Relatively taxing

That some people were accidental recipients of the income tax department's 175,000 "friendly" letters to tax defaulters is an open secret. But the results were sometimes comic. At a recent event in the capital, Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan described how those who had been paying income tax over the years were shocked to receive these letters. "I know," he grinned, "because one of them was my sister-in-law," a statement that had the audience laughing, although it certainly did highlight the random nature of the exercise.