MyVoice is to lift up the voices and experiences

Silent protests in J&K should be viewed seriously

Though the Central government has claimed to have eased security norms and restored communication networks in the newly carved Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, reports emanating from the Valley is not all that hunky-dory.

It is known that the silent protests are still going on as a second alternative which, though seemingly indigenous in origin, may be capitalised upon and turned into a civil disobedience type of movement.

A look at the no-show or low turnout in schools and colleges after they reopened in mid-September can also extend to a coordinated negative response to government rehabilitation and welfare schemes.

The aim in this is likely to stymie the efforts at normalisation of daily life and deny livelihood at the grassroots, thus ensuring high visibility and drawing international attention without violence.

Such an outcome nullifies the use of force to tackle the situation and has portends of exponential escalation as the 'Umbrella Movement' in Hong Kong — where the silent umbrella protests ultimately escalated to full-fledged violent encounters.

Whether these silent protests can be worn down by a sustained wait and watch policy is debatable as the chances of a silent protest morphing into violence by stray events or progressive instigation by inimical forces are very high.

Vincent George, Secunderabad

Centre's unhealthy practices

This is with reference to the article 'RTI rules 2019 damages ICs badly (Oct 28).

It is sad that the Central government severely truncated the independence and autonomy of individual information commissioners within the commission by making them subordinate to the Chief Information Commissioner.

This was not actually envisaged in the original RTI Act of 2005. In the previous Act, the chief was first among equals, but now, he will act like a head of a department. This will weaken not just the commission, but also individual information commissioners.

With the promulgation of the new rules and the Centre arrogating to itself the power to change them, the federal scheme of distribution of powers as per the original RTI Act has been weakened. The States had the powers to decide the salary, perks and tenure of their commissioners.

The amended rules dilute the spirit of the original Act. The RTI regime is at a crossroads today. The rules will diminish the importance of the commissions and the commissioners.

They will dilute their authority to question senior bureaucrats for delay or obstruction in furnishing information by various departments. Information officers will also not take the orders of the commission seriously.

By making the Central Information Commissioners senior to information commissioners, every successive government would like to appoint a central information commissioner of its own, from outside.

This will lead to an unhealthy practice since, in a quasi-judicial set-up, the chief should be chosen on the basis of seniority.

Vamshi Krishna M, Hyderabad

Economic slowdown, a growing concern

As Indian economy is staring at a bleak future, just like many other economies in the world, there are certain things that should be taken into account and addressed as early as possible in order to prevent a total collapse.

At the heart are the strained banks, chiefly public, overladen with non-performing assets that festered from lack of timely resolution, inadequate recapitalisation necessary to repair and restore financial health.

Their borrower corporate counterparts still remain overleveraged as monetary policy never eased and/or transmitted sufficiently to lower interest costs.

Banks concentrated on strengthening balance sheets, lending retreated, and the credit channel blocked, aggravating the situation. The NBFCs filled the lending vacuum, rapidly stepped up loans, including for consumption; this reflects in the jump in households' liabilities in last two years.

Fiscal policy compounded this state of affairs: revenue and capital spending were sustained through extra-budgetary borrowings, which crowded out the private sector, pushed up interest rates and negated monetary policy.

As a result, the corporate debt overhang persists; indebtedness now extends to households; both banks and non-banks are strained; and fresh NPAs have again begun to accrue. The fact is the economy never emerged from the 2012-13 slowdown.

The lapses and errors prevented creation of an alternate virtuous cycle, for example, exploitation of windfall oil revenues to recapitalise banks earlier in 2015-16, restore their health and lending, restrain off-budget borrowing expansion to open space and ease interest rates for private investments.

Finally, the most serious consequence is the severity of the current demand collapse — this is characterised by significant falls in both investment and consumption.

A Vijaya, Visakhapatnam