Former finance minister P Chidambaram's vigorous questioning of the role of the Enforcement Directorate and the finance ministry in the entire Lalit Modi episode was not a suo motu intervention. Congress President Sonia Gandhi telephoned him and requested him to say something on the controversy. Chidambaram then dug out the records, including the letters he had written to the UK asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to send Modi back and made parts of the correspondence public. In an unusual move, the UK government also confirmed that the Indian leader had indeed written to the government of UK.This is a rare occasion when the Congress President herself asked a Congress member to jump into the fray. This is somewhat odd when Modi claims it was Pranab Mukherjee, also a former UPA finance minister, who is his enemy no 1 because it was Mukherjee who started the government's pursuit of Modi.

Role reversal?

Business Standard

Sporting vanities

India recorded the highest growth rate across the globe for high net worth individuals (HNWIs)* population (26.3%) and wealth (28.2%) in 2014, according to a report by Capgemini and Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management. The report titled 'World Wealth Report' 2015 attributed this rise to a decisive mandate to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party, fall in crude oil prices and inflation. It said a decisive 'mandate combined with sound monetary policy ushered in a positive wave of sentiments'.  The report said significant growth in ultra HNWIs (those with more than $30 million of investable assets), wealth in India (31.3%) and China (21.6%) led the highest growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Overall India jumped five positions to be ranked 11th globally. Here is a snapshot of the report:

Indian billionaires added more wealth on Modi's success

Cheap imports from China have hit the manufacturing sector

Dumping impact on India's manufacturing sector

CFOs are increasingly willing to go mobile in professional lives, discarding decades-old methods of transferring funds in favour of payments executed on smartphones and tablets

Phone smart, money smarter

Focus on more investment to enhance capacity should be a priority

Railway reform imperative

But concern about shortage of supply remains

Policy shift to pulses

The proxy advisory business, which helps institutional investors make voting decisions, is still an emerging segment, with a handful of active players. However, competition between them is as fierce as anywhere else. Last week, the founder of one of these firms wrote to his clients, journalists and well-wishers announcing the completion of its third year in business. Just a day later, the chief executive of another firm in the same business sent a similar mail, but of completion of five years and inviting people to join them in celebrations. Let us hope this competition results in improved corporate governance standards in the Indian corporate sector. Like one of these mails said, "This would not only reduce risk for investors, it will improve returns as well."

Birthday competition

After being hit hard by a corporate espionage incident and alleged cases of favouritism to the media and politicians, key corporate groups are playing extremely safe now. Executives in a noted energy company, for instance, don't meet journalists in their office since that would entail details being recorded in the entry register. Another infrastructure major does not talk about news of any sort over the phone and prefers to communicate only through e-mail. So much for secrecy that some who agree to meet in person, like to walk the talk near their office premises.

Top secret

Journalist-turned politician and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokesperson Ashutosh took a jibe at the Delhi Police on Wednesday over news reports claiming that a probe had found 21 AAP MLAs with criminal cases against them. Ashutosh tweeted: "Where is the Byte of DELHI POLICE? Simple question???" He added, "I request all TV crime reporters to get an official byte from police stating that they are planning to charge sheet and arrest 21 AAP MLAs." In a frontal attack, he said, "To divert attention from Sushma, story of 21 AAP MLAs to be arrested, is planted by MODI GOVT. Gullible TV channels are gleefully running.Haha." The AAP government is embroiled in a feud with the Delhi Police, which reports to the Central government and not the Delhi chief minister. Police action against former law minister Jitender Singh Tomar has also not gone down well with AAP.

Where's the proof?

This refers to Anjuli Bhargava's column "Fobbing off Facebook" (Out of the Blue, June 18). Kudos to the writer for sustaining herself through the Facebook phenomenon, an era where everyone was dying to get online and probably still are. While Facebook might not end because the 'socially-conscious' people will not let it, but there is no doubt the interest is dwindling. Facebook is no longer about remaining connected, it is literally unveiling yourself in front of the world everyday. But that does not hold true for all. Not everyone keeps spamming news feeds with check-ins and crazy selfies or with low-IQ and blatant posts intended to garner 'likes'.In a way, social media has helped improve the information flow, as witnessed several times during natural disasters. While it maybe labelled as a waste of time and something that has killed facial interaction, people close to you will still take out time to get in touch over a call or coffee.So, it all sums up to the often cited fact that so

Letters: A necessary evil

Apropos Anjuli Bhargava's column "Fobbing off Facebook" (Out of the Blue, June 18), a recent profile of Indian users of social media (reported by the Internet & Mobile Association of India) shows that Facebook commands the first place in the usage of social media websites in India and that there is a preponderance of young customers. What they share on Facebook befits their taste, priority and purpose.Should older people and those engaged in serious professions (teaching, journalism and so on) join Facebook? It depends on how one uses the medium. When I joined Facebook at the age of 75 in 2010 at the persuasion of my students, I found mostly the same content as the author detests. Then I realised it may not be a good source of knowledge but it is a good diversion from staid work and a window to how the young generation thinks not only about frolics of life but political and social happenings as well.Y G Chouksey PuneLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business S

Letters: Facebook for everyone

Apropos the article by Charan Singh and C L Dadhich "A safer future for the Indian farmer" (June 17), there is no doubt that schemes such as the Jan Dhan Yojana can facilitate the efficient and timely disbursement of monetary help to small farmers in times of distress. But the cause of depression among farmers is the erosion of self-sufficiency of villages/blocks in terms of basic needs. Increase in commercial cropping affects the farming community in a lot of ways. It is resource-intensive and this increases their need to borrow. It has opportunity costs since the farmers often reduce or stop food grain cultivation. It also increases dependence on markets both for inputs and the produce. In other words, the community is leveraged financially, as well as operationally - thus prone to risks.The authors are correct in pointing out that no sooner does a natural disaster hit an area, than exaggerated claims of the value of damage to crops appear in the media. The political process of waivi

Letters: Focus on self-sufficiency

Deeper problems of competitiveness continue to bedevil India's exports

Let rupee continue depreciating to deal with export malaise

India's cities paid for govt ignoring the great architect's advice

Charles Correa, the urban conscience-keeper for India

It seems as if the entire Raisina Hill and central government ministries in New Delhi are busy practising yogic postures rather than doing government work. On Wednesday, senior and junior bureaucrats in several ministries shared floor space to exercise their muscles and joints, instead of wielding their mighty pens on government files. The preparations are likely to gather pace with only three more days to go for the International Yoga Day. The scene is no different at India's foreign missions and posts, where the staff have taken to practising yoga along with members of the Indian diaspora.

It's time for Yoga

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson on Wednesday accused the Congress of taking an anti-women view in its attack on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, for assisting former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi get travel documents from the UK immigration authorities. Some independent women's rights organisations - outfits affiliated neither to the Congress nor the Sangh Parivar - are preparing to stage protests against the Congress' stance. People in the BJP have reached out to such organisations to highlight how both Swaraj and Raje empathised with Modi and his ailing wife - in ways only a woman could - and their help to him was on humanitarian grounds. Their contention is that Swaraj and Raje were being victimised even as several male politicians have had deeper links with Modi.

Anti-women view

It has almost been six months since Babul Supriyo took charge as minister of state for urban development. But it seems Supriyo, a singer who has a number of popular soundtracks to his name, is still in Tinseltown mode. While answering a question on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's frequent foreign visits and if he was acting as de facto external affairs minister, Supriyo drew comparisons with a Bollywood film. "Modi is like Shah Rukh Khan, the blue-eyed boy. Just as SRK is the brand ambassador of the industry, Modi is the perfect representative of India, even though there are talented people like Naseeruddin Shah," he said. Shah will surely not enjoy being in Sushma Swaraj's shoes.

Politics, Bollywood style

This refers to the editorial "Bellwether of distress" (June 17). A lot has been written about the recent upsurge, or the lack of it, in the economy. While aspersions can't be cast on the noble intentions of the government, a lot still needs to be done.Taking the example of the banking industry, it is only apparent that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been kosher in issuing the guidelines to the banks for taking over the ownership of defaulters. Herein, the RBI and the government seem to be on the same page.The lower and middle class people of India need to see concrete results before they can be fed with another dose of optimism in garb of new welfare schemes. The actual implementation and monitoring of 'Make in India' or rather 'Make for India' (as suggested by Raghuram Rajan) can uplift the economy. The manufacturing sector has the wherewithal to lift the economy from the doldrums. Boosting manufacturing leads to more job creation than boosting the tertiary sector/knowledge econo

Letters: Manufacture and grow

I agree with T R Rustagi's Letter to the Editor "To tax or not to tax" (June 15), where he concluded that the so-called huge arrears of revenue were mostly illusory. Actually, the cases pending with tribunal, high courts and the Supreme Court are overwhelmingly lost by the Department of Revenue. Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam - in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on September 5, 2012 - gave the figures for the success rate of revenue cases, which indicated that the rate was abysmally pitiable. In plain terms, 84 per cent of departmental orders are set aside at the tribunal stage, 70 per cent at the high court stage and 90 per cent at the Supreme Court. He also said that Rs 86,000 crore were held up in court cases. But it should not give the impression that the government would get this much money, if the litigations were finalised. It would only get about 10-15 per cent of this amount, which might be about Rs 12,000 crore, if all cases were decided, which wa

Letters: Illusory arrears

This refers to the Lunch with BS with Varun Gandhi, "My kind of politics" (June 6). I am specifically concerned with the painting by Rabindranath Tagore featuring Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, which was gifted by Gandhiji to Nehru and inherited by Varun Gandhi.To the best of my knowledge, there is no record of Tagore painting Nehru and Gandhi, and him gifting it to Gandhiji. If such a painting by Tagore is with Varun Gandhi, an image of the same should be published, so that the authenticity of the same can be verified by experts.Shailesh Parekh  AhmedabadLetters 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

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