The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party should form the government in Delhi but not tie-up with any party to do so: This was the verdict of a majority of the people interviewed in a ABP News-IPSOS Snap Poll. If re-elections are inevitable because of this, so be it, the people have said.

Election redux

Business Standard

Parliament should write Section 377 into history

A step backwards

Competition Commission's order is a wake-up call

End coal monopoly

For better security, government officials are advised to use the official email system. But in the attempt to make the system secure, the process of logging in and logging out takes longer. So as a senior official said, "We use it only when we have enough time. Otherwise, it's always Gmail for me." But what of ultra-sensitive issues that need immediate action? "If it's really a sensitive thing, and I have to get it done immediately, I prefer to put it down in writing as my seniors are more comfortable with that." So much for e-governance and automation.

Snail mail in e-governance

The feat of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recently concluded Delhi elections has not only surprised but also frightened the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. Some leaders of both parties who earlier wanted to contest from one of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital in the general elections next year are now reportedly reviewing their plans. They are worried that since unknown faces from a one-year-old party managed to beat heavyweights of these well-established parties in the Assembly polls, the AAP and its candidates would emerge even stronger in the general elections.

AAP effect

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been congratulated on its performance in the recent elections in four states by none other than Asaram Bapu, the self-styled and controversial spiritual leader who is lodged in a Jodhpur prison for the alleged rape of a minor. Coming out of court, he called it the victory of truth, and blamed the Congress for his current woes. Does Asaram expect the new BJP government in Rajasthan to take a lenient view of the matter? Maybe not. But this is one congratulatory message that the party could have done without.

Premature articulation?

This refers to the report "Ministries spar over due-diligence reports" (December 11). While admiring the ministries, the regulator and the expert committees of the regulator for fixing a time schedule before which the new bank licences are to be issued, the common man feels that a similar strict time schedule should have been prescribed for dealing with the equally important issue of the merger of public sector banks, and the reduction of their increasing non-performing assets. Writing about the heavily indebted Kingfisher Airlines in the report "Kingfisher on ground, banks' money up in the air" (December 7), your newspaper rightly highlighted the important issue. For the common man who has put his valuable savings in these banks, the recovery of their bad debts, and the merging of nearly 20 public sector banks into a few banks that can be called global in character, are far more urgent tasks for the government and the regulator than allotting new banking licences. It is just like the

Letters: Bad debts and mergers

This refers to Rajiv Shastri's article "India's self-created fiscal cliff" (December 9). Even as an educated layman with no doctorate in economics, I was concerned about the increasing government profligacy. I thought that both government assurances and the prevailing analytical trends were not truly reflective of the real hazard they posted. I had used the same construct of expressing the government deficit as a percentage of revenues, not the gross domestic product, in an article published in Loksatta in December 2012, and concluded that the deficit at 52 per cent of the estimated revenues in 2012/13 and raised major doubts about the government's ability to repay its borrowings. The debt service burden alone amounted to more than a third of the revenue. This has serious implications for not just galloping inflation but also the safety of the common man's savings placed in government securities believing them to be as good as gold.Sudhir Apte  SataraLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-m

Letters: The real fiscal problem

This refers to Ajai Shukla's column "A K Antony's intellectual dishonesty" (Broadsword, December 10). Considering the highly sensitive nature of the issue and its possible adverse future implications on the security of the country and its citizens, one cannot find fault with the healthy stand adopted by the then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee in 2005, that the creation of a Chief of Defence Staff required a "broad political consensus", which is now stated to have been rightly reiterated by current Defence Minister A K Antony on the appointment of a four-star permanent chairman for the chiefs of staff committee. No right-thinking person can underestimate the likely adverse impacts of the decision, viz. the ease for a future military coup, endangering our hard-earned democratic set-up. By expressing his reservations against blindly supporting the proposal in question, Antony has, on the contrary, kept in his mind the well-being of the citizens of the country.Augustine Jose  VadodaraLe

Letters: A consensus on defence

Do you it would be a good idea by UGC to replace BA, BSc with vocational courses?

Students' Corner

Pre-election blues are common to political parties, but for Dalal Street, it's a period to rejoice. According toan analysis by leading foreign brokerage Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, the Indian market on most occasionshas delivered positive returns in the run-up to the general elections

Markets always reap gains before elections

Parties should focus on work, not obstructing policymaking

Six months still

Mr Modi can no longer avoid speaking on macroeconomic issues

A silent PM-in-waiting

Surrounded by gloom on account of their party's dismal performance in state elections, Congressmen appear to be looking for ways to perk up their spirits. Thus, on Wednesday, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Planning Rajeev Shukla is expected to attend a Hasya Kavi Sammelan (festival of humorous poetry) within the Parliament compound on the occasion of a meeting of the Hindi Consultative Committee. At any rate, the repeated disruptions in Parliament have come in handy in this instance!

Laughing matter

Placement season has become such a jamboree that committees at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have started keeping a close watch on news reports in various national dailies. Some are even calling the newspaper offices to inform them if any IIT has reported exaggerated salary figures. Last week an IIT placement chairperson called a journalist to inform him that a particular IIT had exaggerated the highest annual pay package reported in the media. On cross-checking with the IIT concerned, it turned out that while other IITs did not include dividend, variable and bonus components in the pay packages, this IIT did.

IITs' inflation theories

Leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress never miss an opportunity to use the media to their advantage. More so when they have good news to announce. So, on Sunday, after the results of the Assembly elections came in, BJP President Rajnath Singh called a press conference. As he adjusted the mike to begin speaking, camera-people asked him to wait. Singh, being a smart politician, took the hint and started chatting with party members. It was later discovered that Singh had been asked to wait because Congress President Sonia Gandhi was concluding her press briefing and the BJP President would have missed his television moment for a few minutes.

The waiting game

This refers to the editorial "Emerging alternatives" (December 9). The result of the Assembly polls in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh could prove to be a turning point in Indian politics. The traditional vote-catching politics of poverty, identity, freebies, populist schemes, discriminatory entitlement, secularism and so on, have failed to win voters who crossed all dividing lines in voting for the party that had a good record on development and governance fronts. The substantial assertive young voters in the 18-30 age group don't want doles, but opportunities that make them stand on their own feet. The wave of anger against the Congress is not going to subside in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and the party can safely be written off. Enthused by the stunning public support in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party could become a strong contestant in the general elections. This makes the Bharatiya Janata Party's task more difficult, and calls for a credible plan of beating down i

Letters: Turning point in politics

This refers to the editorial "The fruits of success" (December 10). If the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had got at least a simple majority in the Delhi Assembly, it could have legitimately formed a government. But it has emerged as only the second-largest party. The Bharatiya Janata Party, being the largest party, has the primary responsibility to try and form a government. So, it is unfair to expect the AAP to take the lead in government formation, especially since it will entail some ideological compromises. The AAP has already helped kick in a process of transforming politics in India that the other parties are forced to embrace in their own small or big, fast or slow ways. However, the AAP can wait for a clear mandate the next time around to actualise its other dream of transforming governance.Kishor Kulkarni  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: AAP's dream

Rajeev Malik, in his article "Deciphering the new growth normal" (December 3) has come out with a simplistic theory linking India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth to global GDP growth, and linking investment in India to global liquidity by omitting from his analysis India's high GDP-growth years of 2009-10 and 2010-11 when the economy grew at 8.6 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively, in spite of the global economy crashing around it.India is now in a separate category where it will continue to attract foreign investment and grow even if the rest of the world is stagnant. This is because of its favourable demographics, large and growing market with unlimited potential and unmatched entrepreneurial and technological strengths.All it has to do is stop shooting itself in the foot as it has done through repeated scams and the consequent disruptions in spectrum allocation, iron ore and coal mining. Interminable delays in securing and allocating land for steel plants and allocation of

Letters: Domestic growth solution

Congress President Sonia Gandhi blamed price rise for the party's debacle in the Assembly elections. Though the Wholesale PriceIndex-based inflation came down to an average of 5.83 per cent in the first seven months of the financial year, from 7.35 per cent in 2012-13, the rate of price rise in food increased to 13.23 per cent from 9.91 per cent over the period. Food inflation remained in the double digits, or close to it, every year of the United Progressive Alliance rule, except in 2011-12

Congress faces people's wrath over high prices

Aam Aadmi Party's next step must be into government

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