Rohit Kothari's review of my book ("Gujarat's self-styled Hercules", May 20), while being embarrassingly gauche, does score on one point. A criticism consistently levelled at me during my career was that I believed my stand was always correct. Actually, it has never been "whatever I say is right" but that "whatever is right becomes my stand". I took considerable pains to find out what action would yield maximum good, a position that changes continuously with real-time coordinates. If the action was within my powers, flexibly interpreted, I never consulted my superiors, taking full responsibility. As all my calls have been the correct ones, public interest was served but left my superiors, particularly politicians, angry. This is ethical management. Kothari, too, finds it "repetitive and irksome". I worked, not for the politician, but for the people they claim to lead. Is that such a bad thing?Kothari also credits the prevailing "Gujarat ethos" for my successes. Then why were these majo

Letters: Ethical management

Business Standard

No walk in the park

Some tweaks should help gold monetisation scheme work

Needs more polish

A key minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government took an early morning flight from Delhi to Kolkata to attend an official function. The chairman and managing director (CMD) of a public sector energy company accompanied him to catch up with ministry officials and set the ball rolling for some key decisions. While the minister went ahead with his programme in the city, the CMD took the next flight back to Delhi. Moral of the story? If you want speedy decisions, match your steps with that of the government, said the head of the PSU. "If you don't want a minute to be wasted, why wait in the minister's office in Delhi? Why not travel with him? Better still, connect over teleconference," he explained.

Business is flying

In the ongoing power tussle between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, the former seems to be getting support from some unexpected quarters. Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was among the first to support the stand of the Aam Aadmi Party-led government. Friends-turned-foes Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav have also backed the rights of an elected government but with a rider that politics of brinkmanship should be avoided. Even the Congress has offered conditional support, stating that while it was behind a democratically elected government it didn't approve of ego clashes.

Outside support

As Chinese Whispers noted yesterday, many ministries in the current government are going to great lengths to highlight their achievements in the last one year through media interactions (see "Anniversary plans", Chinese Whispers, May 20). This is particularly true of those ministries that haven't been in the news too much. Just recently, a ministry, which was part of a larger one, changed the time and venue of a press conference three times, to ensure maximum media coverage. In the end, it settled for the original choice, Shastri Bhawan. If the briefing was to be held at Shastri Bhawan only, why scout for an alternative place? Or was the move meant to garner some pre-conference publicity?

To stay in the news

Apropos the report "Interest on gold deposits may be exempt from tax" (May 20), gold monetisation increases the high powered money in the system by considering gold deposits with banks as reserves. This would have interesting pros and cons. It increases money supply in the system. In some ways, it also amounts to re-entering the gold standard for the economy, in which individual banks must do self-regulation unlike its original avatar in which the central bank was the sole overseer.I think it would deliver, provided due care is taken to avoid advances to wasteful activities that might generate higher returns in the short-run, but do not lead to sustained growth patterns. The risks are now going to be shared by the entire system and will depend on gold prices.Tallury Syama Sundar  HyderabadLetters 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 post

Letters: A golden plan?

This refers to the report "Interest on gold deposits may be exempt from tax" (May 20). The central government's gold monetisation scheme, which is being relaunched soon, could just be the answer to bring the whopping gold deposits held by Indians into the market and curb gold imports. The scheme aims to target not just individuals but organisations such as temple trusts, jewellers and banks as well. What is interesting is that the government is likely to exempt the scheme from wealth tax, capital gains tax and income tax.Gold imports have been a drag on the country's current account deficit and the hefty rise in the import of the yellow metal has been a matter of grave concern. One only hopes that the gold monetisation scheme will prove a game changer.N J Ravi Chander  BengaluruLetters 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

Letters: The gold game changer

This refers to the report "Reducing vulnerabilities crucial for emerging economies: Rajan" (May 20). The positive spillovers of the unconventional monetary policy have accrued to the emerging economies. But the 'taper tantrum' of May-June 2013, triggering an indiscriminately huge outflow of capital, has been haunting the emerging market economies since then. Unconventional monetary policies cannot be sustained for an indefinite period and, therefore, it is inevitable that the same would be unwinded today or tomorrow. However, if the unwinding process is well-spaced, well-sequenced and duly supported by an effective communication channel, its effects on market volatility could be mitigated to a significant extent to the advantage of all.Like many other emerging economies, India has plunged into the game of globalisation for quick growth. However, in doing so, it has neglected the needed reform for correcting serious macroeconomic structural imbalances and building deep, efficient and sa

Letters: After the taper tantrums

Bandaru Dattatreya

In its first year, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has introduced a slew of labour reforms, some of which have been strongly criticised by trade unions. Labour and Employment Minister Bandaru Dattatreya tells Somesh Jha and Indivjal Dhasmana the government is in no hurry to bring in contentious labour reforms, adding it will first try to get labour unions on board. He says trade unions have to adapt to the new environment, as only then will there be employment generation. Edited excerpts:

Labour reforms will lead to job creation: Bandaru Dattatreya

Ending child labour

Rating states by business-friendliness must be rigorous

The business of ranking

The Narendra Modi government, which completes one year in office on May 26, plans to use every opportunity to publicise its achievements over the last 365 days. Apparently, the original plan was to launch a media blitzkrieg in the run-up to its first anniversary. The government also considered holding a series of press briefings on the occasion. That plan has been revised now. While some ministries have scheduled press conferences starting May 22, ministries that have not got a slot yet have been instructed to interact with journalists informally. One would remember that even at the time when the Modi government had completed its first 100 days in office, many of its ministers had held separate press briefings.

Anniversary plans

While it seems the resolution of Vodafone's Rs 20,000-crore tax dispute with the Indian government over the British telecom company's acquisition of Hutchison Essar eight years ago would get delayed further, Sunil Sood, managing director and CEO, found a moment to joke about the company's relations with the Indian government while presenting the financial results for the year ended March 2015. He said his company had contributed Rs 90,000 crore so far to the exchequer (which includes the cost of acquiring spectrum), adding a common joke within the company was "Vodafone works for the government of India".

Good relations

Rahul Gandhi's persistent attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has elicited a counter-attack in no uncertain terms. In the latest round, after Gandhi marked the government "zero out of 10" on its policies for farmers, Urban Development Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, took up the cudgels for the government and tweeted, "Rahul@OfficeOfRG gives Zero to NDA govt. Zeros can't recognize Heroes. Zeros find Zeros only..." The Congress vice-president is currently touring Amethi - his first visit to his constituency in five months.

Zeros and heroes

The disparity in the compensation of adjuncts (akin to temporary-visiting faculty here) and "tenured" faculty (akin to full-time professors) in American universities as discussed by Ajit Balakrishnan in his article "Hard times on campus" (May 19) evokes comparison vis-à-vis India. Looking at the high standing American universities continue to enjoy, it goes to the credit of the one million adjuncts that their discontent has not come in the way of their work, though they get about 50 per cent of pay given to the permanent ones. In India, the compensation for full-time university faculty is on a par but the quality of teaching is going down.Besides, in government colleges, full-time faculty forms the bulk of the teaching staff and yet many of them are rated lower than the private institutions.The moot point is that in India too much stress is given to "inadequate" pay for the fall in education standards. The American example shows that it has more to do with commitment towards the profe

Letters: Low pay, high motivation

This refers to Satya Poddar's article "GST should be a good and simple tax" (May 19). The author has appropriately stated that the model adopted by India is unique, without any precedents in the world. But on the other side, the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) model law has included various provisions that have been made for the convenience of states only. These avoidable provisions, such as an additional 1 per cent tax on the inter-state supply of goods, might somehow mitigate the advantages that we are expecting out of it.Industry, with a bit of luck, is waiting for these provisions to be repealed in the select committee and a full-fledged reform after a long watch. Apart from a good and simple tax structure, effective enforcement, reasonable audit, strict penalty provisions and a good review are important pre-conditions for an effective GST.N K Gupta  New DelhiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Del

Letters: The GST model

This refers to Sharmila Kantha's review "Holding the family business together" of Kavil Ramachandran's book "The 10 Commandments Of Family Business" (May 6). Some families act with wisdom, like a Swedish forestry magnate who distributed the family holdings among his sons, and moved out of a 20-bedroom castle when he and his wife were in their early seventies, so that their elder son could enjoy it while he was young. Another outstanding global Indian family with multi-billion holdings across the world operates on principles encapsulated in a credit card-sized metal tablet. With over 40 male members and a meeting every six months, now well into their third generation, one dictum they uphold is for elders to respect the youth, and carry them on key decisions.Family privacy often inhibits narration of detail, but each successful family demonstrates wisdom, even rare understanding of the human psyche.Kishan S Rana  New DelhiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business S

Letters: Strictly family business

n Amid the hullabaloo surrounding financial inclusion, which is about extending banking facilities to the unbanked, recent data released by the Reserve Bank of India tell a different story. According to the data, the proportion of rural branches to the total number of branches have fallen to 38.5 per cent as on March 2014, compared to 44 per cent in March 2006n Though the data is released with a one-year lag, there is no reason to believe that things have changed drastically in a yearn While the number of rural branches recorded compounded annual growth rate of 5 per cent, the number for urban and metro areas are much higher, at 7.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent respectivelyRURAL: Centres with population of less than 10,000SEMI-URBAN: Population of 10,000 and above but less than 100,000URBAN: Population of 100,000 and above but less than 1 millionMETROPOLITAN: Centres with population above 1 million

Banks go slow in opening rural branches

Nitin Gadkari

The National Democratic Alliance government's focus on infrastructure is set to intensify, with new projects being lined up through the coming months. In an interaction with Business Standard journalists, Nitin Gadkari, Union minister of road transport, highways and shipping, says the public-private partnership (PPP) model is a compulsion, so that government resources can be focused on the rural and agriculture sectors. Edited excerpts:A year on, how has the journey been for you?When I had taken charge, road construction was going on at a pace of two km/day. Today, it is 12 km/day, which could go up to 14 km/day by the end of this month. The target is 30 km/day in two years. Under the previous government, there were a lot of problems with environment approvals; land acquisition was an issue, which led to private interest collapsing. Our target is to contribute two per cent of gross domestic product through the roads and ports sector. We want to award projects worth about Rs 3,00,000 cr

Planning Rs 3 lakh cr of road projects in 6 months: Gadkari

The world over capitals have government offices spread across the city

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