe drought
Maharashtra state is in the grip of drought and it is better than late that both Uddhav Thackeray and Aaditya Thackeray have decided to visit drought hit areas in the state. The state is facing drought situation with over 75 per cent hit by severe drought due to lack of monsoon rains for the last five years. There will be no dearth of issues for the state government in this peculiar situation. In these districts, the yield in 141255 hectares was badly hit as the rain was below average. Apart from that Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Jalgaon, Dhule, Satara and Sangli are suffering for decades and this year the situation is becoming bad to worse. It is time to rush up aid and Sena the coalition partner of BJP in Maharashtra must act swiftly. The mission by Sena leaders may yield fruitful results if the aid reaches farmers in time.
Chitra Rugmini
Today’s Hindi films lack substance
These days, Hindi films have little substance. They are full of sex and violence. Gone are the days when we had good productions such as Aar Paar, Howrah Bridge, Chalti ka Naam Gaadi, Prem Kahani, Gharonda, Geet Gaata Chal, Do Phool, Rajnigandha and Chhoti Si Baat.
Jubel D’Cruz
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
