Letters to the Editor
This refers to your cover story on the dairy market (The 80,000-crore Milk Market, June 5). The value-added products market has exploded exponentially over the past few years. The journey of the "utterly butterly delicious" Amul - as I remember - towards becoming the biggest cooperative movement is quite interesting to read. Being the largest producer of milk and dairy products in the world, India has experienced tremendous growth in per capita availability of milk over the past five years. Also, it is a proud moment for the unorganised sector, comprising small farmers, which accounts for a major share of the Indian dairy products market. Kudos to the BT team for bringing out such a nice analytical piece on this white gold. - Namita P., Faridabad
Precious Commodity
This refers to your article on water (The Economics of Water, May 22). Today, the water situation across the country is very grim. Let us wake up to the harsh reality of the situation and take expeditious steps to preserve and conserve this precious commodity. Nature has given us everything in abundance, but unfortunately we have not learnt to respect it. Now water is, more or less, a free commodity that must change to full-cost recovery. A good monsoon is necessary every year but excessive dependence on it is not desirable. The government has the onerous responsibility to build adequate infrastructure to prevent water scarcity. If the BJP government is successful in completing the project, it will be the biggest achievement for the party. No doubt its credibility and image will be enhanced further. - Srinivasan Umashankar, Nagpur
Posing a Terror Threat?
This refers to your story titled The Economics of Water. Off and on we keep reading disturbing media reports like "Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war", "Will water supplies provoke World War III", "The next big wars will be fought over water", hinting that the next World War could definitely be over water. Indeed, water scarcity is a global issue and needs to be top priority for governments across the world. Sometime ago, there was a media headline: "Now, a machine that produces water out of thin air?". Eureka Forbes was reportedly test-marketing a product which, when commercially rolled out, would be the first air-water generator in India. This is the first time such a product is being indigenously built. While the company did not indicate the investment behind the project or the cost of the machine it proposes to launch, industry sources say it is likely to be priced at `90,000-1,00,000 a unit, if benchmarked against similar products available in the West. Globally, air-water generators are available for $1,500-2,000 a unit, depending on the sophistication of the technology and the amount of water it can produce. So, in short, problems are there but then innovative solutions need to be found to avert future wars. - J.S. Broca, New Delhi
Growing Cyber Crime
This refers to your article on data security (Sitting Ducks, May 22). Experts are of the view that cyber thieves have ditched their old ways of making money - stealing credit card numbers and bank account credentials - in favour of ransomware. Hackers encrypt computers or critical files until you pay a ransom to unlock them. Malvertising is another popular method where malware gets delivered into the advertisers' network. Recently, The New York Times was struck with this. In another instance, hackers broke into the Los Angeles Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center's servers and demanded $3.6 million in bitcoin. In this age of digital information, we mostly leave our digital footprints all over the place leading to a possible hacking. We need to pre-empt this emerging cyber threat on a priority basis to ensure safe networks. - H.N. Ramakrishna, Bangalore
Send all your comments to: editor.bt@intoday.com
