VSNL privatisation
The entire IT industry is waiting with bated breath for the VSNL deregularisation process to be completed in April 2002. The privatisation of this PSU and the increased competition that this will ensure would mean a drastic reduction in telecom rates. Almost all industries, IT as well as others will benefit from this process. It’s high time that the government decided to privatise the domestic telecom industry as well. A good communication infrastructure is absolutely essential to further the growth of a country. India needs to emulate the model of other developed nations where state-of-the-art infrastructure is available at highly affordable prices.

Soma Chatterjee
Kolkata

Online share trading in India
This is with reference to your article, ‘Will online share trading ever take off in India?’ (EC December 10, 2001). We still haven’t reached that level of consumer awareness in India where we can expect people to conduct transactions over the Web without feeling apprehensive about the safety aspect and the dotcom meltdown hasn’t helped much in the way of enthusing confidence. As the article says, people still prefer the touch and feel method to conducting transactions over the Net. It goes on to say that ‘balancing a technology-centric approach to transactions with the human touch factor will be a key factor in making the transition to e-broking’. But the article doesn’t make clear how this balancing between the two can be achieved. I think the article should also have focussed on what can be done to change the current scenario and how one should go about doing it.

Sunil Deshmukh
Pune

ATM growth
The article ‘ATM growth set to explode in India’ (EC December 10, 2001), provided an exhaustive coverage of the ATM market in India. It has traced the growth of ATMs right from its humble inception to the gargantuan proportions it has achieved today. The growth of the ATM mode of banking has been hugely responsible for the change in attitude towards banking as a whole. Once voice-based ATM machines hit the market, it will change the whole concept of banking in India.

Prakash Narayanan
Chennai

WTO: A lost battle
Apropos your article ‘India sketches on thin ice in WTO over IT issues’ (EC December 17, 2001), India has supposedly come out tops at the recent WTO round in Doha. But what have we actually achieved? All those developing countries on whom India was relying for support reneged at the last moment. Our representative, minister of commerce and industry, Murasoli Maran managed to create an impasse initially. Of course, this helped in diverting world attention to some key points, which are important to India. But on the whole, increased pressure from the developed countries saw him finally giving in. Unfortunately, instead of gaining any points we have actually managed to create an impression of an obstinate country standing in the way of world progress.

Srinivas Rao
Bangalore