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

Letters: Be more proactive

Business Standard

Apropos the report, "APJ Abdul Kalam: A youth icon who connected with all" (July 28). Kalam's death is shocking. His contribution to the country as a scientist and as the President of India are beyond measure.Kalam started his career by designing helicopters for the Indian Army. Later he became the project director of India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III). He played a pivotal role in the Pokhran-II nuclear test of 1998 and took the lead in weaponisation of strategic missile systems.He was called the "People's President"; he was one of the most loved too. His appointment as the eleventh President of India was backed by both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress. He launched the programme, "What Can I Give Movement" for the youth with the aim of defeating corruption.Kalam had a spiritual side too. A theist who believed in God beyond the confines of religion, he stated this clearly in the first chapter of his bestselling autobiography Wings of Fire (1999). As the President, h

Letters: A great loss

The editorial "Mutual distrust" (July 27) provides an excellent analysis of the controversy arising from the draft Indian Financial Code circulated by the government. Having said that, reducing the controversy over the constitution of the monetary policy committee to a case of mutual mistrust would be oversimplifying the matter.The government's eagerness to do backseat driving in organisations that have mandated roles to perform has to be analysed. If there is lack of clarity in what is expected from a role, the government can make legislative changes. But it is a different story if it tries to control the "application of mind" by statutory bodies such as the Reserve Bank of India by pushing for majority presence of its (government) nominees in policy formulating forums. Government nominees on boards generally take their brief from the ministries concerned before attending meetings and independent thinking on their part is limited.MG Warrier  MumbaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mai

Letters: More than distrust

The sector that shows 'Make in India' is possible

Components success

Continuing to disrupt Parliament is dangerous

Houses divided

The Congress was relentless in its attack on the government on Monday and after being repeatedly ticked off by Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, for disrupting the proceedings of the House, the party accused her of being partial to the ruling benches. At one point, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said Mahajan was behaving like the Pope, the supreme authority in Vatican City. When it was the turn of Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Mohammed Salim to speak, he decided to first correct Chowdhury and said there should be no misconception; the Speaker was neither the Pope nor was Parliament the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church!

Wrong place?

Here's one piece of simple logic you would find difficult to refute. Amid the Opposition clamour over various alleged scams of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav has said the ruling party wants to turn the whole country into mud; he has also offered a reason why the BJP wants to do that. He said the BJP's symbol was the lotus and the flower bloomed in mud. So, the party was working to first turn the country muddy with its brand of politics and then capture it with its "false promises"!

Muddy waters

Guess who is doing brisk business as Bihar gears up for Assembly elections later this year. A bullet-proofing facility in Meerut claims it is overburdened with work, as Tata Safaris, Toyota Fortuners and Mahindra Scorpios keep lining up to get armoured because the state has traditionally seen a lot of violence during polls. Apparently, a lot of demand for bomb-proofing also comes from Maoist-affected areas in Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Of course, bullet-proofing or bomb-proofing of cars comes at a price - it can be anything between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 25 lakh depending on the size of the vehicle.

Heavy-duty security

I fully agree with the editorial of Business Standard, "Get on with GST" (July 23), except on one important point. Your view, which is shared by several writers, is that if the three items - alcohol, tobacco and petroleum - are included, then the neutral rate of 27 per cent many come down to probably 18 per cent. I want to point out that it is not logical at all. It can come down only if the average duty of these three items is less than 27 per cent. It is actually not so. These three are highly taxed items.Cigarette is very highly taxed both by the Centre and the states. Alcohol is also like that. And it varies from state to state. Petroleum is also a very heavily taxed item like the others. The average tax, that is the neutral rate, for these three items is much higher than the average rate for other goods with respect to central excise, service tax as well as sales tax (VAT). So if these three are included in GST, there is no chance at all that the neutral rate will come down. The e

Letters: Mission impossible

This refers to the report, "Govt gets Rs 1-lakh-crore spend cushion for FY 16" (July 23). Budgeting is not pure mathematics; it has to take into account economic and social planning. The central allocation of budgetary funds to states will let them tap available resources effectively. Reduction and removal of central subsidy and passing this responsibility on to the states will ensure better returns and qualitative use of funds through better monitoring and lesser political interference.Internal budgeting is affected by global economic and political trends, for example, the drop in oil prices that has cut cost of production in agriculture and the industry throughout the country. The Centre should capitalise on this rare opportunity of a surplus "spend cushion" for long-term capital investment in infrastructure.A growing economy calls for continued capital expansion. This  will strengthen foundations by way of  better connectivity between rural and urban areas and ensure accessibility t

Letters: Cash in on opportunity

The Narendra Modi government wants to control the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) rate policies by forming a committee in which four members would be appointed by the government and three by the RBI. This is a blatant attempt to corrode the RBI's sovereignty by succumbing to pressure from the industry. This is a ruinous path as rates are bound to come down, but this will not lead to any improvement in the economy. This is an attempt to divert banks' fixed deposits to the stock market so that the index keeps climbing.In the US and Europe, rock-bottom bank lending rates have failed to revive economies. The economy is cyclical in nature; it cannot grow perpetually. Y V Reddy, the RBI governor in 2007-08, did not give in to pressure from the then finance minister and industrialists. That saved our country from a financial meltdown. The current RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan, should resign in protest.Sudhir Keshav Bhave  MumbaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business Sta

Letters: A ruinous path

Over the past few weeks, there has been a decline in the price of commodities. Prices of several industrial metals are at their lowest in six years to a decade, as Table 1 shows. Gold, too, has seen a sharp downturn spiral in the recent past.In general, the dollar moves in the opposite direction to commodity prices, and emerging-market indices move with commodity prices. As Table 2 shows, the ratio of the MSCI emerging-markets (EM) index to the S&P 500 - a handy gauge of emerging-market relative value - has a fairly tight inverse relationship to the DXY index measuring the strength of the dollar. Table 3 shows the relationship between the value of the dollar and that of gold - another claimed inverse relationship, though here the charts do not suggest anything near as tight.What about agricultural commodities? As Table 4 shows, the FAO's international food price indices have shown sustained negative growth since early 2014 - longer in the case of cereals. Some of this effect has cl

StatsGuru: The decline in commodity prices and its effect on food inflation

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has called an all-party meeting on Monday on the logjam that has gripped the monsoon session of Parliament

Will Parliament logjam continue?

Venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners, along with Point Nine Capital and Business Development Bank of Canada, has invested $4 million in Canadian software-as-a-service start-up Procurify. The company will use this funding to fuel continued growth in the multi-billion dollar cloud and mobile enterprise software market, with further investment into sales, marketing and product development.BroEx raises $1 millionBroEx, India's largest network of real estate brokers, has raised $1 million in an early-stage financing from Lightspeed India. At present, 25,000 brokers actively use the network across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, the company said.IndiaMLS gets Rs 1.09 millionIndiaMLS Systems, which runs the online network of real estate brokers IndiaMLS, has secured seed funding of $1.09 million from a group of high networth individuals. The membership-based software platform, which helps real estate brokers upload property listings to a common network, is des

Nexus Venture backs Procurify

Business Standard analyses one family's finances and suggests a way forward

Case study

Budget: Rs 25-50 lakhBusiness Standard brings you a snapshot of average current rates and unit sizes in localities that offer property in a price range of Rs 25-50 lakh. If you are looking at buying real estate and your budget falls within this range, an idea about prevailing rates would come in handy

Realty check

Rakesh Jain,  Chief Executive Officer of Reliance General Insurance, answers your questionsI have a group insurance policy for a sum assured of Rs 4 lakh. The policy is valid and in force. I had made a claim of Rs 11,500, but the third-party administrator of the insurance company approved a claim for only Rs 4,050. Despite my repeated requests, the company did not give clarification. What could be the reason? What can I do?Generally, group insurance policies are taken by employers as an employee benefit tool. While taking such policies, employers tend to put in room rent capping depending upon the designation of the employee or other kinds of sub-limits on surgeries or co-payments, etc. You should first check with your employer whether any such capping, or co-pay is applicable in your case. If not, you are entitled to and should seek a clarification from the insurer by writing to them.I am planning to buy a new car but don't want to sell the old one. I will appoint a driver and my wife

Banking: Rakesh Jain

While it was difficult to miss the posturing and sabre-rattling around Prime Minster Narendra Modi's visit to Patna, a little detail went unnoticed

Clean-up act

Time for a road map on abolition of participatory notes

Ending round-tripping

Pragmatism suggests a veto power for the RBI governor

Mutual distrust

Infoladies are a band of women in their early 20s who travel through the countryside of Bangladesh in a bicycle equipped with a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone, a digital camera and a glucometer. They help villagers with a range of digital tasks, including looking up information on crops. This project was created by nonprofit Dnet. Rare single malt whisky. Nootropics. The word nootropic was coined in 1972 by the Romanian Dr Corneliu E Giurgea, derived from the Greek words 'nous', or 'mind', and 'trepein' meaning to bend or turning. Competitiveness in Silicon Valley is now pushing people to take to Nootropics. Starbucks. Alan Dower Blumlein (29 June 1903 - 7 June 1942) was an English electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereophonic sound, television and radar. He received 128 patents and was considered as one of the most significant engineers and inventors of his time. Homing from work. Ernest Hemingway and the long lost manuscri

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 418 - Business Standard