A snapshot of the Samriddhi 2015 conference organised by Business Standard Hindi in Lucknow on February 7

Bonding with industry

Business Standard

A day before India's quarter-final match against Bangladesh in the ICC World Cup 2015, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's hometown sent out a message of thanks with a difference. Public sector engineering consultancy firm Mecon announced that it would rename its stadium in Ranchi's Shyamali colony (Dhoni grew up in the same colony) after the Indian skipper. The stadium would be known as MSD Mecon Stadium from January 1, 2016.

Hometown support

This refers to Vanita Kohli-Khandekar's column "Is the censor board going overboard?" (Media Scope, March 18). There are reasons to believe that the Indian film industry is self-sufficient, offering jobs to millions of people and also entertainment to the masses and classes. The Central Board of Film Certification was probably conceived to be a platform to assess the depiction of any content which, according to the board members, might cause some sort of disturbance in our society. This compels the ruling government to invest time, money and energy in not so important things, in particular when the situation could have been avoided. But certainly, the censor board was not meant to perform social or moral policing on film-makers.Are we sure that the perspective of the film-makers and that of the audience are always the same, if not conflictively different? We know that they are not. Many a times, it has been found that the masses had missed the message and reacted to a wrong perception

Letters: Censoring a piece of art

Apropos the report "Greek PM Tsipras says there is no going back to austerity" (March 17), it is a Catch-22 situation for Greece. The recently-elected Left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has made it clear that austerity measures will not be brought back. The new government in Greece won the elections after promising to do away with austerity measures and renegotiate the terms of a euro 240-billion bailout. The European Union (EU) wants Greece to reform the economy by toeing its line, and this is the crux of the problem. The people of Greece dislike austerity and the new government cannot go back on its election promises. Greece is awaiting access to the aid pledged to it by the EU and the International Monetary Fund. This has led to a cash crunch in Greece. With pressure mounting on Greece to pay back the loans and obtain fresh aid, Athens has to agree on reforms proposed by the EU.In my school days, I studied about the Greek king Alexander (Sikandar in popular parlance in India) b

Letters: Modern-day Alexander

This refers to the editorial "The state of cows" (March 17). The cow, considered holy and treated with great reverence, is unfortunately treated equally shabbily. It is sad to see emaciated and sometimes crippled cows foraging on the roads, eating all the trash that is thrown. Eating meat is neither good nor bad and that includes eating beef as well. Our eating habits are influenced by the environment, climate, flora, fauna and religion. There are large sections of our citizens, including some Hindus and those from the north-east, for whom eating beef is the norm. Hate or love for our food is cultivated and learned. If people still choose to eat beef, the government should not dictate their choice.H N Ramakrishna  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 and telephone number

Letters: Dictating food choices

Parts and whole

Recent moves on transfer pricing tax need clarity

Past mistakes aren't past

Online supporters of the Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL) group are running an innovative social media campaign against its proposed merger with the scam-hit National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). They have opened a new Twitter handle, @United_AFA (United against forced amalgamation), and have managed to trend the #stopmerger hashtag, posting various arguments against the government's proposal. Several Twitter handles have united under the UAFA banner, making its logo their profile picture. One meme that is popular in this network and has caught the imagination of the twitteratti showed FTIL as the Titanic, the British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, and NSEL as an iceberg. The last picture in the series, that of a sinking Titanic, is captioned 'FTIL + NSEL'.

A titanic struggle

The re-emergence of Sonia Gandhi on the front lines of the Congress' battles has renewed speculation about the possible return of her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to Delhi's political theatre. On Tuesday, when the Opposition marched from Parliament House to Rashtrapati Bhavan to protest against what it called an "anti-farmer" land acquisition Bill, it was Sonia Gandhi who led the contingent of senior leaders cutting across party lines. Again, when Trinamool Congress spokesperson Derek O' Brien tripped after being jostled in the ensuing melee, it was the Congress President who extended a hand and helped him get back on his feet. Only a few days back, she had surprised party members with her brisk march down Akbar Road to show solidarity with former prime minister Manmohan Singh, after he was summoned in connection with the coal block allocation scam.

Will he, won't he?

For reasons not hard to see, April 1 is not regarded as the best date to start or launch something new. It seems the same thought has hit some departments and ministries in the National Democratic Alliance government. As a senior official said, there was a plan to hold the first meeting of a committee on infrastructure on that date, but it had now been postponed by a day. Some people might not turn up assuming it's an All Fool's Day prank...

Bad date

Abheek Barua's article "Policy on the hop?"(March 16) is an excellent open analysis of the challenges faced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the context of a top-to-bottom revamp of its own structure and the credibility issues arising from the rushing through of some of the half-baked Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) recommendations. This deserves to be taken seriously by both the RBI and the finance ministry for a quick "stop, look and proceed" with regard to the speed and direction of the policy vehicle they are riding. The effort to divide responsibilities with regard to the fiscal and monetary policy responsibilities now being attempted, while theoretically better, might lead to more problems.One wishes, even at this stage, wiser counsel prevails with the Government of India to review the decision to hurry with the move to transfer the responsibility of managing public debt from the RBI to the finance ministry. Not long ago, we had seen regulators, inclu

Letters: Institutional credibility

The editorial "The state of cows" (March 17) has correctly described the hopeless state of the cow sector after the growing bans on cow slaughter in many Indian states. This is a Catch-22 situation for the agricultural sector. If you do not ban cow slaughter, the Hindutva supporters will consider that policy-makers are anti-Hindu. If you ban cow slaughter, the abandoned cows will have nowhere to go since their future shelter houses will be so expensive that no one would like to invest in them.Add to this mess a recent statement by the Chief Justice of India H L Dattu, saying that genetically modified (GM) crops are a dangerous global experiment. If India does not go for GM crops, on what technological basis will the crop sector grow? Agricultural experts know that currently there are not many options available. This is one reason the demand for high protein pulses in India is met by imports in huge quantities. So, the agricultural sector, comprising cows and crops, has no blessings eit

Letters: GM crops and cows

This refers to M C Joshi's letter "Political espionage" (March 18). The Delhi Police sent an officer to Rahul Gandhi's residence to identify the colour of his eyes and hair. It is ridiculous if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government says this was a routine security procedure. The country is running short of security and police forces, leaving the common man vulnerable to crimes. This is called the misappropriation of scarce resources. This activity not only wasted the time of the police but also presented a chance to the Congress for raising unnecessary debates. After its electoral rout, the Congress is looking for ways to remain in the limelight and pounce on the BJP government.The sad thing about the whole episode is that we are forgetting the actual problems - unemployment, terrorism, religious intolerance and so on - facing the nation and focusing on non-issues.Veena Shenoy  ThaneLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Sh

Letters: A political non-issue

Slaughter bans do not help protect cattle

The state of cows

India's numbers good, but reform cannot be postponed

A bright spot?

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's sabbatical led to a lot of conjecture and ridicule in and outside the party. The hullabaloo refuses to die. One doesn't know if it was a gentle dig or an effort to downplay the whole thing, but party general secretary Digvijaya Singh has managed to bring the episode back in the spotlight by comparing Gandhi's long absence with Russian President Vladimir Putin's sudden disappearance. "Putin also off to introspection?," he tweeted on Monday.

Like Putin?

Power Minister Piyush Goyal was in his element at an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, at which the new US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, was also present. After Verma's address to the business chamber, Goyal rose to speak. He congratulated the ambassador on his public speaking skills and wondered aloud whether the US had sent him to India to be its ambassador or to run for a government office. This left the audience in complete silence, while the American ambassador was visibly embarrassed.

Running for government

Giving a speech at the same event, US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, made a reference to Chanakyapuri, where the US consulate in Delhi is located. He said it was named after the ancient Indian scholar Chanakya, and went on to remind the audience what Chanakya had said about a "true friend" - that he was one who did not forsake us in our time of need, misfortune, famine, war, in a king's court, or at the crematorium (samsana). Ironically, the US consulate at Chanakyapuri had become one of the focal points of controversy when the India-US row over the arrest of diplomat Devyani Khobragade reached its peak in December 2013.

Chanakya, the best friend?

Arunabha Ghosh and Hem Himanshu Dholakia's column "Competitive pollutionism no good" (Inflexion Points, March 17) is significant since it talks of reducing air pollution in big cities without getting into the industrialisation versus environment-protection debate. If it is difficult to provide mechanical road sweepers to control road dust (identified as the major cause for atmospheric particulates), the use of manual sweeping and sprinkling of roads, a vanishing practice now, should be revived.I think that vehicular exhaust, identified as the major problem in Chennai, is a greater pollutant than road dust in cities such as Pune, where three wheelers and light commercial vehicles abound. Here, the damage to the atmosphere can be reduced substantially just by strictly imposing the law and penalising the offenders.Apart from the government and the industry, we, too, need to be environment-conscious by becoming aware of our polluting domestic practices - such as burning of garbage or not s

Letters: Air pollution and our lives

This refers to the report "Congress may harden stance after snooping incident" (March 16). What the Delhi Police has called a routine security exercise done in case of VIPs has been converted by the Congress into an opportunity to accuse the Narendra Modi government of "snooping" and carrying out "political espionage" on Rahul Gandhi. This security exercise started in 1957 and further details have been added to it subsequently. The exercise has reportedly covered many prominent residents of Delhi's Lutyens' Bungalow Zone so far, which included Sonia Gandhi, former prime ministers I K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, and other Cabinet ministers. Prime Minister Modi joined the list in 2014, while Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah was included this year. Rahul Gandhi is an SPG-protected VIP and cannot be treated differently.In a similar manner, in 1991, the Congress had accused the then Chandra Shekhar government of mounting surveillance on Rajiv Gandhi and had wi

Letters: Political espionage?

This refers to the report "SC asks Centre to tell states not to make Aadhaar mandatory" (March 17). The Supreme Court has once again ruled that the Aadhaar card cannot be the sole means of benefits transfer. This is because the speedy and time-bound issue of Aadhaar is not getting the desired attention. If the government feels that Aadhaar is a good vehicle to transfer entitlements with minimum leakage, then it must put far greater effort to ensure it is obtained easily. After decades, the issues of passport and PAN card have been streamlined with their time-bound delivery, but Aadhaar cards would far exceed their combined numbers. The existing infrastructure for the delivery of Aadhaar is just not there.The best solution would be to annex Aadhaar modules to passport service kendras. Akin to the processing of passports, for Aadhaar too, the date and time for appearance can be intimated after application and posted within two weeks thereafter. Since both are related to personal identifi

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