Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been unsparing in his criticism of Rahul Gandhi of late. He has slammed the Congress Vice-President not only in the Lok Sabha but also on his blogs, repeatedly bringing up what he believes to be the Gandhi scion's proclivity to speak on issues without proper understanding. On Thursday, Jaitley gave his reply to a discussion on the Finance Bill, 2016. Members in the treasury benches were intrigued that Gandhi left the Lok Sabha just as the finance minister started speaking on his budgetary proposal to impose one per cent excise duty on jewellers. Gandhi had opposed the decision and even joined jewellers in their protests. Gandhi was back in the House as Jaitley moved to other clauses of the Bill. A senior minister later wondered whether Gandhi walked out as he was apprehensive that Jaitley might ridicule him for supporting the jewellers.

Better absent than sorry

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At a "thanksgiving" event to celebrate the "success" of the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme that completed its second instalment in Delhi last month, state Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal fired a salvo straight into the Opposition fort. "First they tried to orchestrate a strike of auto-drivers but all of them are with the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) government... Then their MP (Vijay Goel) said he would do a 'civil disobedience' movement. Not a single person stood behind him... Then they resorted to setting fire in Bhalswa and Gazipur (garbage dumps). All their attempts failed," said Kejriwal.

'Failed' attempts

With reference to the editorial, "Subsidised gas" (May 5), the launch of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, an ambitious programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide subsidised liquefied petroleum gas connections to 50 million poor families, must be lauded for its intent.It's a different matter that the scheme, though aimed at reducing pollution and improving the quality of life for women in rural areas, is being portrayed as a huge political investment by the government. In any case, the proposed connections, expected to cost Rs 8,000 crore over three years, will be allotted in the names of women members of households living below the poverty line (BPL).I endorse the editorial's view that the first big challenge for the scheme would be to identify the poor households, in the absence of proper, authenticated data on the BPL population. Apart from distribution-related problems, the scheme would entail delays in reimbursement to oil companies, as the use of the Aadhaar-based direct b

Letters: Charity begins at home

A V Rajwade, in his column, "What's the logic behind tax evasion?" (May 5) wonders why people evade taxes despite the poor marginal utility of the move to seek foreign banks to deposit their savings. Could there be some non-theoretical reasons?When the wealth is earned through illicit means, taxpayers may find it difficult to explain the source of income to the authorities, though they might be willing to pay the tax. Second, they have more trust in the soundness and confidentiality retention of foreign banks.Third, as a nation, we are prone to breaking the law. One reason for this is that our laws are either too rigid or too lax or too complex to understand. India's Income Tax Act is a complicated legislation, with many provisos and exceptions. Careful filing of returns does not guarantee there won't be any litigation.Also, there is a perception that only a fraction of taxpayers' money is spent well by the government, the bulk lining the pockets of the authorities. So why squander har

Letters: Complex laws

Apropos the Chinese Whispers item, "Ramdev's cream for Lalu", (May 5), around four years ago, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad had criticised yoga guru Ramdev for addressing members of Parliament as "murderers and robbers". Now, the two have made a joint appearance before the media, hinting that the days of their bitter relations are over. Prasad even clarified that he had become a permanent brand ambassador of Patanjali Ayurved's products and added that many people were jealous of Ramdev's success.But the closeness between Prasad and Ramdev seems quite fishy, as the two of them subscribe to different political ideologies. Ramdev is a strong supporter of the Bharaitya Janata Party while Prasad joined hands with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, the Janata Dal (United).What Prasad wants to signify by strengthening ties with the yoga guru is unclear, but it surely is a salute to the "rising sun", which in this case is Patanjali's current market position. But then everythin

Letters: Foe-turned-friend

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Top five PE deals this yearThe top five deals this year accounted for 50.11 per cent of the total investment in terms of deal value. The largest deal of this year was Blackstone Advisors India investing $1,200 million in Mphasis, while India Impact Economy Innovation Fund invested $762.66 million in Jain Sons Finlease. This was followed by a $369.5 million investment by Fairfax India Holdings Corporation, Fairfax Financial Holdings, in Bangalore International Airport

A Snapshot of PE activity & deals

"The call of the Baba", I applaud the success of the Patanjali brand and have no doubt about the quality of its products

Letters: Seek more information

Joint forest management needed to prevent fires

A burning issue

Interpersonal relationship skills, motivation, communication, counselling and team-building belong in the soft skills area

Letters: Soft skills, great impact

New scheme faces many challenges, raises questions

Subsidised gas

There is the effortless and all-pervasive impost, be it 15 per cent on goods and services tax or services

Letters: Taxing times

As West Bengal goes into the sixth and last phase of Assembly elections, the chief contenders - the ruling TMC and the Left Front-Congress alliance - both declared they were confident of forming the next government

Picture of confidence

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das dismissed his Bihar counterpart's prohibition call and advised him "to mind his own business"

Nitish not welcome in Jharkhand

Yoga guru Ramdev and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad made a rare joint appearance on Wednesday, with the latter playing model for the former's Patanjali Ayurved

Ramdev's cream for Lalu

Sheldon Pollock

The anti-Pollock campaign is based on quotes stripped out of their context, marinated in prejudice and fried in reductionism before being served with a side dish of plain wrong conclusions

Letters: Battle against Pollock

Capital market regulator Sebi has mandated all mutual fund houses to disclose salaries of their top officials

PaySlips at mutual funds

ISRO's navigational system has a few more barriers to cross

The launch of Navic

Commerce ministry needs to re-examine its premises

The wood or the trees?

Incidentally, after Kejriwal was criticised for embracing Prasad, the Delhi CM had defended his anti-graft credentials saying it was the RJD chief who had "pulled"' and "hugged him"

Hug and tell

The slipper-thrower said he was angry with the state government's move to ban cooking during the day even for religious ceremonies

Nitish versus Nitish

Posters have emerged showing Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi "posing" as "Singham", the eponymous hero in a Bollywood film about an honest police inspector

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