With reference to the report, "River interlinking questions" (July 19), water has a unique status among all the elements in the environment. The development of water as a resource has thus become essential if the demands of a growing population are to be met. The availability of water in India was 5,177 cubic metres per capita in 1950, which has reduced to 1,450 cubic metres in 2015 and would further drop to 1,340 cubic metres in 2025. This decline can be met only by interlinking the rivers by constructing dams and diverting water to places where there is a requirement. While selecting projects there should be little damage done to the environment and resettlement measures should be taken up. This should be included in the overall project cost. This way we can face the challenges of water shortage and sustainable development by keeping the parochial outlook of certain sections in check.Sushil Bakliwal  JaipurLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru

Letters: Water woes

Business Standard

The nuclear deal with Iran means the country may shortly re-integrate with the world economy. Sanctions have taken a toll, on growth in particular, as Table 1 shows, with sharply negative GDP growth for Iran when they took hold. As Table 2 shows, imports from India fell a year after the sanctions were imposed, rose in the next two years but then declined sharply in 2014-15. However Iran's exports to India, in Table 3, grew sharply in value terms a year after the sanctions were imposed, fell the next year and then saw a gradual decline when the price of crude oil also fell, in 2014-15.Overall, crude oil is Iran's number one export by far, as Table 4 shows. It goes mainly to Asian countries - China, Japan, India, as table 5 shows. Table 6 shows the structure of Iran's imports, with table 7 showing which countries account for most goods. Importantly, the Indian rice sector - particularly basmati rice - has come to depend on Iranian demand. Table 8 shows how Indian exports of basmati to Ir

StatsGuru: Tracking Iran's key trade numbers

The Constitution Amendment Bill on the GST is set to test the House management skills of the Narendra Modi govt

Pushing through the GST Bill

The CM's visit will begin with a conference of company CEOs during her interaction at the UK India Business Council

CM Mamata Banerjee visiting the UK to showcase Bengal

One MP from Puducherry will retire in October

Race for new Rajya Sabha seats to begin soon

The state BJP is sparing no effort to make the rally a success - both in manpower and monetary terms

Prime Minister to be back in Bihar this week

Business Standard analyses one family's finances and suggests a way forwardStatus & GoalsKetan works as a general manager, operations, with a speciality chemicals firm in Navi Mumbai, while his wife, Usha, is a homemaker. They have two children. The couple wants to plan for their children's higher education and marriage after which they want to plan for their retirement.

Case study

ISRO yet to break into the big leagues, commercially

Waiting for GSLV

Sub-limits for portfolio investment in FDI policy can be counter-productive

An empty decision

As students continue to agitate against the appointment of actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India, an article ("FTII row: Protest or Conspiracy?") in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece Organiser said it smelled a "conspiracy" behind the demonstrations. After labelling the protesting students "anti-Hindu fringe elements", the article went on to brand director Mrinal Sen a "confirmed Marxist", Girish Karnad "a known Hindu-hater" and Shyam Benegal "anti-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)". Topping its list of "anti-Hindu" directors was Rajkumar Hirani, director of the popular Munnabhai series.

New labels

Dissidence is infectious. Punjab is now the stage for infighting and dissension cutting across political parties. The growing rift within the state Congress is an open secret, with former chief minister Amarinder Singh and Punjab state party chief Partap Singh Bajwa refusing to see eye to eye. The bug of internal squabble has also stung the state Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) unit, which won four of Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 elections. While many of the state MPs remain openly critical of party supremo and  Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, AAP expelled senior state leader Daljit Singh last week for indulging in 'anti-party' activities.

Bad infection

While Varanasi was being decked up and the security tightened for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit last week - which was cancelled later - some taxi operators plying in the city complained their business suffered every time there was a high-level visit to the PM's constituency. While many vehicles were taken off the roads citing security reasons, a large number was redeployed to ferry VVIPs. Worse, there is no guarantee of payment. "If we are lucky, we get paid in six months, but much lower than what we would have made by ferrying a regular passenger," a taxi operator said. "If you are unlucky, you might just have to write off the money."

Politics and business don't mix

This refers to Anjuli Bhargava's column, "Indian Institutes of Trouble" (July 16). Let us start with the facts: About 50 per cent of the B Tech curriculum at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) consists of engineering courses. The rest comprises maths, science (that is not engineering, please), humanities and the liberal arts, management and diverse electives that you need to take to complete your degree. Next, how many of those who study BA in history, B Com or BSc in zoology actually pursue them later? So let us stop picking on B Tech graduates - and that too from the IITs - as easy targets.On the issue of suicides, in the absence of nation-wide figures (college-wise, year-wise), let us not jump to conclusions based on statistics put out by TV channels. It is unfortunate that we have not developed community awareness on dealing with psychological lows, which are common at that age. Asking students to leave the IIT is a good step, rather than letting them succumb to the pressure

Letters: Don't pick on the IITs

This is with reference to the report, "No earth-shaking invention from India in 60 years: Murthy"(July 16). Despite our potential in terms of intelligence and youth power, as a country we have not contributed much to the world in terms of inventions and new ideas. The software for Skype, used for video calling and instant messaging on the web, was created in Estonia, a Baltic country bordering Russia. When such a small country can take a lead in technology, why can't a vast country like India engage in innovation and research? There are many reasons for this, an important one being that our education system doesn't encourage innovation and research. In our system a child's intelligence is judged by the marks he gets in exams.Research and innovative ideas should be encouraged at the school level. Dedicated teachers are a prerequisite for this. Second, the lack of government support for research and innovation puts constraints on the available talent. Third, due to absence of institution

Letters: Root of the problem

Apropos the report, "Modi targets Congress, takes dig at dynastic politics" (July 17), Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken potshots at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. In his rallies before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, he frequently used the words, ,'ma-bete-ka-sarkar', 'shehzada', 'jamairaja' to show his antipathy towards dynastic politics and nepotism. One of his election promises was to do away with this practice. What is surprising is Modi's selective attitude towards the issue. He keeps quiet when his party leaders promote the same. The Lalit Modi row, Vayapam scam and Pankaja Munde controversy are cases in point. He should try to root out the practice from his party and remember the idiom, 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'.Buddhadev Nandi  West BengalLetters 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 tel

Letters: Selective antipathy

Adidas. Along with the New York-based Parley for the Oceans, it is turning trash found in the seas into recycled materials for running shoes and apparel. This will help Adidas meet its sustainability goals and also educate consumers. Aston Martin, the 102-year-old British car manufacturer has decided to get into the boat business. A partnership with Dutch yacht-maker Quintessence is producing a co-branded speedboat to extend the luxury spirit of the car to the high seas. Kering (previously PPR), the French luxury goods company. Coca-Cola. Labelling Cans is fine but people is not. Online Gravity by Paul X McCarthy. Kerala. The last ruling Maharaja of Travancore, Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, brought EG Salter, the assistant superintendent of the London Passenger Transport Board to Kerala. Under his supervision 60 Comet chassis with Perkins diesel engines were imported from England to Travancore. On the February 20, 1938, Kerala became the first state in India to have a double

Answers to The Strategist Quiz (#417)

Global mobile data traffic will increase nearly tenfold between 2014 and 2019 on shift to smart devices, finds a Cisco report. While a majority of mobile traffic growth will come from videos, traffic from wearables will account for 1.4% of smartphone traffic by 2019

The mobile network

Cinestar Amitabh Bachchan has been roped in by Doordarshan's Kisan Channel for Rs 6.31 crore, according to a report in The Hindu

Top celebrity endorsers and their current fees

Transparency would solve many of IPL's chronic problems

The task before BCCI

With Assembly polls in Bihar quite near, ministers from the state are devoting more time to canvassing than to their ministries. Ministers like Ram Vilas Paswan, Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Upendra Kushwaha, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Giriraj Singh and Ram Kirpal Yadav are not only helping shape the 'Bihar package' that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to announce at his rally in Muzaffarpur on July 25, but also travelling to Bihar more often. Jammu and Kashmir, which was awaiting a special package, has suffered. The Centre is treating it just like any other state, lest the alliance's rivals such as Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad allege that Bihar is being ignored by the Modi government.

Bihar gets pampered, for now

When it comes to political barbs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rarely lets an opportunity pass to crack one. During his Jammu visit to mark the birth anniversary of the state's former Finance Minister and Arun Jaitley's father-in-law, the late Girdhari Lal Dogra, Modi said, "Dograji was a good judge of people. One example of this is Arun Jaitley - to whom Dograji gave his daughter, not his chair... Otherwise, we know what happens when sons-in-law get involved", hinting at Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law, Robert Vadra. He added that Jaitley, the current Union finance minister did not enter politics because of Dogra and their political ideologies are totally different. He said that even if Jaitley might have been tempted to, he never used Dogra to chart his political path. Party leader Subramaniam Swamy reacted, saying: "Dogra belonged to the Congress and put many RSS activists in prison. The PM should have mentioned that while speaking about him."

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