Readers' forum

Fortune in Farms
Betting on Farms (BT cover, August 8) points to the shift in agriculture. Greater diversity of products, large investments and creation of infrastructure like cold storage and refrigerated transportation, etc. are bringing about structural changes in the sector, which is now set to make an even bigger leap with the help of IT and biotech.

— Vineet Madhukar, Delhi.

Towards Greener Pastures
Supply-demand mismatch of agri products is pushing prices northward. As your story points out, price increases will enhance the profitability of agriculture and spur money to flow into the sector. But arable land is limited in supply. So it makes good business sense for Indian companies to buy land overseas — around Oromia and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Port Sudan, Khartoum and Suwakin in Sudan, and Nairobi in Kenya — where land is still cheap.

— Alok Rai, Chennai

Farm Fallacy
The views Betting on Farms offers cut too close to the thinking of the government and corporates. As a result, the views are skewed because you have intentionally or unwittingly mixed up what is good for business and what is good for India (not the same thing necessarily). For instance, cold storage is not the only answer to prevent food wastage. But it is a sure way to create business opportunity, increase costs of produce and spike consumption of fossil fuels. Agriculture offers great business opportunities but we should ensure those opportunities help our small and marginal farmers.

— Karan Manral

Tax Travails
E-filing of tax returns is undoubtedly a blessing (The Easy Way to File Tax Returns, BT, July 25). But one comes across certain difficulties when trying to take print-outs of online forms for paper filing. The number of printed pages are much in excess of the actual number of pages online. For example, Form IV, which shows 20 pages online, adds up to 36 pages when printed. The IT department should fix this software design glitch.

— Mahesh Kapasi, Delhi

Corrections & Clarifications
We are grateful for your story Getting a Handle on Poverty (BT, July 25), which highlights the model developed by “Hand in Hand”. The story mentions Percy Barnevik as the founder of Hand in Hand. However, the organisation was started by three locals in 2002 and not by Barnevik as reported. Hand in Hand appreciates the great support Mr Barnevik is lending it as a major donor and but for his strategic guidance and support, we would not have reached the scale of operation we have achieved in this short span of five years.

— Kalpana Sankar, CEO, Hand in Hand

In the BT-Nasscom Roundtable (July 25), the designation of Raman Roy should have been Chairman and Managing Director, Quattro BPO Solutions.