When a slew of questions on fuel price hike by the government was raised at a Cabinet briefing earlier this week, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad chided reporters, telling them to ask "better" questions when the economy was "booming"."The Indian economy is booming, and you do not have any questions on that," he asked. "You seem to be concerned only with fuel price hike." The economy grew at 7.9 per cent in the March quarter of 2015-16 and the government achieved the fiscal deficit target of 3.9 per cent of gross domestic product in FY16, although private investment remained sluggish and doubts loom over the quality of data.

Good times, bad questions

Business Standard

Football tournament displays racial diversity

Euro 2016 vs Europe

The problems with moving the Centre's offices

Housing the government

Fighting the apps

The killing of Congolese citizen Masonda Kitanda Olivier in Delhi last month - followed by random attacks on African nationals in the capital - exposed, like nothing else, the inconvenient truth of the racism embedded in the social outlook of most ordinary Indians. The death of the 23-year-old Congolese is a sinister but extreme example; Africans who come to study and work in India complain of discrimination and slights on an almost daily basis. Some 30,000 Africans study in Indian universities around the country, yet they remain the eternal outsiders. Nor is this attitude restricted to the ordinary citizenry; the Aam Aadmi Party's then law minister Somnath Bharti's reprehensible leadership of a midnight raid on African women last year and the Goa chief minister's recent statement that Nigerians were a "problem" demonstrate that the attitude cuts across the political class too. The death of Masonda Olivier proved especially embarrassing because it occurred just months after a massively

Race to the bottom

As the AgustaWestland helicopter bribery case occupies the headlines, the question of how the defence procurement system should react to such accusations has become even more pressing. Under the defence minister in the previous, United Progressive Alliance, government, a particular method was used: the blacklisting of any company accused of bribery. Perhaps the motivation for this was understandable, given the political sensitivity of defence bribery accusations. However, it rapidly became clear that it is a blunt tool - and, furthermore, one which if used at length will seriously compromise India's national security. Consider the case of India's newest range of submarines, being produced under what is called Project 75. The decision was taken to expand India's aging fleet of 13 diesel-electric submarines, many of which are long past their decommissioning dates, and which pose a threat to lives and security. Project 75 was supposed to deliver six submarines - the design would be from t

Re-examine blacklisting

The government's decision to impose Krishi Kalyan cess on services in order to help agriculture and farmers is welcome, although it has been met with ambivalence across the country

Letters: Fix the purpose of the cess

With reference to the report, "Government unhappy with public sector banks' recovery record" (June 4), the message sent to the banks just before the meeting of PSBs called by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on June 6 looks ritualistic

Letters: Restore banking health

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had turned Delhi into a garbage bin

Clean-up act

First she described Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah's recent visit to a Dalit home in Varanasi for lunch as plain nautanki (drama)

Mayawati's hunt for a cook

Historian and author Ramachandra Guha has said that elevating Rahul Gandhi to the post of Congress president is like making a player

Rahul can't be 'captain': Guha

For those present at the venue, it took a while for the penny to drop

Maneka Gandhi's effort to strengthen familial bonds

The last time Gopal Narayan Singh won a Vidhan Sabha seat was around 40 years ago

The man who pipped Sushil Modi to a Rajya Sabha seat

First it was the Swachh Bharat campaign for a clean and hygienic India, then there was the public clamour for ensuring swachh udar (clean stomach) following the revelations of health hazards emanating from processed food. Now there seems to be a swachh antaratma (clean conscience) initiative from the government attempting to stop animal testing.Efforts to substitute the despicable practice of animal testing are not new in India. Bharatnatyam dancer and animal rights activist, the late Rukmini Devi Arundale, as a private member of the Rajya Sabha introduced a Bill in 1952 for the prevention of cruelty to animals. To her credit, the Bill was enacted in 1960. In 2012, after being prevailed upon by PETA, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued guidelines to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to replace dissection and experimentation on animals for training purposes in undergraduate and postgraduate courses with computer-aided learning and simulators. In 2014, the UGC, on the int

Letters: Animal testing alternative

I agree with the views of A V Rajwade in his column, "The illusion of bank capital" (June 2). However, despite the depositor's funds turning into bad assets, it seldom induces her to withdraw the amount. So long as the majority stake rests with the government, investors and depositors are least worried about the rapidly growing bad assets and huge losses of public sector banks. The faith of depositors in state-owned banks is their backbone. As the majority stakeholder in such banks, the government is duty bound to protect the interest of depositors.While the compliance of Basel capital adequacy norms has direct bearing on the lending of banks, the acceptance of deposits is free from those norms. At a time when stressed assets are rising rapidly and profitability is decreasing, the government has to do more to protect the hard-earned money of depositors. Due to bad assets and wilful defaults, public sector banks are incurring losses. Any deterioration in the quality of deployed funds wi

Letters: Restore confidence

Apropos the report, "20 killed in massive fire at India's largest ammunition depot" (June 1), while the loss of lives is painful, the fire raises questions regarding the safety and security of our defence installations.The cause of fire is yet to be ascertained, but sabotage has not been ruled out. The memory of the Pathankot terrorist attack is still fresh. A fire incident of the sort that occurred at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon exposes the vulnerability of such installations. One way to minimise the impact of such incidents is to prevent ordinary people from encroaching into the buffer zone around defence installations.Sachin V K Jadhav   WashimLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Minimise damage

Freeloaders are having a great time piling on the goodies as the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre organises back-to-back press conferences to celebrate its two years in power. To stop gatecrashers, the government has warned that anyone not part of the canteen staff found roaming around the official canteen would be taken to task. It has also said that if someone, who is not designated to participate in an event, is caught with food or refreshments, he or she will be dealt with sternly.

Only food for work

A press briefing organised by the agriculture ministry to celebrate two years of the National Democratic Alliance government has become a talking point because of the absence of the minister's deputies. While one of the deputy ministers was engaged in assisting a candidate assigned by the Bharatiya Janata Party to file his Rajya Sabha nomination, not much is known about the whereabouts of the other minister. This elicited several queries from the people present at the event.

Where is the deputy?

Amid speculation that Rahul Gandhi would soon be elevated to the position of Congress president, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said such a development was welcome as it would only strengthen the Bharatiya Janata Party's resolve for a "Congress-mukt Bharat". Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani seemed to agree with that view. "Rahul Gandhi being elevated as Congress president means achhe din for us (BJP)," she said. The Congress dismissed the possibility of Gandhi's elevation while his mother and party chief Sonia Gandhi remained tight-lipped on the issue.

Will he, won't he?

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Top five PE deals this yearThe top five deals this year accounted for 44.3% of the total investment in terms of deal value. The largest deal has been Blackstone Advisors India investing $1,200 million in Mphasis.

A Snapshot of PE activity & deals

No sooner had Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah finished his meal at the home of one Girija Prasad Bind in Jogiyapur village of Varanasi - the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi - than his detractors made their reactions known. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav dismissed Shah's visit to a Dalit home as a charade and said that Samajwadi Party leaders didn't indulge in "such drama". Bahujan Samaj Party President and former chief minister Mayawati, too, slammed Shah, terming his visit "no less than a nautanki (drama)".

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