Dollar’s uncertainty must go
Riding quietly on the back of a dramatic reduction of key rates, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan also outlined the framework for easing the limit on foreign institutional holdings of government notes that are to be now denominated in rupees instead of dollars. The cap will be raised in phases to 5% of outstanding debt by March 2018 and that the increase will help attract 1.2 trillion rupees of additional investment. That said, the global economy has been unsettled by violent and unpredictable fluctuations in most major currencies. This has brought international trade and financial investment to its knees. The dollar, which has been on the edge far too long because of the US Fed lingering on increasing rates, needs to find stability fast and the sooner the Fed revises its rate, the earlier cross-currency instability will abate and a much-needed equilibrium be reached. Lower domestic rates and even a liberalised the bond market may not provide the desired upsurge to our economy so long as the reserve currency, the dollar, rides an uncertain tide.
R Narayanan, Ghaziabad
India’s poison pill
There is no greater threat for mankind today than that of available medicines failing to cure a disease. So, apropos of your edit “Spreading resistance”, India does need to slow down on antibiotic consumption. A great part of the blame must lie with self-prescription that is common in India and the tendency to not complete the course. That has helped hospital-borne infections, with superbugs, to become all too common. In fact, India, in the recent years, had to bear the ignominy of being the country of origin of NDM-1, an enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to a class of antibiotics.
Prahlad Bhasin
Mumbai