Non-implementation of the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme for defence pensioners by the government is not the issue. The issue is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to implement OROP during an election rally 18 months back and failed to do so. It was expected he would do something in this regard, two-three months after taking charge at the Centre. That did not happen. Now after a year or so, he has realised the issue is "complex" and "will take some time". This is a politician's way of saying, "I fail to fulfil my promise", which bureaucrats handling the issue know all too well.Military veterans the world over are honoured and looked after. Nowhere have defence pensioners resorted to drastic measures as hunger strikes to get their dues. This will hurt the government's image. What impact will it have on the morale of serving soldiers? The government should take action before the matter gets out of hand. Politicians may "consult" bureaucrats before taking decisions, but they s

Letters: A broken promise

Business Standard

This refers to the finance minister's comment on astrologers, economists and oil prices in "Chinese Whispers" (July 9). Economists do make reasonable forecasts but the science of doing so is inexact, sometimes. As Robert Fuoss, former editor of the now-defunct Saturday Evening Post, observed: "An economist is a person who lectures on capital and labour. And the baffling thing is that most of them qualified for this career by having no capital and having done no labour". The world should brace itself for a sustained period of low oil prices, according to experts in the industry. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, says: "The world should 'settle in' for a period of relatively weak oil prices. US shale production is more resilient than many people had expected and demand growth in China and elsewhere has slowed." Those conditions could persist.H N Ramakrishna,  BengaluruLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi

Letters: The irony of economists

Expectations from the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in the Ufa, Russia, were anyway low, given the belligerence of Pakistani leaders, including the defence minister, and flip-flops from India on how to deal with its neighbour. Thus even an agreement on a meeting of the two countries' national security advisors, directors-general of Border Security Force and Pakistani Rangers and directors-general of military operations of the two countries is being considered a breakthrough. While the BJP leadership's euphoria over this "development" is understandable, a plain reading of the joint statement, replete with typical diplomatic platitudes, does not yield anything exciting.There is no firm commitment by Sharif to bring to justice Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, an accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, currently out on bail, except agreeing to discuss ways to expedite the latter's trial. Pakistan's refusal to hand over Lakhvi's voice sample

Letters: Let's get real

Looks like two political foes are working at bridging the gulf between them. Last week, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dropped in at the office of All India Forward Bloc, a partner of the opposition Left Front, to wish veteran Left leader Ashok Ghosh a belated happy birthday. After greeting the 94-year-old with flowers and sweets, she told Ghosh that he had the "right" to point out her mistakes. The latter reciprocated, saying the Trinamool Congress leader was just like his "younger sister". "We want to follow the ideology of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose; Mamata Banerjee, too, follows that ideology," Ghosh said.

A new detente

Anand Rai, the Indore-based doctor who blew the lid off the Vyapam scam, has become the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Achilles heel. During television debates and live chat shows, representatives of the BJP call every critic and every voice of dissent a Congress 'plant' but they appear helpless before Rai. By his own admission, Rai had been associated with the medical wing of the BJP in Indore and participated in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activities between 2005 and 2013. He learnt the principle of 'nation first' at an RSS shakha, he told a television channel recently.

BJP's dilemma

Drama unfolded during a hearing of the Sahara case at the Supreme Court last week when a new buyer offered to pay double the amount the first prospective buyer had offered for a Gorakhpur property being sold by the group to raise money for the bail of group honcho Subrata Roy. Even as the Sahara lawyers questioned the credibility of the new buyer and his ability to pay, the lawyer for the original buyer waved a bank draft for Rs 12.8 crore and a cheque for Rs 50 crore. Trying to take a closer look at these, the judge asked the lawyer, "Have you counted the zeros properly?", somewhat easing the tension building up in the courtroom. He went on to issue directions to verify with the bank if there were sufficient funds in the account to honour the Rs 50 crore cheque.

Too many zeros

No point just penalising telcos for dropped callsThe Department of Telecommunications, or DoT, will do a special audit of telecom networks in order to check the quality of service. This, according to Union Telecom & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, is necessary because the problem of call drops has attained "critical proportions". This has happened even though telecom companies were given fresh spectrum in February. The minister has said that he has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai, to work out a system of penalties for errant companies and incentives for those which provide good quality service. An audit of the quality of service is not a bad idea: everybody knows poor call quality is a major problem, but nobody knows exactly how big this problem is. Trai is required to monitor the quality of service across networks, but it has been unable to quantify the problem so far.However, to only ask the telecom service operators to improve the quality of service and

More spectrum needed

Serena Williams' remarkable domination of her sport

Williams, the greatest?

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who is Russia's Sherpa at BRICS, was obviously present in Moscow for the BRICS meeting. So were Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. They signed agreements on behalf of their countries. But signing on India's behalf was Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and not Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. Is there something wrong with this picture?

The replacement

Local media tells us that Priyanka Gandhi and Robert Vadra's son Rehan is the latest Gandhi to hit Amethi. He has a Facebok page which says he is interested in politics. He went to Amethi on a visit a couple of days ago and stayed as a guest of the former Pradhan. Two friends accompanied him. He spoke mostly in English and local bureaucrats translated. The three lads spent hours talking, via translation, to locals. Media reported that Rehan doesn't drink tea. He had paranthas, potato sabzi and dahi. At one place he had daal which had tadka of pure ghee. They stayed one night and as usual there were no lights in the village till midnight, but the boys went off to sleep after mosquito nets were procured for them.

Another Gandhi entering politics?

Growth of smartphone shipments is estimated to slow from 27% in 2014 to 12% in 2015 and 9% in 2016. China was the volume growth engine since 2013. HSBC says shipments will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26% in India in 2014-2019, followed by 19% in West Asia & Africa, 8% in Latin America & 5% in China.

India tops China to drive smartphone volume growth

The govt talks of transparency in working and asks for suggestions to improve its working but in practice it is in too much hurry to complete the jobs the way it likes

Letters: Unsolicited suggestion

Apropos the article "Where are the smart citizens?" (July 9), it is an undisputed truth that smart citizens make smart cities and not the other way round

Letters: Smart behaviour

Apropos the article "A new breed of campaigners" (July 8), a new breed of professionals, well qualified in their areas of operation, have started campaigning in large numbers after quitting lucrative jobs

Letters: Campaign calling

Foreign competition for lawyers will help Indian litigants

Open up the Bar

Vyapam Maha Ghotala, a book by former MLA Paras Saklecha, is in huge demand these days, particularly among journalists camping in Bhopal

Ready reckoner

The Mumbai police may have banned the use of drones within city limits, keeping in view security concerns

Dealing with drones

Ravi Shankar Prasad was stumped to see conference room at Sanchar Bhawan chock-a-block with journalists when he arrived to brief media on issue of call drops recently

Media is the message

NDA's moves on labour laws are the right direction

Reset labour relations

Sector-wise allocations in 2015Software & services, attracted the most investments, accounting for 24.35% of the total investments in terms of deal value with an aggregate of $2,246 million. The capital goods sector was the second, attracting $1,317 million (14.28%) across 19 deals in 2015. Diversified financials, real estate and media were the other top industry groups.

Snapshot of PE activity & deals

In 2013, the ministry of women and child development and Unicef conducted a survey of about 100,000 Indian households to gauge the health parameters of children and women. While a part of the report - the Rapid Survey on Children - was released by the government earlier, a large section continues to be under wraps. A part of this unreleased report that came out in The Economist last week shows the remarkable stride that India has made in improving its health parameters, particularly in reducing the number of underweight children. But it also highlights  uneven progress among states. Business Standard takes a look at the key findings:

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