While raising the foreign investment limit, the government clubbed FDI and FII flows

No distinction between FDI and FII a dampener for insurance sector

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Air travel is not a poor man's necessity and it is no business of the government to fix fares

Govt should leave airfares to mark

The compulsory helmet rule for two-wheeler riders comes into force in Tamil Nadu from today. The Regional Transport Office (RTO) in Madurai has launched an interesting campaign to enforce it: There are people out on the streets, dressed as Ganesha and Yama, the God of death, to educate people on the importance of the headgear. A board put up by the RTO in Kancheepuram has a picture of Ganesha and a slogan that reads: "You will not get a head like me, wear helmet and protect your head." A photo of the signboard has gone viral on social media, on sites such as Facebook and WhatsApp.

Gods to the rescue

At a news conference after taking oath in February, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had stressed his priority was "good governance". "I will work overtime to undo the damage done to susashan," Nitish had said, taking a dig at protege-cum-challenger Jitan Ram Manjhi. His "susashan" promise came back to haunt him after the director of a private school in Nalanda was lynched by a mob on Sunday. Union minister and president of the Lok Janshakti Party, Ram Vilas Paswan, hit out at the state government over the incident. "Does 'sushashan babu' have any answer to what happened in Nalanda?" he asked. The Nalanda incident proved that "jungle raj" had returned to Bihar, he added.

Return of jungle raj

At a recent meeting of a high-powered committee with industry bodies, a committee member advised members of industry bodies to approach the minister concerned for a relief package. The member was quick to add a caveat that there could be little relief in consulting the minister, as a majority of the ministry staff did not pay heed to his advice. In other words, find a solution the "jugaad" way. Guess the ministry...

Jugaad is good

Apropos the article "All that glitters is not solar" (June 24), the writer is rightly concerned about India's solar photovoltaic (PV) investment announcements and whether they are going to bear fruit. With the government engaging Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) to develop a road map for the scale-up of solar energy, we hope several issues highlighted in the article receive attention.The PwC report should take note of the writer's call for improving the evacuation network and increasing the penetration of solar energy in under-served areas through the off-grid model.In addition, we offer the following suggestions:First, solar power should not only be measured in mega watt (Mw) rather than US dollars, as the writer suggests, but also in energy delivered, that is, mega watt hours or million units, so that long-term investments could be separated from those made for the sake of gaining tax benefits.Second, we should emphasise on rooftop solar. Readers should be made aware that with the right

Letters: Solar impulse

Apropos the editorial "The NPA millstone" (June 30), restructuring of banks, both financially and organisationally, will go a long way in resolving issues related to asset quality of banks, particularly public-sector ones. Notwithstanding that, the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) need to step forward to deal with the menace by imposing tough measures against banks, non-cooperative and wilful defaulters. On the one hand, the rising level of bad loans points to banks' inefficiency in dealing with loan defaults, on the other, the need for rapid economic reforms in many sectors has led to poor debt servicing capacity.The judiciary's role in recovering bad loans needs rejigging. It needs to be speedier in disposing recovery cases filed by banks. Measures need to be in place to curtail prolonged legal battles, sometimes deliberately created by defaulters to postpone repayment.At this juncture, the RBI needs to look for imposing restrictions on banks having current gross NPA (non-p

Letters: Banking blues

A small country that accounts for only two per cent of the Euro zone's GDP is making the world get the jitters. If Greece is unable to pay euro 1.5 billion to IMF by Tuesday there could be a chain of events ultimately leading to that country's exit from the Euro zone. A few things you need to know about the crisis:How did the crisis begin?| In the year 2009, when the global economy was still dealing with the fallout of the global economic slowdown of 2008, Greece announced it had been understating the actual extent of its deficit burden. This set off alarm bells; many questioned the soundness of Greece's finances and doubted its ability to pay back its debt.Greece's debt-to-GDP ratio surged from 109 per cent in 2008 to 146 per cent in 2010. Following this, the country was downgraded to junk bond status, which cut off its access to bond markets.Investors panicked and turned their attention to other indebted economies, notably Italy, Spain and France.What was the bailout plan?| To preven

All you need to know about the Greek crisis

NPAs are an open wound, from which the bleeding needs to be stopped before more capital is transfused

Simply infusing more funds won't solve problems of PSBs

Neither India nor China will be be badly affected by Grexit in fundamental terms

Greek crisis may create an opportunity for long-term investors in India

I do not agree that Congress members have fared better than those of the Bharatiya Janata Party when they rebelled against the party. The newspaper mentioned Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Charan Singh and Biju Patnaik as examples of those who survived and flourished after leaving the party. In fact, those are the only ones who succeeded. The list of those who quit in a huff, got nowhere and returned quietly is very long. I can reel off names of stalwarts such as Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Natwar Singh, Y B Chavan, Shankarrao Chavan, H N Bahuguna, Madhav Rao Scindia, Shyama Charan and Vidya Charan Shukla off the top of my head. I am sure the list of such champions of 'home coming' is much longer.Shreekant Sambrani,  Vadodara

Letters: Rebels without a cause

One hails Madras High Court's decision for making helmets mandatory from July 1. The sale of helmets is on the rise. Though wearing helmets has been made mandatory for the rider and the pillion, we often see families - parents and kids - riding bikes without helmets. Like adults, children are equally prone to accidents. So, will manufacturers now start making smaller sized helmets for kids? The law is not clear on whether it is mandatory for children to wear helmets. The concerned authorities should kindly clarify.T S Karthik,  Chennai

Letters: Young riders

The disclosure that the hands of two leading Indian cricketers and a West Indian player were greased by an Indian real estate tycoon, who is also a bookmaker, has literally set the cat among the pigeons. The contents of the letter, believed to have been written by former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi to International Cricket Council Chief Executive Officer David Richardson, could spell trouble for the cricketers named in it. However, this could only be the tip of the iceberg and there is a possibility of more cricketers being bribed. The franchise, Chennai Super Kings, was in news for all the wrong reasons earlier, too, with the team principal, Gurunath Meiyappan, implicated in a spot-fixing and betting case. With the political fiasco over the Lalit Modi controversy hotting up, do not be too surprised if more skeletons tumble out of the closet.N J Ravi Chander, Bengaluru

Letters: Scandalous sport

Apropos the article " Educational re-alignments" (June 29), I agree with the writer. Our education system encourages producing on paper whatever is memorised, without any scope for innovation. A child's intelligence is judged by the marks he or she obtains in various competitive examinations. Most of the schools/teachers consider students as marks-producing machines. It is unfortunate that India, which was considered the centre of learning and produced great scholars in ancient times, does not have a single university in the list of world's top 200 universities. A reason is the poor condition of Indian universities embroiled in corruption, political interference and lack of committed teachers. A teacher imparts values and other good qualities in children. We should develop an education system where  leadership qualities, entrepreneurship and rational thinking are encouraged at the school level. Teachers shape our future leaders and citizens. Hence, teachers who are well-trained with in

Letters: Educational objective

Gujarat was swept by a massive downpour last week. Among other things, the deluge washed away a number of Asiatic lions, considered Gujarat's pride. Talking about the incident, a senior forest department official said just like humans, who often travelled to a foreign land in search of greener pastures, lions, too, had a tendency to move towards riverine ecosystems, sometimes outside their sanctuary. "Hum UK, USA jaate hain looking for better pastures; lions do the same," he said helpfully.

Konrad Lorenz redux

Among other things, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to inaugurate the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) in Varanasi on Sunday. But, as reported widely, he had to cancel the trip due to heavy rain, which he duly posted on Twitter. A slew of executives from public-sector power companies, who flew to Varanasi for the event, had to return empty-handed. To make light of the situation, Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said the next time the government organised an event of such scale, it would consult the India Meteorological Department for clearance. The press release from the information office of the power ministry said the same: "The new date for the launch of IPDS will be decided shortly, in consultation with the meteorological department."

Weather clearance

This would be a mann ki baat session with a twist. Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popular radio talk show, Mann Ki Baat, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat (pictured) has decided to listen to people and their mann ki baat over telephone over this weekend. So, instead of speaking his own mind, he would try to understand the pulse of the people and find solutions to their problems. "This is a new experiment, the CM is listening to the problems of the people directly," said an official associated with the CM's office.

Speak your mind

Local governments spend most of their money on the upkeep of roads and bridges, water supply, buildings and community assets

What do Panchayats spend money on?

Simplilearn has acquired Market Motive, a Silicon Valley-based digital marketing training company for $10 million (Rs 64 crore)

Simplilearn buys Market Motive

In March, the NITI Aayog had announced the formation of three sub-groups headed by chief ministers (CMs) on three topics

NITI Aayog sub-groups set to present reports

India is among the front-runners with a 10.8 per cent average salary increase this year, ahead of countries like Indonesia at 9.5 per cent, China at 8.6 per cent and Philippines at 6.7 per cent. Mature markets will see lower increases with Hong Kong and Singapore both at 4.5 per cent, Australia at 3.5 per cent and Japan lowest at 2.5 per cent.According to the Towers Watson 2015-16 Asia Pacific Salary Budget Planning report, almost 87 per cent of respondents plan to allocate a larger portion of their budget to high performers. The high-tech industry stands out with 11 per cent companies planning to allocate the entire budget increase to high performers. Predictably, in countries where overall salary increases tend to be higher, good performance is also better rewarded. In India, salary increase for the 'highest-performing' employees average 12 per cent, which is 30 per cent higher than 'average' performers and nearly twice the regional average.When it comes to variable compensation, the

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