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What could have been an alternative for SpiceJet's previous owner, Kalanithi Maran, to handing over charge of the ailing airline to its present chairman Ajay Singh? Possibly giving the job to a woman chairperson. That was what Singh, one of the panellists of the discussion, 'How women influence corporate decisions' told a gathering at Ficci on Thursday. In response to Ficci's women's wing President Archana Garodia Gupta's suggestion that keeping women in the top rungs of an organisation could boost its profit, Singh said, "If the previous owners had spoken to her (referring to Gupta) before me, SpiceJet would have been more profitable and we do want that... Then, I would not have had to take charge."

Women on top

During her recent tour of the UK, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to see the waterfront of the Thames and was quoted as saying: "We have kept the river front much cleaner.... This place is congested." Comparisons between Kolkata's and London's infrastructure are unavoidable because of Banerjee's electoral promise of transforming the former into the latter. A recent meme doing the rounds of social networks shows a different picture: a flooded street in Kolkata and Banerjee saying: "I told the city planners I wanted London; they made it into Venice."

Wrong design

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is going out of his way to demonstrate that his new-found camaraderie with erstwhile rival Lalu Prasad is for keeps. While paying homage to former President APJ Abdul Kalam at the Janata Dal (United) office, he reminded his audience: "While inaugurating a railway project at Harnaut in 2003, when Rabri Devi was Chief Minister and I was Union railway minister, Kalam-sahib had suggested that we (Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar) get together for the betterment of Bihar."

For keeps

With reference to the column "Turnaround time" (July 30), the author is not willing to give Ajay Singh credit for bringing SpiceJet back from the brink. Her observations that the airline's accumulated losses remain high, its liabilities exceed assets and payments to vendors are still due are correct, but these cannot disappear overnight. Her arguments that SpiceJet's income is down 50 per cent and its capacity on offer has slumped 48 per cent do not hold good because these are part of Singh's turnaround strategy that has converted a loss-making entity to earn profit in the latest quarter.Indeed low oil prices are helping SpiceJet, but these are helping other airlines too, and yet some are making losses. Lower ticket prices are attracting more travellers. But SpiceJet still has the highest load factor. Bhargava is critical of discounted fares on offer and the bidding of seats. But SpiceJet is at least trying to experiment and survive, and is beginning to succeed too, considering the air

Letters: Give credit to Ajay Singh

The editorial, "Unsold homes" (July 29), suggests that the central and state governments should implement some reforms to save the already slumping real estate sector from sinking further. In the past decade, when real estate companies were witnessing a boom, nobody thought of imposing more taxes or duties on them. Considering the fact that these companies are still sitting on huge plots of land acquired at low prices, their Rs 70,000 crore debt pile, as mentioned in the article, does not seem that daunting an amount.Higher margins are a thing of the past. Builders should offer properties to customers at lucrative prices and be prepared for wafer-thin margins. Seeking a bailout package from the government is not the solution. It is akin to the government providing PDS ration to the poor. Government support will paralyse the sector in the long run. It should be left on its own to fight back.The editorial also states that there is a shortage of 20 million homes even as 11 million homes r

Letters: Bailout not the solution

The editorial, "House divided", (July 29) is typical of Business Standard. Succinct and hard-hitting, it tells the Opposition Congress the reality like it is. No purpose would be served if it disrupts Parliament assuming that the Lalit Modi row and Vyapam scam are in the same league as the 2G, Coalgate and CWG scandals that broke during the Congress-led UPA's regime. Although the now ruling Bharatiya Janata Party did disrupt Parliament over the latter set of scams as the Opposition party then, its perception before the people was not hurt the way it does the Congress now.Times have changed. People want development as the agenda. Unless the Congress reduced to 44 MPs realises this, it is in for a further decline. Bihar is unlikely to save the party as there it has yielded space to Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) and Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal. The Congress can embarass the BJP by being a responsible Opposition party.N Vijayaraghavan  ChennaiLetters can be mailed, fa

Letters: Congress has to change

Contrary to some predictions, rainfall adequate so far

A normal monsoon?

DNA profiling Bill needs major changes to protect privacy

Dangerous profiling

The Opposition Congress, which had been spearheading the move to stall the proceedings of Parliament through the first week of the monsoon session, has complained that its protests were not being telecast on Lok Sabha TV. So concerned was party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi that on Monday, as protests continued, he was seen surveying the House chamber and noting down the angles at which the Lok Sabha TV cameras were placed. He even walked in through the different doors of the chamber to assess the range of the cameras placed. He was seen discussing the relative merits of individual placards and giant banners with fellow MPs so as to ensure maximum television coverage.

Getting the message to the media

Prashant Kishor, the brain behind Narendra Modi's "Chai Pe Charcha" programme and who now works with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has come up with a new plan to reach out to people from Bihar who have migrated outside. As part of his campaign for the coming Assembly elections, Kumar will hold "Bihar Samman Sammelan" across the country to reach out to migrants. The conference will touch cities such as  New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Guwahati that have a sizeable population of non-resident Biharis.

Reaching out

Addressing a conference on recent changes in financial reporting, a senior official of the Central Board of Direct Taxes explained at length why the department had to bring in a new standard for computing taxable income, the Income Computation and Disclosure Standards (ICDS). Taxable income for the same company would be different if it followed the new accounting standard, earlier called Ind AS or Indian Accounting Standards, than under the existing accounting standard. "But like a father having two sons, we have to maintain equity. We can't treat them differently - therefore we introduced ICDS," the official added. Someone from the audience asked, "Would you have brought in another standard if one of the children was a girl?" The official responded with a grin.

Same difference

This refers to the report, "Raje government's studied silence on privatisation of education" (July 29). Most state governments thought that opening more schools and recruiting more teachers under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) would ensure quality education. But a slew of research reports have documented that even after the SSA's launch, there has not been much improvement in learning outcomes.All government-run schools are not bad, but many of them are in a shambles. The political system of our country is responsible for the poor quality of education. In some states such as Bihar, the panchayat recruits teachers. Can anyone expect the panchayat to be competent to do so? Recently, the Patna High Court was told that close to 25 per cent of candidates with fake degrees got jobs as teachers in the state from 2003 to 2009. This might be the case in some other states too.Just as the economy needs reforms, so does education. In fact, reforms in education should precede those in the economy.

Letters: In the right direction

The editorial, "Components success" (July 28), has dissected well the recent reports on outsourcing of components for luxury car makers and Volvo's decision to make buses in India for exporting to Europe. The commentary, substantiated by relevant figures, brings out the potential to make in India, especially in the above segment of the industry. The expertise and entrepreneurial instincts of our engineers, coupled with comparatively cheap labour, provide the perfect ground for manufacturing passenger and commercial vehicles for the domestic and overseas markets.The icing on the cake is low commodity prices due to the slowdown in China, which is not set to recover soon. This fits well into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of importing raw materials and exporting value-added finished goods and not the other way round that has been the case till now. One report stated that we imported ceiling fans worth Rs 30,000 crore from China in one year. With more exports of passenger and commer

Letters: Boost for Make in India

Judicial activism has gained a lot of ground, today. The judiciary intervenes in many actions of the Legislature and the Executive. The Prime Minister is the representative of the people; he is elected by them and for them. He is supposed to know the Constitution and does not need the Supreme Court's advice to run the country. How many medical colleges are needed? How many doctors are required? What should be the fee structure of an unaided private college? How many students should be admitted? When should the Ganges be cleaned? When should curfew be imposed or lifted? Are all these the domain of the court? In a 2011 report in The Times of India, the Supreme Court said the sky was the limit of its power. Compare this with what former Supreme Court Chief Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah said in 1970 in a TV interview: "A judge is not competent to change the law to suit a particular ideology." His advice should be useful for the judiciary at present.K Kumar  BareillyLetters can be mailed, f

Letters: Useful advice

Unsold homes

Bias towards action

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has passed an order against a company with an unusual name - Weird Infrastructure Corporation. Not only was the name weird but so were its actions. When Sebi confronted the company and its directors for collecting money from investors without permission, the directors started resigning one after the other. The 'Weird' name though did not put off gullible investors from depositing over Rs 16 crore in the company's debentures. Sebi has ordered the money to be returned and banned the 'Weird' promoters from the market for four years. It also emerged the promoters had floated several companies with 'Weird' names. These include Weird Agro, Weird Pharma, Weird Industries and Weird Infratech.

A 'Weird' case

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee pulled a pleasant surprise during her five-day tour of Britain. To spread the message that Bengal was ready for business and tourism, the state government took out two advertisements - one in The Daily Telegraph and the other in the Financial Times. The ads didn't carry photographs of Banerjee, probably because of the Indian Supreme Court's restrictions on the use of chief ministers' pictures in government advertisements. This wasn't the first time Banerjee was announcing her arrival with an ad - she had used the same strategy in Singapore, putting an advertisement in Strait Times.

Ad-vantage Bengal

As many as 3,000 school teachers in Bihar, who had allegedly used forged certificates to land jobs, have resigned following an investigation. The Patna High Court ordered an investigation in May into the qualifications of the state's 350,000 primary teachers on concerns that up to 25,000 had taken up jobs in government schools without proper education or training. The investigation was aimed at verifying qualifications of all teachers in the state who joined since 2006, following a mass recruitment drive by the state government. In July, the court sent a directive to the state government to order school teachers using fake certificates to resign or face legal action.

Fake degree

This refers to the article, "No time for complacency" by A K Bhattacharya (July 27). At a time when the economy is on the path of progress, the government and the Opposition need to be in tandem to accelerate growth and development. Instead, the Opposition is creating a logjam in Parliament and preventing the passage of important bills such as the Goods and Services Tax Bill and the Land Acquisition Bill. The government has to become more proactive in tackling the Opposition to arrive at a consensus, necessary to get these bills passed.The government should look for disinvestment in public sector units, including public sector banks, to push them to approach the public to raise equity. Equally important is curtailing the rising number of bad loans. The government should prod public sector banks to take maximum advantage of strategic debt restructuring and 5/25 schemes of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as well as sell their non-performing assets to asset reconstruction companies. It h

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