Privacy matters Avoid structural change
Much has been made about the impact of Aadhaar on privacy by comparing it to a “panopticon”.
However, the government has realtime data on citizens from centralised monitoring services, direct tapping into internet service providers, telecom service providers, disclosures made by social media companies and various other means. Aadhaar is simply unifying them into a central database.
We never had privacy really. Google, Facebook, WhatsApp know a lot about us. Indeed, WhatsApp encryption is a charade because it is only interested in “metadata” or “data about data” instead of message content. With WhatsApp entering the payments space, it will have more fine-grained financial data about citizens’ habits.
Privacy is a misnomer. What’s needed is a shift from social media accounts, using decentralised services and secure communication channels such as Threema and BBM Enterprise.
We are living in the Orwellian shadow. It’s time to reassert our privacy choices.
Abhishek Puri via email Perhaps, the basic flaw is Gandhi’s immature leadership.
Incidentally, whenever Gandhi turns aggressive, the government benefits. He should do his homework well before firing salvos at the government. Sadly, there is no one in the Congress to show him the right path. S Kumar New Delhi With reference to the report, “RBI proposes wholesale and long-term finance banks” (April 8) by Anup Roy and Abhijit Lele, the Reserve Bank of India discussion paper states that the cost of funds for these banks could be go up due to lack of access to savings and other retail deposits.
Raising long-term deposits and debt at competitive cost would not be easy and funding of long-term and infrastructure projects at higher interest costs could impact the economic viability of projects to be financed by the proposed banks. These banks could be subject to asset-liability mismatches, whereas commercial banks would have more flexibility in their asset-liability structure. Thus, the RBI discussion paper itself casts doubts on the viability of the proposed banks.
Such banks are operating in Europe, Brazil, Japan and South Korea, but their operations are restricted by the nature of their liabilities and assets created. Some of these institutions in the public sector have begun transitioning towards privatisation. Due to several constraints, the response of the private sector in India to the RBI’s proposal could be muted.
Post demonetisation, commercial banks in India are flush with surplus liquidity and yet private investment is not forthcoming. The current situation is, therefore, not propitious to initiate the proposed structural change. Moreover, the proposal circumvents the issue of accumulation of non-performing assets, particularly in public sector banks. The focus should be on resolution of this issue rather than floating ideas of facile structural changes in the banking sector.
Pramod Patil Nashik