Break the flow

Sir — Tens of thousands of rubber ducks were splashed into the Chicago river at the city’s annual Duck Derby recently. People can adopt a duck and watch it race down the river. All proceeds will go towards the Special Olympics Illinois. In 1992, a shipping crate containing 28,000 plastic bath toys was lost at sea when it fell overboard on its way from Hong Kong to the United States. None could have guessed that those same bath toys would still be floating in the world’s oceans nearly 20 years later. One wonders if there is no better way to raise money for charity than to dump more plastic into the world’s waterbodies.

Roshni Sen, Calcutta

Strong connection

Sir — The auction of telecommunications spectrum for fifth-generation network services drew bids exceeding a record 1.5 lakh crore rupees. This is a clear sign that the telecom industry is on the path to recovery. Unsurprisingly, Reliance Jio emerged as the top bidder, acquiring 48 per cent of the airwaves for over Rs 88,000 crore. Bharti Airtel bid just under half that amount for 39 per cent of the spectrum sold, while the debt-laden Vodafone-Idea came in a distant third by committing close to Rs 19,000 crore for about 12 per cent of the spectrum.

In an interesting development, the deep-pocketed and aggressively-expanding Adani Group made its first foray into the telecom space by successfully bidding for a very small but targeted quantum of spectrum — ostensibly for captive use — in the highly sought after 26 GHz band that is considered ideal for 5G services. The results of this auction will decide how India connects over the next decade.

U.K. Ganguly, Raichur

Sir — The 5G telecom spectrum bids were disappointing. While Jio cornered most of the airwaves on sale, much of what was on offer was wasted. The high reserve price set by the government dampened enthusiasm for certain spectrum bands. While the 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bandwidths were snapped up at the reserve price in several service areas, the 600 MHz was left untouched, and 60 per cent of the 700 MHz spectrum remained unsold. The latter is ideal for rural connectivity as well as signal penetration inside buildings in urban areas. If spectrum is a precious national resource, the government would do well to not let it lie unused and instead price it in an optimal manner to ensure that both the exchequer and the public at large, including in remote rural corners, benefit.

Arindam Chatterjee, Calcutta

Sir — The near-term impact of 5G will be the premiumisation and de-bottlenecking of networks, especially in big cities, riding on the enhanced mobile broadband applications of 5G. If one takes a three-to-five-year view of 5G, new applications relying on massive machine type and low-latency communication could evolve, especially for industries.

Sohail Mohammed, Berhampore

Drowned out

Sir — In September 2014, the Kashmir Valley witnessed its worst ever floods in which over 300 people were killed and property worth crores was damaged. Soon after, the Centre sanctioned a plan for the comprehensive flood management of the Jhelum river and its tributaries. The project was funded through the Prime Minister’s Development Package and divided into two phases. An amount of Rs 399 crore was sanctioned for the first phase, which is yet to be completed. But all through June and July, Kashmir was at risk of flooding, with yellow alerts being issued more than once. Where, then, did the money go?

Fiza Drabu, New Delhi

Sir — The Central government made a mistake by dredging the upper reaches of the Jhelum in Jammu and Kashmir first. This made Srinagar more vulnerable to floods.

Aditya Mukherjee, Calcutta