When it comes to foreign policy, it must be remembered that millions of Indians live and work in West Asia

India needs to manage effects of radicalism, violence in West Asia

Business Standard

The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal twisted, turned and then decided to play it safe while celebrating the International Yoga Day. While an official directive from the Centre made it compulsory for the state to organise an event to mark the day, neither the chief minister nor any of her senior ministers were present for the event held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata. The state's sizeable Muslim population and the danger of yoga being seen as a majoritarian agenda might have something to do with the event being kept low-key. Observing it nonetheless helped maintain bonhomie with the Centre.

Playing it safe

The most trending hashtag on microblogging site Twitter on Monday evening was #maabetafarar (mother and son get away), initially started to highlight how Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi were not present at Rajpath on Sunday to mark the International Yoga Day, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Twitter users, at least those with sympathies with the Sangh Parivar, speculated that the mother and son duo was possibly in London or even Venice. But the campaign backfired when users, possibly Congress sympathisers, hit back by claiming Maneka Gandhi and son Varun Gandhi, both of whom are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs, were also not seen at Rajpath, while Rajasthan's BJP Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and her MP son Dushyant Singh had managed to 'get away' in more ways than one.

Missing in action

Global executives at Cisco know how to demonstrate their commitment to India. During a recent visit by both the incoming and outgoing CEOs of Cisco - Chuck Robbins and John Chambers, respectively - the company announced a $60-million additional commitment to India. While $40 million would go towards the expansion of its India facility, the rest would be used for skill development, in line with the government's Skill India initiative. Cisco also talked about how the company would compliment all the marquee projects of the Narendra Modi government - be it Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities or Skill India. Not just that, the business cards of the global executives had their names and coordinates written in Hindi.

Cisco's India approach

This refers to the report "Govt proposes to raise Rs 13,500 cr by sovereign gold bonds" (June 19). This is one of the three gold-related schemes that was announced in the Union Budget by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The other two being a gold deposit scheme to be operationalised through banks and the issue of indigenous gold coins. While the other two schemes have 'gold content', the Sovereign Gold Bonds Scheme (SGBS) on the face of it gives the impression that it will only re-designate a part of the government's market borrowing programmes as SGBS.For the investor, SGBS offers all the positives of investing in solid gold, plus an incentive by way of interest. Still, as there is no underlying gold supporting the 'gold bonds', as in the case of gold exchange-traded funds, the scheme will only serve as a conduit for government borrowing from the public.Though there is nothing wrong in trying out a new instrument, the absence of gold-backing might impact the credibility of the scheme. O

Letters: The gold question

This refers to Mihir S Sharma's column "A corridor to the future" (Policy Rules, June 22). So, finally the clamour for acche din (good days) is growing. People have started questioning the Prime Minister's intent; is he just a demagogic politician or a true harbinger of change?But the very idea of developing a corridor does not seem well thought out. It is again going to lead us to the same problems that we have been battling for years. Large scale migration from all over the country to a specific region would once again result in the age-old issues such as overcrowded cities, unaffordable housing and stretched facilities. Add to these problems, the discontent of the people that only a particular area in the nation is being focused upon. The east and the south are almost being overlooked, which will further lead to political gains for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s opponents and a deadly cocktail of politics that will ensure the BJP and Narendra Modi's eviction from office much soo

Letters: In the PM's shoes

This refers to the editorial "Policy shift to pulses" (June 19). The increase in the minimum support price by Rs 250-275 per quintal for pulses is not likely to inspire farmers to plant more pulse crops. The reason is not the selling price or the technology but the damage caused to pulse and oilseed crops by wild animals to such an extent that nothing is left to be harvested. Hence, the supply gap would remain.Farmers in plain areas, along the forests and protected areas of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, will not grow pulses and oilseeds. The only solution lies in the elimination of wild animals from such pulse-growing areas.Kushal Pal Singh  Dhampur (Bijnor)Letters 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 telephone number

Letters: Not an easy harvest

The existing wealthy are poised to gain even greater wealth, suggests new research from BCG. As Table 1 shows, Asia-Pacific is a big source of wealth growth - and three-fourths of that came from existing assets.As Table 2 demonstrates, the lion's share of that wealth growth in the past has come from China. But India is poised to take over, as the rate of wealth generation in China falls sharply in the next five years.Interestingly, BCG suggests - in Table 3 - that it will be the richest asset segment that will see the fastest growth, a reversal from the past. Table 4 suggests where this money is likely to go. Finally, Table 5 shows what returns have been in the past across various asset classes, along with a conservative extrapolation into the future.

StatsGuru: Wealthy poised to become richer across the world

Interestingly, the Janata Dal (United) leader was the one who ended the RJD's 15-year rule in the state

Arithmetic or chemistry?

Dental care clinic chain Mydentist has raised Rs 50 crore in a Series-C round of funding led by LGT Venture Philanthropy, a global impact investing organisation founded by LGT and the princely family of Liechtenstein. Mydentist has 103 clinics across Greater Mumbai, Pune, Surat and Ahmedabad, and has over 500 dentists.Moovo.in gets funds from YouWeCanMoovo.in, an on-demand booking platform for mini-trucks owned by OrbitNote Technologies, has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from YouWeCan, an early-stage venture capital fund backed by cricketer Yuvraj Singh, and a group of other angel investors. Floated in December 2014, Moovo.in is in the process of expanding to six other cities by the end of this year.Hansa Cequity gets Rs 30 cr from ASKHansa Customer Equity (Hansa Cequity), a Chennai-based data analytics and market research firm, has secured Rs 30 crore in a first round of funding from private equity player ASK Pravi. The proceeds would be deployed to enter new cities. It

Mydentist raises Rs 50 crore in Series-C

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

Case study

The primary source is Syria along with Iraq

Humanitarian crisis: 11 mn people displaced in 2014

I have problems repaying a home loan. Can I withdraw from my provident fund to repay it? What is the procedure?You have not mentioned if you are talking about personal provident fund (PPF) or employees' provident fund (EPF). In case of PPF, a loan can be availed for a maximum period of 36 months after completion of three years and a withdrawal can be made after six years. I would suggest you go to www.ppfaccount.in and www.epfindia.com to understand the entire process of taking a loan or withdrawal applicable to your PF account.I have run up an outstanding of Rs 1.2 lakh on my credit card. Should I take a personal loan to repay it? Revolving credit on the credit card is the most expensive loan since you not only pay highest interest rate on this, which is generally in the range of 40 per cent per annum, but also forfeit the right on interest-free period available on fresh purchases till the due date. Instead, you pay interest on all purchases from the date of purchase itself. To avoid

Debt counseling: Sanjay Agarwal

One person and one party do not dominate the political landscape the way Indira Gandhi and the Congress did in the 1970s

A repeat of Emergency? It's not likely

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government's television advertisement has managed to grab eyeballs, for all the wrong reasons though. Social media users and media are questioning the "sexist" overtone of the advertisement. It depicts a wife doing all the household chores and looking after her son while the husband just sits and watches TV. Now, Prashant Bhushan, a former AAP member who quit the party over differences with Arvind Kejriwal, has another bone to pick. His new organisation, Swaraj Abhiyan, issued a formal press release lambasting the advertisement, stating "the ad has not a single mention of Delhi government and has 11 mentions of Arvind Kejriwal - seven times as Kejriwal, two times as 'Arvind', and the other two as "unhone" and "unkey." It has demanded that the expenses of the advertisement be made public and "such glorification of an individual at the cost of the public exchequer be stopped in Delhi".

False publicity

After pronouncing the judgment in the Sahara case, judges expressed surprise at how three senior lawyers - Kapil Sibal and Rajiv Dhawan for Sahara, and Arvind Datar for the Securities and Exchange Board of India - were present in Delhi, despite it being the court's summer break. Dhawan said it was the first time in his career that he was coming to court during vacation. Datar said he happened to be in Delhi because he was appearing before the vacation bench that is hearing the NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission) matter. When judges wondered if others were not appearing in the NJAC matter, Sibal, who had arrived in Delhi only on judgment day, said he was not making any submissions in the NJAC matter because "it would not be proper." He explained: "I have been the (law) minister. I have seen the files. I have taken views on it." Sibal was the union law minister in the United Progressive Alliance government between May 2013 and May 2014.

Sibal's propriety

Much of this past week, the Congress kept up the pressure on the Narendra Modi government to sack External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for helping former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi get travel documents. It also questioned the continuance of Vasundhara Raje as Rajasthan chief minister and her son Dushyant's business deals with Modi. As the controversy raged, there was no clear indication which way the wind was blowing - whether the two would survive or have to quit. Several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office-bearers, who can be frequently seen at its headquarters at 11, Ashoka Road, in Lutyens Delhi, thought it's better to stop attending the party office. Several of them fixed outstation tours. And those who couldn't, tried their best to avoid the media. On Friday, party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi claimed the BJP was standing behind not just Swaraj but also Raje. The statement was reassuring not only for the two leaders under the cloud but also for several jun

Handling a crisis

Bhupesh Bhandari's column "The generation gap" (White Knight, June 19) on generation transition in business addresses a seminal issue that affects not just industry but society as a whole.The Economist of April 18, 2015, carried a special supplement on family companies, where it urged that enterprises of this genre merit deeper attention than received so far. They dominate business almost the world over, much more so than perceived in management theory.Asian and Indian families offer more exemplars than mentioned by Bhandari. Some of them opt to stay out of the limelight. But they can make good case studies. This begs for greater attention in India, both at management institutions and in serious discourse on economic performance. That might open more eyes to the challenges - and even opportunities - that generation transition of family business offers.Kishan S Rana  New DelhiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargN

Letters: A smooth transition

I couldn't agree more with T N Ninan's column "The frenemy of the people" (Weekend Ruminations, June 20) but perhaps the answer why we collectively allow it all to happen lies in Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. I quote here from Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers on extractive societies:"Although the leisure classes took without rendering any productive service in return, they did so with the full approval of the community... the winning of wealth by force - came to be honorific and dignified.""The lower classes are not at swords' point with the upper; they are bound up with them by the intangible but steely bonds of common attitudes. The workers do not seek to displace their managers; they seek to emulate them. They themselves acquiesce in the general judgement that the work they do is somehow less 'dignified' than the work of their masters, and their goal is not to rid themselves of a superior class but to climb up to it."Pooja Shah  MumbaiLetters can be mai

Letters: Extractive societies

The staffing decisions highlighted in the editorial "Command and control" (June 17) are just one instance of the clear and current dangers facing the citizenry now.First is the social divisiveness from an aggressive pursuit of a uni-culture that is deepening the divisions within India. Second are the emerging instances of crony capitalism. For example, was there any bidding for the power plants that the Indian private sector will be putting up in Bangladesh, and what sort of government guarantees are being provided? Or the push that is being given to public sector banks to fund certain projects of chosen capitalists, some of them are already leveraged well past the level of danger. Third is the whittling down of civic rights such as forest, environment, coastal zone restrictions, tribal rights, land acquisition and labour rights, the attack on NGOs.Fourth is the pursuit of economic policies and projects that do not bring direct, significant and immediate benefit to those who need it th

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 431 - Business Standard

India needs to manage effects of radicalism, violence in West Asia

Playing it safe

Missing in action

Cisco's India approach

Letters: The gold question

Letters: In the PM's shoes

Letters: Not an easy harvest

StatsGuru: Wealthy poised to become richer across the world

Arithmetic or chemistry?

Mydentist raises Rs 50 crore in Series-C

Case study

Humanitarian crisis: 11 mn people displaced in 2014

Debt counseling: Sanjay Agarwal

A repeat of Emergency? It's not likely

False publicity

Sibal's propriety

Handling a crisis

Letters: A smooth transition

Letters: Extractive societies

Letters: Culture shock