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Business Standard

The dawn-to-dusk West Bengal Bandh called by the Congress on Tuesday to protest the alleged murder of one of its student wing members by Trinamool Congress (TMC) members had its share of drama when state Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury took off his shirt and dared the police to open fire at him. Reacting to the incident later, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said taking off one's shirt could get one television and print footage, but one must bear in mind that what suited former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly didn't suit everyone else. Banerjee was referring to a 2002 incident when Ganguly took off his jersey in wild celebration after India trounced England in the NatWest series final at Lord's.

WB Congress' 'Ganguly moment'

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is engaged in a war of words with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has jumped onto the 'DNA' bandwagon. After watching a special screening of the movie Manjhi: The Mountain Man, based on the life of a poor labourer who carved a path through a mountain in Bihar using a hammer and chisel, Kejriwal said that with the Bihar Assembly polls round the corner, everyone should watch the film to know what the 'DNA' of Bihar was made of. Incidentally, the chief ministers of Delhi and Bihar have met several times in recent weeks in a show of solidarity against common rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Kejriwal hosted Nitish Kumar at a function in Delhi on Wednesday. He had earlier said the Aam Aadmi Party would not field candidates in Bihar to ensure that the anti-BJP vote was not split.

Friend in need

Losses at a standalone level meant no dividend for Tata Motors shareholders this year. Some of them openly expressed disappointment at a recent annual general meeting even as one of them tried drawing the attention of Wadia Group Chairman Nusli Wadia, who is on the Tata Motors board. "Why don't you advise them (Tata Motors management) on this," he asked. "Britannia's share price is at Rs 3,500. On the other hand, we do not have dividend this year and the share price is also disappointing," he rued. "It (dividend) will come, have patience," came Wadia's quick response.

Divided over dividend

Apropos the report, "Chinese recession is the biggest tail-risk to global markets: BofA-ML survey" (August 19), the injection of a huge amount of liquidity into global economies after 2008 had built up enormous capacity additions that have  now become a drag.China's growth plunge and yuan devaluation are only a measure of its desperation to push exports up in the face of reduced domestic demand and stock pile-ups. This is part of the bigger picture: The US is unable to generate demand, India cannot step up supply due to poor growth of the infra sector, the euro zone is wrestling with unresolved structural issues that have been present since its inception and South American nations are facing high inflation levels with huge fiscal deficits.The past four decades show that high oil prices had been coterminous with a surge in global economy. At the zenith of global well-being in 2007, oil was at $147; now it is at the sub-$50 level. The story of other commodities is no different, portendin

Letters: Chain reaction

With reference to the report, "Reforms plan fires PSU bank stocks" (August 18), Indradhanush, the seven-point plan for revamping public sector banks, is welcome. I am a product of the early 1990s' banking reforms - I shifted to then new banking entity UTI Bank (later renamed Axis Bank) in 1995. It has been an amazing journey working with Axis Bank for 20 years. Being part of its spiralling growth and progressive vision has been a pilgrimage for me.Indradhanush is bound to benefit public sector and private sector banks and will soon gear them up for significant growth. The setting up of a bank boards bureau is in line with the recommendations of the P J Nayak Committee. Such a bureau will offer a well-organised shot towards governance of public sector banks.N K Bakshi   AhmedabadLetters 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

Letters: Good move

With reference to financial services secretary Hasmukh Adhiya's interview in this newspaper on August 17, he said that managing directors and chief executive officers of 16 public sector banks (PSB) would be appointed from within these banks only and not from the private sector.Merely appointing a private sector professional as the head of a PSB will not usher in a turnaround in the that bank's performance.In fact, such a move could be counterproductive as the 'outsider' would not have much idea about the constraints faced by the PSB. To bring about a turnaround in PSBs' performance, there has to be a change in the way these banks function. For that to happen, the government needs to distance itself from the day-to-day operations of PSBs and give them autonomy like private sector banks.Sagar Soni   GandhinagarLetters 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 let

Letters: Change from within

Campaign may be exceeding acceptable boundaries

Flak over OROP

Building on successes of PM's trip to the UAE

Partnering the Emirates

Whistle-blowers often complain about the immense pressure brought to bear on them, but Anand Rai, the Indore-based doctor who blew the lid off the Vyapam (Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board) scam, has found a reason to smile. He posted images of a cheque of Rs 31,900, which he had received as honorarium from a news channel for participating in some of its panel discussions, on his Facebook page. The accompanying message read, "Thx NDTV for honorarium..varna Shivraj ji ne to ghar hi baithta diya tha [Thanks NDTV for this honorarium; more so because (Chief Minister) Shivraj Singh Chouhan has rendered me jobless]." After he lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation against senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union minister Vikram Verma, Rai was shunted from Indore to Dhar district. Two weeks before that, his wife, a gynaecologist, was shifted from Mhow, a suburb of Indore, to Ujjain.

Cheques and balances

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which has posted losses for some years now, has suddenly become the darling of private operators. Industry insiders said it was in advanced discussions with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio for spectrum sharing. This prompted other private telecom operators to send feelers to BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava requesting a fair hearing before signing up with Reliance Jio. Commenting on these developments, a senior official in the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology simply said BSNL was "an eligible bride" with many suitors.

BSNL, the 'bride'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Monday evening speech at a Dubai cricket stadium got a huge response not only from the Indian community in the United Arab Emirates, but also from Pakistani nationals and that country's TV channels. A Pakistani channel enquired if it could get live 'clean feed' of the speech. It was told it would get the feed free of cost. The channel later decided to air excerpts of the speech, recorded by its own crew, in its news bulletins. In recent months, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) foreign policy cell has issued instructions to local organisers of the PM's events overseas to not charge money for 'clean feed' to local channels. The decision to spell out the telecast rules was taken after organisers demanded $5,000 from TV channels that wanted to telecast Modi's speech at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto in April. At that time, BJP leaders had to step in and convince the organisers to provide the feed free.

Free feed

With reference to the report, "How SBI's super six puts its house in order" (August 18), while it is heartening that the efforts of State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya are yielding results in reducing the gross non-performing assets (NPA) of the bank, this should be read along with her statement that sourcing of new loans as well as monitoring of existing assets are key to this.The percentage of gross NPAs could be a misleading figure as this depends on the new assets added to the books. If one looks at SBI's actual NPA figure, it can be seen that the decrease in gross NPAs from March 2015 to June 2015 is only Rs 304 crore. Considering that Rs 56,725 crore was identified as NPAs in March 2015, the reduction in gross NPAs is less than one per cent of the bank's total NPAs.It is high time the bank gave equal importance to new businesses booked while maintaining the quality of its existing assets and reviewing its performance periodically. The quality of assets shoul

Letters: Read between the lines

Given the complex legal and procedural aspects of the goods and services tax (GST), the revenue secretary's confidence in rolling out the legislation from April 2016 seems unrealistic.First, the constitutional amendment bill is yet to be passed by both Houses of Parliament. Once passed, the bill would have to ratified by more than 50 per cent of the state legislatures. Only then  would the legislative processes for enactment of a comprehensive GST law and procedure follow.Before passing such a law, the draft legislation should be circulated for suggestions among all the stakeholders - including the departments that would be in charge of enforcing GST - followed by country-wide seminars for discussing not only the broad contours but also the nitty-gritty of the proposed law.S K Choudhury   BengaluruLetters 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 ha

Letters: Let's not be hasty

Apropos the editorial, "Seven steps forward" (August 17), perhaps for the first time after 1993 - when the PV Narsimha Rao government took bold steps to revive the  economy - a host of measures have been initiated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to make public sector banks (PSB) more efficient.PSBs should be given more autonomy so that they know their strengths and are able to identify niche areas, devise strategies to build up their strengths and remain focused on goals.It is fine that the government has decided to go for capital infusion. But the quantum of capital infusion proposed is inadequate, considering the PSBs' requirements over the next four years to ensure regulatory compliance with Basel III norms and funding for their business expansion plans. Possibly, the entire capital would go towards mitigating non-performing loans and stressed assets and cleaning up the balance sheets of PSBs.PSBs will need more capital for expanding their balance sheet size. It is esti

Letters: Restructure PSBs

The mobile application of Axis Bank, the country's third largest private sector lender, has fared better than other mobile banking applications, says a Forrester report. The applications were rated on the basis of range of touch points, enrolment and login, account information, transactional functionality, service features, cross-channel guidance, and marketing and sales. Though the apps score well on other parameters, they lag in marketing and sales and servicing features. The report said the country's smartphone base increase from about 220 million in 2014 to 870 million in 2019, thus giving a boost to mobile banking. Here's how the apps fared:

Axis Bank mobile app tops other banks: Forrester

RAGHURAM RAJANGovernor, Reserve Bank of IndiaWe are examining the new version of the Indian Financial Code and we will offer out views on it. Without examining the details, I do not want to comment. But it seems the direction indeed (on the report) is in the right direction. We never said that there should not be any process by which RBI decisions can be appealed. But we were worried about excessive oversight, trying to second-guess regulatory decisions as well as policy decisions.C RANGARAJANFormer governor, RBI & former chairman, PMEAC*I think that mandating the RBI governor to limit Consumer Price Index-based inflation in a certain zone and not giving RBI a majority in the committee are inconsistent. If there is an RBI majority in the committee, there is no question of a veto. In any MPC, a majority of members should be chosen by RBI. RBI will have difficulty in keeping its accountability to keep inflation within a zone if it does not have a majority in the committee.*PMEAC stan

Experts' take on financial code 2.0

PM's plan & innovative ventures belong to different worldsIn his Independence Day address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a "Start-up India" programme, under which 125,000 bank branches in the country will finance as many start-ups so that 125,000 tribal and Dalit entrepreneurs can come up. What is more, the bank branches can finance as many women entrepreneurs too. Thus, a whole range of new entrepreneurs can come up in the country, each employing one to four persons. This "Start-up India", the PM informed the nation would lead to a "Stand-up India".Certainly, the goal is laudable. And it is the duty of a leader to think out of the box. But the proposed programme raises many questions.  The first question is whether such a programme sits well with the government's desire to professionalise the management of public sector banks (PSBs). After all, it has just announced a seven-point programme to that end. How can a professional management tasked to bring do

Directed lending vs start-ups

NSAs won't work miracles, but meeting is useful

Lowering expectations

DNA seems to be the hottest buzzword in Bihar ahead of the state Assembly polls. First, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while attacking Nitish Kumar at a rally in Muzaffarpur on July 25, said there was "some problem with (Chief Minister) Nitish Kumar's DNA", referring to his frequent change of political allegiance. Kumar took umbrage and described the remark as an "insult" to the people of Bihar and decided to send the PM DNA samples of the state's electorate. Now, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has thrown his hat into the ring and alleged at a press conference last week that the "DNA" of the pre-poll alliance of the Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress is "dhoka (deceit), nautanki (drama) and ahankar (arrogance)".

More on DNA

Last week, China's central bank, People's Bank of China, devalued the yuan by about two per cent last Tuesday last - the biggest one-off devaluation in 20 years. This will likely impact Indian micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) engaged in foreign trade (i.e. exports and imports). CRISIL has analysed the performance of about 6,900 Indian MSMEs rated on the basis of their 2013-14 (financial year April 1 to March 31) financials, of which about 425 are engaged in foreign trade.Nearly 55 per cent of CRISIL-rated MSME exporters operate in industries such as engineering, textiles, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and chemicals & drugs, and the yuan devaluation means these will face increased competition from Chinese players. Also, industrial machinery, construction material, gems & jewellery, electronics, and chemicals & drugs accounted for 73 per cent of CRISIL-rated MSME importers. Imports are expected to become expensive because of rupee depreciation vis-à-vis the U

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