This refers to the report "Madhuri gets notice for endorsing Maggi" (May 30). It is a common practice of multinational companies in India to bring in people from the cine world to endorse their products. A huge amount of money is paid for such endorsements. With illiteracy dominating the Indian population, the products get sold in large volumes due to misleading advertisements. The question is why should brand ambassadors (read Madhuri Dixit) become controversial by endorsing products that are controversial? Dixit was shortlisted by the company due to the attraction she holds for housewives in India.Legally, Nestle India may overcome the issue but the ethical component of the issue remains unchallenged. The rule "caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware) has wreaked havoc on buyers. If the company does not get appropriate brand ambassadors, the damage gets reduced to that extent.K V Rao  BengaluruLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadu

Letters: Let the buyer beware

Business Standard

Prima facie, there is ample room to cut with inflation well below the RBI's target levels

Corporate results argue for a rate cut

Banking stocks have grabbed a lot of investor attention due to outperformance in the past year. In 2014-15, the BSE Banking index rose 40 per cent compared to 25 per cent gains in the Sensex. Here is a list of the top 10 banks in terms of largest number of retail shareholders.State Bank of India tops the list, followed by ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. Smaller banks like UCO Bank and Axis Bank, too, are on the top 10 list. J&K Bank (not in the list) saw the highest increase in the number of shareholders in percentage terms.

Retail investors' banks

Reform of state electricity boards more vital than capacity increasesThe power crisis in the country has taken a new form: there just aren't enough buyers in the market. Strange as it may sound, the supply is way ahead of demand. Such a situation has arisen because the electricity boards of most states are mired in losses, and are left with no money to pay for power. This has resulted in bigger and bigger power cuts for households in the peak of summer. Spot power rates have fallen to around Rs 1, but even that has failed to attract the electricity boards. As many as 57 power stations, The Indian Express reported last week, have shut down because of lack of demand. The country's average plant load factor fell from 71.12 per cent in 2009-10 to 65.1 per cent in 2014-15, according to Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education & Research Society. Worse is to come. Very soon, the wind farms in the south and the hydro-power stations in the north will up their output. And once many of the stalled

Wrong power focus

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi (top) and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi continue to spar over suits and suitcases, both have earned brownie points in an editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana. According to the editorial, suits were worn by people around the world and a country's image did not improve by wearing scruffy clothes (advantage Modi); it also said Rahul Gandhi's actions and words after his 56-day sabbatical had helped restore confidence among Congress workers (advantage Gandhi).

All square

The ban on Ambedkar-Periyar study circle by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, seemed to have an unintended consequence. The name has caught the imagination of students across the country, with Facebook pages named after the Ambedkar-Periyar study circle opening across various campuses. Some of these are Ambedkar Periyar study circle IIT, Delhi, Ambedkar Periyar Bhagat Singh study circle, Ambedkar Periyar Society Jadavpur University and Ambedkar Periyar Phule study circle. A tweet showing all these Facebook pages was doing the rounds yesterday.

One ban and one hundred born

Slaps and ministers in India have had a long history. Jharkhand Health Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi, who won the Vishrampur Assembly seat about six months ago, was on Sunday caught on camera hitting a Rashtriya Janata Dal member, Shambhunath Chandrawanshi. Some two months ago, Goa minister Francisco Mickky Pacheco was convicted for slapping a government servant on duty in July 2006. In 2013, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lost her cool, threatening to slap photo-journalists, though she didn't actually carry out the threat. In 2011, then agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was slapped by a youth who was apparently fed up of the growing inflation, corruption and graft cases in the country. And, if our memory serves us, about a decade back, then Punjab finance minister Capt Kanwaljit Singh of the Shiromani Akali Dal drew flak for slapping a Congress supporter following a scuffle.

Slapping up a storm

Apropos Subir Gokarn's column "Made by robots" (Muddy Waters, June 1), disruptive technologies such as 3D-printing and industrial robots are about to cause radical changes in the manufacturing sector and alter the global supply chain. Given the technical expertise and highly skilled workforce the advanced economies possess, it makes sense to relocate manufacturing units to their countries as these technologies make the cost of manufacturing location-independent. It remains to be seen whether Indian policymakers wake up to this reality.D Aravind  MumbaiLetters 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: Robots and us

This refers to Subir Gokarn's column "Made by robots" (Muddy Waters, June 1) making a case for preparing India for the use of robots in manufacturing, with which we all might agree. Three additional points need consideration. First, robots being ultra-smart machines, the overall required modernisation level of Indian manufacturing will decide to what extent robots can be absorbed seamlessly in its operations (the stories emerging from South Korea on the use of robots might confirm this.) Second, as a national policy, we must continuously donate a few thousand robots to our elite and other respected technology institutes. The young engineers coming out of these institutes must have hands-on experience of these state-of-the-art robots in their well-developed departments of robotics - this may also correspondingly need much improvement in the quality of the projects undertaken by them at colleges.Finally, the use of robots in industry needs to be closely regulated by governments, as India

Letters: Mechanisation 2.0

Apropos the column "Not your usual group interview" (Worm's Eye View, May 30), the curriculum vitae-focussed interviewing process is probably one more addition to the search for a selection tool that delivers the right type of candidate for a required job. Whether this method is a gimmick or a good selection technique would depend on its reliability (consistency in judgement) and validity (measuring what it aims to measure). Generally, interviewing scores low on them because of the subjective human assessment involved in the process, including errors such as the halo effect, stereotyping, constant and contrast error, misinterpretation of body language of the candidate and so on. Then there is the issue of whether this type of interview would really assess the competences organisations look for in a candidate.Moreover, the way an interview is conducted also makes a difference. The technique in question would also require some expert opinion to evaluate the response of the interviewee in

Letters: Interview call

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

Case study

Budget: Rs 50 lakh-1 croreBusiness Standard brings you a snapshot of average current rates and unit sizes in localities that offer property in a price range of Rs 50 lakh-1 crore. If you are looking at buying real estate and your budget falls within this range, an idea about prevailing rates would come in handy

Realty check

Nimesh Shah, managing director & chief executive officer, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, answers your questionsEvery time I invest in a new fund, will I get a new folio number? Can I invest using the same folio number I have for my earlier funds? You can invest across schemes with a single folio number in mutual funds (MFs). Many investors file fresh applications even while investing in the same fund house, which creates multiple folios.  It becomes tedious to maintain and keep records of MF investments in such cases. All schemes under a consolidated folio will allow you to track and transact in one folio and view all your MF investments in a single statement.I want to invest for my child's higher education and I have five years before she starts college. What kind of mutual funds (MFs) will be suitable? There are child care plans, designed to help you give your child a head start in life by leveraging the opportunities and dynamism of equity and relative stability of t

Mutual Fund: Nimesh Shah

Promulgating land ordinance for a third time is an unwise move

Bad precedent

GDP numbers call strength of economic recovery into question

Time slipping away

The Department of Personnel & Training has issued a list of "new and healthy food items" that departmental canteens in central government offices should offer. It has asked canteens to add 13 types of snacks and beverages to their repertoire - different types of vegetable soups, dhokla, khakhra, poha, matar chaat, sprouts, muffins, pav bhaji, mishti doi, soya snacks, shrikhand, buttermilk and lemonade. Until now, the canteens followed a menu last revised in 2008. Among other things, the earlier menu offered samosa, vegetable cutlets, idli-sambhar, paneer pakora, besan laddoo and coconut laddoo - primarily food from north and south India. The new menu has added snack options popular in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The notification was issuedlast Thursday.

On a platter

There had been reports that the government at the Centre was planning to celebrate World Yoga Day - that falls on June 21 - with great fanfare. Now, it has emerged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing for what is billed to be the world's largest mass yoga demonstration, to be held along a stretch of Rajpath - from Rafi Marg to India Gate. Reports suggest the Union Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani and Siddha (Ayush) has requested some government departments to join the prime minister for a 33-minute yoga session on that day.

Yoga with the PM

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Shatrughan Sinha seems to believe that the BJP doesn't yet appreciate the extent of the threat it faces in Bihar. He told journalists in Patna last week that the BJP needed a captain who could lead the party in the next Bihar Assembly elections against main rival and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. According to him, the BJP's rival was "tried, tested and popular" and so, his party should also identify a leader whose image was clean, tested and popular. Not that he was not in the race for chief ministership, but if the party wanted, he would be ready for any responsibility, Sinha said.

Wanted: A captain for Bihar

This refers to the editorial "Why can't Modi make a case for reforms?" (May 29). It is obvious that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not yet ready to put his current political halo on the line by trumpeting the reforms, which are being termed as anti-poor by the Opposition parties. In India, political tags cannot be taken lightly. They play a great role in making or breaking political careers. Having an anti-poor tag is like cutting one's own throat in politics. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is already on the back foot on the land acquisition Bill, as it is being labelled as pro-corporate by the Opposition.Even otherwise, what is being projected as achievements by the NDA government in its expensive and expansive media publicity blitzkrieg to mark its first year in office, is more about nostrums than long-term reforms. Schemes such as the Atal Pension Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana will help the benefic

Letters: Political tags

Apropos the article "The path to ageing with dignity" (BS Weekend, May 30). Pension Parishad is a very good effort. Old age pension is at the state level, except the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme, which gives Rs 200 per month. In states, old age pension is recommended by politicians who never bother to verify and examine whether one is deserving of a pension and meets all the parameters of the scheme. The result is that those who do not require pension are getting the benefits and the deserving cases are deprived of the aid. This was not the purpose of the scheme. The pension scheme should be revised at the central government level and provide clear guidelines and conditions for the entitlement of the beneficiaries.The pension should be distributed through public sector banks and states should share the burden with the central government. The beneficiaries should be verified casewise by designated retired gazetted officers of the central government, public banks and gen

Letters: Paying for pension

The lack of a systematic approach affects success rates of big data implementation initiatives

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 438 - Business Standard