Though the Aam Aadmi Party is yet to officially declare the names of its ministers, it appears Vinod Kumar Binny, Rakhi Birla and Manish Sisodia might get Cabinet berths in the new government. The party has already announced Arvind Kejriwal as the new chief minister of the minority government.A re-cap of people who will rule the national capital for at least the next six months:

New faces of Delhi

Business Standard

Kejriwal announces formation of a political party

Revolutionary road

This refers to the editorial "Infosys still in flux" (December 24). Nobody doubts the intentions of N R Narayana Murthy or the beneficial effects his return is having on the fortunes of the company. But the series of high-level exits in the past six months, particularly that of V Balakrishnan from the Infosys Board, sends out a clear message that all is not well with Murthy's style of functioning. By taking effective charge of the company as its executive chairman, Murthy has rendered the position of chief executive officer (CEO) redundant, if not irrelevant. It is this realisation that must have weighed with Balakrishnan, who must be aware that he was a front runner to succeed S D Sibhulal as the next CEO. And for the same reason, it will be difficult for Infosys to attract top-notch talent, especially from outside the company, to fill in this position when it gets vacant. The fact is that the company does not need a CEO so long as Murthy remains its executive chairman. As and when a

Letters: All not well at Infy

This refers to the report "AAP stoops to conquer Delhi" (December.24). It is unfair to say that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has stooped to come to power in Delhi. Accepting the challenge of politicians to defeat them in the election and make laws, Arvind Kejriwal formed AAP and has stunned the traditional political players by gaining power in Delhi within a year. He has smashed the belief that honest and unresourceful common man has no place in electoral politics where opaque funding, identity vote bank and money and muscle power are essential to win polls. Having fallen short of majority, AAP's referendum to obtain public opinion on formation of government through various means of direct public contact  has saved the people of Delhi from re-election and the consequent heavy burden on the exchequer. The party has neither given any assurance to the Congress nor signed with it any agreement (the Congress had voluntarily extended unconditional support to AAP in a letter sent to the Lt Gover

Letters: Clean politics

This refers to the report "Slums fading from cities: NSSO" (December 25). To know that 24 per cent of slums have benefited from welfare schemes gives the hope that we can aim for a slum-free India. Now that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has come to power in Delhi due to the massive support of the poor, especially the slum dwellers, all eyes are on the party as to how it will rehabilitate them. AAP can draw up plans to upgrade facilities so that slums do not remain slums.Jacob Sahayam  ThiruvananthapuramLetters 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: In return

India and Pakistan should work on developing their own rivers

No more squabbles

The art of giving

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's speech at the 86th annual general meeting of Ficci made waves in the media but business and industry may have been less than impressed after the interactive session that followed. When Gandhi's response to a question on the telecom sector was to not answer it, one industrialist took a dig at him on a query related to the Land Acquisition Act. "I don't know whether you are in the know of the details of the Act," he told Gandhi. This was followed by a question from Harsh Pati Singhania on education and human resource development. After the Gandhi scion finished answering that question, he asked Singhania, "Do you agree with me?" Singhania's prompt, laconic reply: "Not entirely." Given that the business community is usually extremely careful about alienating the political establishment, could this be a sign of the times?

A question of answers

Still, it is clear that the Congress vice-president is making an effort to fine-tune his image. Having been mocked and mimicked by the Bharatiya Janata Party for his mannerism of pulling up his sleeves every so often, Rahul Gandhi was careful to avoid doing so during his Ficci speech. So much so that at one point during the speech he was seen reflexively reaching for his cuff and then consciously stopping himself.

Off the cuff

Pity the Congress . It just cannot come to terms with defeat. On the much vaunted  All-India Congress Committee website (www.inc.in), which is supposed to be the live connect between the aam aadmi Congress voter and the party, alert (or hopeful) Congress workers still haven't got around to uploading the result of the last round of Assembly elections that saw the Congress dislodged from Delhi and Rajasthan. The two states are still listed as states where the Congress is in power and are highlighted proudly on the map of India in turquoise. No wonder people say the Congress just doesn't get it.

Falling off the map

It is well-established that the environment ministry portfolio under the United Progressive Alliance has resembled a game of musical chairs with, first, Jairam Ramesh and now Jayanthi Natarajan being shifted out in controversial circumstances. But M Veerappa Moily, who has been given additional charge of the portfolio, disagrees. Responding to a journalist's query to this effect, he retorted, "This is always a relay race, madam." But as a senior leader he is naturally no less aware of the issues surrounding this ministry. So, when a reporter congratulated him on the new appointment, he responded with a twinkle, "Knowing me, you should be sympathetic!"

Relayed sympathies

To the question posed in the article "Can Kejriwal's team deliver the moon to Delhiites?"(December 23), the honest and direct answer is "No, this is not possible in the given situation". Why, then, should the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) form a government in Delhi? Because, even if 30 per cent of the promises in the party's manifesto are fulfilled, Delhi's population will be better off than during the previous regimes. Changes do not occur that fast. If AAP has succeeded in making the outgoing chief minister demand the implementation of its manifesto and promises support for efforts in that direction, the new party has won half the battle. In any case, the Congress has lost its moral right to question delays in honouring commitments because the past 65 years have not seen it honour any Directive Principle of State Policy enshrined in the Constitution.M G Warrier  ThiruvananthapuramLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNe

Letters: The better option

Apropos the report "AAP to form govt in Delhi, Kejriwal to be CM" (December 24), Arvind Kejriwal managed, within a year of the inception of the party, to form the government by exploiting Congress mis-rule and the people's discontent with the incumbent party. But he bit the first bullet when he aligned with the Congress and compromised his party's ideology of having no truck with corrupt politicians and parties. Today, he is in the unenviable position of having to fulfill many poll promises that are easier said than done. Besides, the Congress, as an outside supporter, has never allowed any government to function in the past and toppled them at its convenience. Unlike most political parties, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was never built on the core support of any particular caste, section or region, but on popular discontent against the political class. That can be retained only if AAP delivers.N Ramamurthy  ChennaiLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNe

Letters: AAP's test begins

The fortunes of the Indian IT industry today are linked to the ebb and tide of a globalised economy. That said, Infosys is beset with internal problems. Clearly, its top management is out of sync, both among themselves and with the external environment. That Narayana Murthy has not been able to stem the high levels of senior staff attrition points to the intensity of the problem. "Infy" the brand had outgrown its current levels of performance and urgently requires an upgrade. In the decade after Murthy's departure, Infosys, like other IT majors, acquired a more evolved and innovative set of hands. Today's IT is not about tomorrow but the day after and beyond. The job profile of a chief executive officer can only fit a younger and energetic pathfinder to enthuse and pilot these young men and women through newer challenges even as he keeps the company's growth and profits in sight.R Narayanan  GhaziabadLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House,

Letters: Upgrade for Infy

A report by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Ernst & Young (EY) on the pension market estimates the current retirement funds corpus in India to be in the range of  Rs 12 -15 lakh crore, more than one-third of which lies in the Employees Provident Fund, the principle source of retirement planning for workforce in the organised sector. However, they estimate this corpus to cross Rs 83 trillion by 2025

Saving for retirement

Infosys still in flux

Open, accountable system needed to settle disputes with developers

Jammed-up roads

A fierce argument appears to have broken out on Twitter between an alumnus of the Indian Foreign Service and Ashutosh Varshney, head of the India programme at Brown University. K C Singh, a former ambassador, said the ambassador-designate to the United States, S Jaishankar, was being "rewarded" for the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement, when Hardip Puri, a former permanent representative of India to the United Nations (UN), should have been given the job because he got along with his former UN colleague, Susan Rice. Rice is currently serving as the US National Security Advisor. Singh then went on to accuse former foreign secretary and ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao of going to Brown University after an endowment from the Government of India created a position there. He also asked whether former foreign minister S M Krishna went to Brown, in Rhode Island, to deliver a lecture when New York University and Columbia University are both in Manhattan, because the university offered a "sinec

Browned off

There was one unexpected fallout of the Khobragade-Richard episode in Delhi. Peter Lavoy, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs (APSA), had arrived in the capital to hold a briefing on the US role in Afghanistan and the post-drawdown situation. A well-liked figure in the Indian strategic analysts' community, Lavoy arrived to find that no one would host him. Finally, the briefing had to be held at the residence of a US diplomat.

A host of problems

Heavy industries Minister Praful Patel appears to be nostalgic about his stint in the first United Progressive Alliance government when he was minister of civil aviation. Addressing the industry body Ficci as part of its 86th annual general meeting, the Nationalist Congress Party stalwart made more references to decisions he took as aviation minister than those he took in his current portfolio. And he threw in a parting joke as he left that underlined this impression: "Sorry, for leaving early. I cannot afford to hold a flight any longer since I am no more the civil aviation minister."

Flights of nostalgia

CRISIL has analysed the cash conversion cycle of 7,300 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the manufacturing and service sectors in FY 2011-12 (refers to the financial year, April 1 to March 31). The study was conducted to understand the nature and pace of the working capital cycle from the first stage, where an MSME procures the requisite raw material, to the last stage, where it receives payments from customers for its goods or services. The sample does not include service sectors such as banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), as these activities are not undertaken by MSMEs owing to the small size of their operations.The study revealed that MSMEs in the service sector have a shorter cash conversion cycle of 40 days, as compared with their manufacturing-sector counterparts, which take more than 58 days to recover cash from their working capital cycle. CRISIL's analysis indicates that the key factors responsible for the longer cycles of manufacturing enterprises

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